Two prominent Cold Lakers to be inducted into Hall of Fame

Hall of Fame inductions resume after five year hiatus. Image submitted, City of Cold Lake: The Cold Lake Hall of Fame ceremony in 2017.

Two of the city’s best are being enshrined into the Cold Lake Hall of Fame this week. 

The third ever Cold Lake Hall of Fame ceremony is this Friday at the Lakeland Inn, and will celebrate the contributions of Thomas Varughese and René Richard. 

Varughese is being inducted into the builder category and Richard in the artist category. 

They will join the likes of Ivan Krook Sr. (Builder, 2017), Alex Janvier (Artist, 2017) and Fabian Patrick Milaney (Community Leader, 2018). 

The theme is “If I can…” which will be expounded upon by Chris Koch as the guest speaker.

A ceremony like this hasn’t been held in Cold Lake since 2018. 

Thomas Varughese: teacher, principal, coach, mentor

Students will know him as a teacher, soccer players know him as a coach — both everyone knew Thomas Varughese as a kind man with a passion for life, who encouraged each to realize their full potential.

Varughese contributed to minimizing violence in schools, promoting racial harmony, and using trust, hope, and self-esteem as the foundation of a caring school environment, while also instilling a foundation of teamwork and integrity to his players. 

After his passing in 2017, Varughese was honoured by the Minor Soccer Community by hosting the Indoor Lakeland Cup in his memory. The city’s new artificial turf field was named the Thomas Varughese Memorial Field in 2019 in tribute. 

René Richard: landscape artist of national importance

While René Richard was born in Switzerland, he was a Cold Laker through and through.

He moved with his family to Cold Lake in 1911, and over the years, with help of local Indigenous friends, learned to live off the land, and become a trapper.

But Richard showed a talent for drawing, which he pursued through prestigious art schools in Paris to refine and develop his technique, while returning to Cold Lake to resume his life as a trapper.

Eminent Quebec artist Clarence Gagnon had become Richard’s friend and mentor while they were in Europe. Gagnon wrote to Eric Brown, director of the National Gallery of Canada: “There is not a Canadian artist, dead or living, who has drawn or can draw in five minutes sketches to compare with those of Richard.”

Richard eventually moved to Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec and at the age of 47 became a full-time artist. Many of his later paintings drew from his experiences as a trapper in Western Canada. His work is celebrated as genuine, unsentimental renderings of trapline life.

René Richard was named to the Order of Canada in 1973 and elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1980.