"The Yorkton Film Festival will not be the same without her."
Ruth Shaw died just last week. It wasn't that her death was unexpected. She was, after all, 95 years old, and this once-robust and active woman had become frail in body, although her mind was as sharp as ever. Yorkton and the Yorkton Film Festival will feel the loss. We'll miss her warmth and that gentle smile. We'll know she is not there at next year's festival. We'll especially remember when the Ruth Shaw Award is presented at the Saturday night gala.
The award was a special recognition on the occasion of Ruth's 90th birthday. Her family and friends gathered to celebrate. A part of that celebration was the establishment of a trust to fund the Ruth Shaw Award, a cash prize for the festival entry judged to be The Best of Saskatchewan. The award named in her honour recognizes her commitment to the Yorkton Film Festival, and to the province she loved, which was her lifelong home.
The history of the Festival and Ruth Shaw go back a long way, six decades in fact. In 1947, a group of committed citizens formed the Yorkton Film Council, an organization responsible for showing films from the National Film Board not only in Yorkton but in nearby towns and villages as well. Along with the city service clubs, Cliff and Ruth Shaw contributed money to fund the purchase of the first projector. The work of the Council could begin. Ruth Shaw and her husband, Cliff, were there at the beginnings.
The following year James Lysyshyn, the field man for the NFB, came forward with an audacious idea. Yorkton should organize a film festival. In an interview for the YFF 65th anniversary, Ruth said that everyone scoffed at the idea. After all, who had ever heard of a film festival? Lysyshyn's explanation about the success of the festivals in Edinburgh and Cannes did little to convince the group. One month later, Lysyshyn came forward with the idea of an international festival. Ruth said it took a year before the council became convinced.
Ruth Shaw was a willing and able volunteer with the festival through the years. A Yorkton Enterprise article from the 1950s described a meeting at the home of Nettie Kryski, secretary-treasurer for more than three decades. On her dining room table were plates of dainty refreshments and a bowl of lovely autumn asters. Mabel Anderson and Ruth Shaw assisted with the serving.
This kind of hospitality is far from the business-like affair people expect at meetings today, but it does underline the importance of community and friendship in the days when the festival was setting down roots.
For over five decades, Ruth Shaw served on the board and executive of the organization we now know as the Yorkton Film festival. She served as social convener, publicity chairperson, treasurer and vice-chairperson. She was honorary patron for eighteen years (1995 - 2013).
In addition to her commitment to the festival, Ruth made other contributions to the community. Until the mid-1970s, she covered the news from Yorkton for the Leader-Post and saw to the distribution of the newspaper in the city. A few years after her retirement from that position, she began a new career as manager of the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce.
In 1989, she was named Yorkton's Citizen of the Year. Ten years later, she was awarded the Chambers of Commerce Executives of Canada's Excellence Award for her meritorious service to the Chamber and community, and in 2002 she received the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal. A few months ago, in early September, she was named a Life Member of the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce, a recognition she cherished.
Ruth Shaw has made many contributions to the city of Yorkton, but we at the YFF - we will remember her long and faithful commitment to the festival she helped found more than sixty years ago.
The festival will not be the same without her.
