Long-time school trustee passes away

The longest serving school board trustee in Canada has passed away.  Ernie Checkeris first became a trustee in the Sudbury area in 1945 during the days of one-room school houses.  He became a Sudbury Board of Education trustee in 1969 when the region’s 36 smaller school boards amalgamated.  He was still a trustee when the Sudbury board expanded again to take in Espanola and Manitoulin in 1998 and he retired two years later.  Checkeris, who was 89, held many positions over the decades including board chair, and a school in Sudbury is named after him.