Champlain Alumnus Richard Johnston in dialogue with Students (posted by Mitch Beck)

By: Mitch Beck

Hello Fellow Champlainers!

On Monday evening this week we were fortunate enough to have a distinguished Champlain alumni, Richard Johnston, co-owner of ``By Chadsey’s Cairns Winery and Vineyard`` visit us in residence. When Richard was only seventeen he took the risk of leaving his family farm where he tended sheep on a farm north of Peterborough, to enrol as one of the first students at Trent University. Consequently, Richard was also one of the first Champlainers but back then Champlain was an all-male residence where women were not even permitted to stay after 11pm. Richard spoke of how the residence was quite dreary at this time of year, with little on-campus entertainment. With no clubs, pubs or the usual Champlain mischief and revelry, I personally didn’t have much trouble seeing why that was. However, fortunately this did not stop Richard and our former industrious members of college from getting to work on livening things up about the place.



The students started with successfully confronting their college head about the restrictions on female visitors and by the time they were done they had created new events and even managed to establish a campus pub. I personally found this interesting because I feel it demonstrates that as members of college we always have the capacity to organize and work together to make our residence a more liveable space.

Richard finished his studies at Trent majoring in Political Science and from this mere liberal arts degree from a university not out of its diapers yet, he has had a very dynamic career. Richard’s career has involved poverty work, politics, teaching and currently private entrepreneurship. Richard spoke of the importance of being willing to take risks at important times in his career in order to explore new opportunities. He also emphasized the importance of being perseverant through very difficult times because he felt these were very instructive experiences where he learned much about himself.

Richard currently is the co-owner and manager of ``By Chadsey`s Cairns Winery and vineyard` with his wife in Prince Edward County. If you’re interested in learning more about the business you can visit their website at www.bychadseyscairns.com. Thanks to Jacqueline Huard and Dr. Mike for organizing the event and Good luck to all you Champlainers in your final of weeks of term!