Teaching and politics may seem like disparate career paths, but that wasn’t the case for Jerry Storie.
The former Flin Flon teacher and MLA says both of his jobs shared similar roots.
“I became a teacher because I like people and I wanted to help people,” says Storie, now retired and living in Winnipeg. “I was also very curious. My interest in politics came from the same curiosity, to find out how things work and to help people in my community.”
Raised on a farm near Balder in southern Manitoba, Storie entered education as a school guidance counsellor in Flin Flon in 1975.
After four years in that role he moved onto teaching Grade 6. Then in 1981, he was elected as the NDP MLA for the Flin Flon constituency.
Storie was fresh out of university when he first came to Flin Flon. He was drawn to the North after being introduced to the area during brief visits.
“The area is just beautiful,” he said.
Storie came from a small town of 400 people, so the close-knit community of Flin Flon was a good fit for him and his wife, Betty. The couple’s two children, Lindsay and Ben, were both born and raised in Flin Flon.
“We loved the culture,” he said. “The people you worked with were your friends and became your family.”
Storie said his Flin Flon years represent a simpler time and he looks back on his memories with fondness.
He first became involved in politics as a volunteer on various campaigns at both the provincial and federal levels.
In the early 1980s, when the local MLA retired, Storie was encouraged to run in his place. He went on to be elected in 1981, 1986, 1988 and 1990, serving as MLA until his retirement from politics in 1994.
Storie said he enjoyed serving the people of Flin Flon and felt his time in cabinet as the Minister of Housing, beginning in 1982, was particularly rewarding.
“I was able to be more directly involved with getting regulations and putting policies in place,” he said.
Serving people across northern Manitoba and working to solve problems in communities was especially motivating for the politician.
“The really gratifying piece was when you got to do something for a community,” he said, referencing the completion of roads, airports, housing and other projects as highlights.
In 1994 Storie accepted the position of area superintendent for Frontier School Division and moved to Cranberry Portage, where he spent four years.
From 1998 to 2004 he lived in Killarney, working as the superintendent for the Turtle Mountain School Division.
After a year off to travel, research and write, Storie went back to work in the education field. He was the dean of the faculty of education at Brandon University from 2005 until his retirement in 2010.
Three years earlier, in 2007, Betty lost her battle with brain cancer and passed away. Storie moved to Winnipeg in 2013 to be closer to his children and grandchildren, and has been married to Marlene Schellenberg for the past year and a half.
He recently published Becoming Family: Living and Learning at Frontier Collegiate, a book that commemorates the Cranberry Portage-based high school’s 50th anniversary.
Storie still has ties to Flin Flon and counts the people he met here in the 1970s as lifelong friends.
