GREENSTONE — The Municipality of Greenstone unveiled the new name for the Geraldton District Airport on Sunday.
The airport is now named the Renald Y. Beaulieu Greenstone Regional Airport, after former mayor Renald Beaulieu, and is intended to honour his dedication in uniting the various communities in the municipality over his career.
Beaulieu has already had a park named after him from his time as the mayor of Longlac but he said that having the airport named after him has been a dream come true.
"At the same time, it's not just that. What I'm proud about is the fact that that it's being recognized and they're putting the name Greenstone on the airport that is paid by all the taxpayers of Greenstone, you know, and I think to me that's key. That's what it's all about,” he said.
“I’ve been around and living here almost all my life, you know, I've been here since I was at the age of 18 months, so I really know the area, I know the people and I want to say thank you to the people that supported this whole thing.”
James McPherson, the current mayor of Greenstone, said that Beaulieu’s work in bringing the community together has been extremely important.
“We need to become one. We're geographically apart, yet we are one municipality, and we need to work to become that one municipality,” he said. “It's never easy, and especially with our distance, yet we have to look at each other and respect each other and work with each other.”
In attendance of the unveiling was Beaulieu’s family, who had travelled in from near and far to be there to support him.
“I'm going to cry when I start talking about that because, you know what, there's a reason we had a big event in our community and my children have been here now since about Tuesday,” he said.
“Some live in Washington, some live in Ottawa, some live in Manitoba, some live in North Bay, some live in Longlac, but they've all been here.”
Beaulieu said he would like to thank the council who served alongside him, the new council and Mayor McPherson, and all of the citizens of Greenstone as well as the First Nations communities who worked with him during his time as mayor.
— SNnewswatch
