The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Sure Apr 20fo7 PERSPI-) Quite a Dave ByTerry Bush Stirling - Every small town is the same: It has its ° sports its_politicians, its communi ty spirited workers and people who don’t make: thusi: a lot of noise. And then there are the charac- ters. The village of Stirling has an abundance of characters. And wearing the crown as king would have to be Dave Mudd. Though he’s not a big man, Dave is very no- ticeable. Newcomers to the village might won- der who their neighbours are for a month. They might not meet any of the members of their council or the Mayor for a year but within two weeks they'll know who Dave Mudd is. With a stogie in his mouth, Dave covers a lot of terri- tory on his lawnmower with both his recycling business and his lawn maintenance work. Of course, if b d 'y pitstop ng the way. Dave knows pretty well everyone and if he doesn’t, he'll make a point of finding out who any strange face belongs to. If you see him staring, you'd better introduce yourself. When Balu Patel opened up his pharmacy 15 years ago, Dave was one of the first people through the door to shake his hand. “I asked him his name,” explained Balu, “and he said Dave Mudd. | said to him the name Super Dave is already taken so I'll call you Super Mudd and Ive called him that ever since.” No stranger to hard work, Dave has done his share of farming and heavy lifting. If you’ve ever seen Dave walking around town somewhat stooped over, two pails of milk or two bales of hay certainly wouldn’t look out of place in his hands. His strength is legendary. “Don’t ever get Dave mad because if he ever got a hold of you...” is a common saying around the area. Luckily, as longtime friend Ruth Potts says, “Dave's a gentle soul.” Because Dave has always been one to offer a helping hand, his friends and family gathered last Friday night to surprise him on his 70th birthday at the Stirling Lions Club. He was al- most speechless for a minute or two while he accepted the hugs and congratulations from the crowd. And then in typical Dave Mudd fashion, he spotted long time friend George Loshaw and boomed out, “Hey, who's that old fart over there” getting the crowd laughing and shaking their heads. Congratulations were sent from Leona Dom- browsky as well as Daryl Kramp and Mayor Peter Kooistra made an appearance of behalf of Stirling-Rawdon. And though it is some- what of an unusual occurrence for a seventi- eth birthday, there were congratulations from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife displayed in a frame. A One of the highlights of the evening for Dave was having members of his family present. Things weren't always great growing up for the seven Mudd children who spent time in foster homes. Continued on page 5