Children's TV performer and Nobel recipient to get honorary degrees

The mere mention of his name has a strange power to transform the most serious adult with child-like delight. Actor and children's entertainer, Ernie Coombs, known to generations of Canadians as "Mr. Dressup," will be honoured at Trent's convocation on June 1 with an Honorary Doctor of Laws degrees.

"I thought all the awards were over - I never remotely expected this," he said in that typically humble way that was the hallmark of his TV personality. "This is not something you work towards, it just comes out of the blue, and it's kind of stunning. I am very, very pleased and honoured."

He feels that his career was "quite remarkable." And so it was in many ways.

Coombs began working in the US as a technician and set designer. He came to Canada in 1963 and worked as the puppeteer with Fred Rogers whose Mister Rogers program debuted that year on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. One year later, Coombs appeared in the new Butternut Square program where he created the character of Mr. Dressup. That program evolved into the Mr. Dressup show, featuring the now famous puppets Casey and Finnigan. Coombs retired in February 1996, after delighting audiences of all ages for nearly 30 years.

"Good TV for children is always important," Coombs says. "Quality programming for very young children has been proven to have a positive affect on them."

Coombs was the 1994 recipient of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's prestigious Earle Grey Award for a body of work in television. In 1996 he was awarded a Gemini for best performance in a children's program and later the same year received the Children's Award from the Alliance for Children and Television. He holds a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Children's Broadcast Institute. Coombs received the Order of Canada in 1996.

Although "officially" retired from television, Coombs does occasionally guest host on CB's ZAT family. He also travels across Canada visiting colleges and universities where he tells "Tales from the Tickle Trunk," featuring out-takes from the Mr. Dressup show. This past winter he played the "Storyteller" in the Ross Petty production of Peter Pan at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre, Toronto.

When he's not entertaining children, Coombs speaks out on behalf of children and children's rights, as national spokesperson for Save the Children/Canada, a child-rights development organization.

Will Casey and Finnigan be able to join him for convocation? It's most unlikely. They are the property of puppeteer, Judith Lawrence, and are resting happily in a suitcase on Hornby Island.

James Orbinski

Trent alumnus James Orbinski will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree at convocation. The honour recognizes his international medical and humanitarian work.

Orbinski, who graduated from Trent in 1984 with a B.Sc. in psychology, had his first foray into international health work while still a medical student at McMaster University. That year, spent providing clinical aid in Rwanda and studying hiv infection in children, was a turning point in his career. In an interview with the journal of the Canadian Medical Association he said, "...until then I had planned to be a research-oriented academic, but my experience changed my understandingŠ. It became painfully evident that health and well-being are very much a product of social and economic circumstances."

Soon after graduation, Orbinski began his association with Médecins Sans Frontiéres - Doctors Without Borders (MSF), an international organization of doctors who deal with humanitarian emergencies in more than 80 countries around the world. In 1991 he organized a Canadian branch and was appointed president of msf Canada in1998. The organization was awarded the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize. Orbinski delivered the Nobel Lecture in Peace in Oslo, Norway stating "Wherever in the world there is manifest distress, the humanitarian by vocation must respond."

It has been his humanitarianism and his vocation that have carried him into some of the cruelest conflicts in the world. Orbinski headed missions for msf in Kigali, Rwanda during the 1994 genocide and in Goma, Zaire during that country's refugee crisis. He was medical coordinator in Somalia during the 1992-95 famine. He has also worked with the Canadian Public Health Association in Zambia and Street Kids International in Brazil.

His work has earned him many awards including the Governor General's Meritorious Service Cross (1998) for his work in Rwanda, and the Commemorative Medal, awarded by the Governor General in 1993. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario presented him with the "President's Award" in 1999, the second only to be given to a member of the college for "extraordinary contribution to society."

The Trent Alumni Association recognized Orbinski's exceptional career by presenting him with the Spirit of Trent Award in 1993.