Members of the Hepworth – Shallow Lake Legion have voted against including the Bruce Grey Music Hall of Fame in their plans to rebuild after a fire.
A release from the Legion says, “Since January 22, 2022, the date of the fire that destroyed the Hepworth-Shallow Lake Legion, the Bruce Grey Music Hall of Fame has been pressuring the legion executive to make a decision regarding whether or not the hall of fame would be included in the new build for the legion.”
The legion says Hall of Fame Director Arnie Clark made a presentation on January 5th to the executive meeting . They say the presentation was forwarded to the legion membership for their meeting January 12th.
The legion says, “After a lengthy discussion, a recorded vote was held, with the majority of members rejecting the hall of fame from the future build of the new legion.”
The legion release states Legion President Karie Cole says, “the legion would gladly work with Bognor Jam Productions to produce music shows again, as they had in the past, but that is a separate entity from the Bruce Grey Music Hall of Fame.”
It goes on to say, “Our first and foremost priority is to build a new legion that fits our needs and our budget. People seem to forget that we have lost all our memorabilia and legion history as well. We need to think about honouring our veterans first.”
Meanwhile, in the release Chairman of the Legion Building Committee, Jim Copp states, “We are looking for a building design that is more in tune with both the short and long-term goals of today’s legion. The original building which was designed to be a large venue, music hall, was over 13,500 square feet in size. A huge building in comparison to the needs of the legion. We are definitely looking at a much smaller building, less than half of the original size, moving forward.”
Bayshore Broadcasting News has reached out to the Bruce Grey Music Hall of Fame to see if there are plans to explore other locations.