Dr. Margaret Dagenais

CV/TEd’87, BV/TEd’91, MEd’97, PhD’11

Dr. Robert & Norma Ferguson Award for Outstanding Service

Dr. Margaret Dagenais was surprised to learn she would receive the Dr. Robert and Norman Ferguson Crowning Achievement Award from the University of Regina Alumni Association (URAA) as recognition for what she describes as “… an 11-year experiential learning opportunity.” Dagenais was referring to the 11 years she devoted to the board of the Alumni Association, but the award recognizes much more than that: it acknowledges her years of service to the University of Regina, as well as to the URAA.

Dagenais, who is currently a program development consultant at Saskatchewan Polytechnic based in Regina, recalls that her involvement with the Alumni Association came about after she had served on the SIAST (as Sask Polytechnic was then known) Board of Directors.

“I was looking for a rewarding experience and opportunities to use some of the skills I’d developed on the SIAST Board, so I applied to the PhD program (in Educational Psychology) at the University of Regina and responded to the call for URAA board members, hoping I would be accepted to one or the other,” she explains. (She was accepted into both, and received her doctorate in 2011.)

Her contributions to the University include reviewing research proposals as a member of the Research Ethics Board of Directors, developing and facilitating a workshop in curriculum redevelopment for international scholars, and serving two terms on the University Senate.

During her time on the Alumni Association board from 2005 to 2016, she helped develop a more sustainable investment strategy to support funding for scholarships, helped move the association away from reliance on hands-on fundraisers toward revenue-generating affinity partnerships, revitalized the faculty recognition program and secured a more profitable arrangement with the supplier of degree frames.

Making the Association’s Faculty Awards for Excellence program more accessible was particularly important to Dagenais. The Association also raised its profile on campus by branching out into new areas, and sponsoring lectures, conferences and on-campus events like Welcome Week, Slam Dunk and Winter Carnival.

Gwen Keith, CEO of the Holy Family School Division, was chair of the URAA Board when Dagenais revamped the awards program. “She was brilliant in giving attention to every detail that would lean out and fairly execute the awards process,” Keith observes. “She also was always willing to volunteer to create contacts and educate the board on the features of potential partnerships. I hold her in high regard for the personal teamwork she offered to me through some challenging and complex work on behalf of the URAA.”

Dagenais continues to support the mission of the University and the Alumni Association by attending and assisting at events. She is particularly proud that, in 2016, the URAA moved to include graduates of the University’s Campus for All program as alumni. The program sees students with intellectual challenges taking University courses and earning a certificate in Inclusive Post-Secondary Education in the process.

She values the University of Regina because it offers “… a post-secondary learning opportunity right here in southern Saskatchewan. It attracts a diverse group of intellectuals and thinkers to Regina who contribute to the greater community, attracts students from all over the world, and is also a major supporter of the arts and cultural industries.”

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Distinguished Alumni Award for
Humanitarian & Community Service

From the age of nine, Joan Halmo played the organ in church in her hometown of Kuroki, Saskatchewan. It clearly instilled in her a love of music – including church music in all its rich variety – as well as a devotion to education, built heritage, and musical and cultural activities in her community and beyond.

Halmo is currently the executive and artistic director of Gustin House, a historic residence and studio space in Saskatoon named after Dr. Lyell Gustin, who taught piano to countless students – including Halmo – for almost 70 years. Under Gustin’s mentorship, Halmo attained a Licentiate in Piano Performance from Trinity College London.

Halmo was invited to join the non-profit Gustin/Trounce Heritage Committee that had been established after Gustin’s death to preserve his artistic legacy and follow his example of advocacy for music and the fine arts. During 2004-05, Halmo led the committee’s work in completely restoring the former home and studio, which was designated a Provincial Heritage Property in 2008. She also spearheaded the initiative to stabilize Trounce House, a small residence situated on the same city lot as Gustin House. Built in 1883, it is Saskatoon’s oldest surviving building.

In addition to physical restoration projects, since 2005 Halmo and her colleagues have re-established Gustin traditions of musical programming, including a series of three concerts featuring performers from national and international stages and a series of smaller-scale interdisciplinary programs held at Gustin House.

“Built heritage is a witness to our shared history as a city, a community, a province and a nation,” she says. “We need built heritage as a physical reminder of our origins, our stories, and the direction that the future can take. There is a kind of magic in that Dr. Gustin’s last teaching piano continues to send music throughout the house, as it has for so many years.”

“ I am humbled by being selected, by being in the company of other awardees who are greatly accomplished and greatly deserving, ”

Gregory Schulte, an organist and part of the seven-member Heritage Committee for 12 years, affirms that Halmo is the right person to lead the way in continuing the Gustin legacy. “She has the cultural foundation – including her education – that has given her an understanding that is deep and unshaken in her view that the arts should be contributing to society,” Schulte states. “She understood why it was important to preserve Gustin House for the benefit of the whole community.”

Halmo graduated from the University with her bachelor’s degree in 1977, receiving both the University Medal and President’s Medal. She received numerous scholarships while earning a Master of Liturgical Music from the Catholic University of America in 1978, a Master of Arts from St. John’s University in Minnesota in 1982, and a doctorate in Musicology from the Catholic University of America in 1993. While teaching at the University of Saskatchewan, she received grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to study music manuscripts and the Lyell Gustin legacy.

She received a City of Saskatoon volunteer award for heritage in 2012, and a Campion College alumni award in 2015.

“ I am humbled by being selected, by being in the company of other awardees who are greatly accomplished and greatly deserving, ” she says. “Given this marvelous honour, I hope to go forward worthily as an alumna of this fine university that gave me so much.”

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Outstanding Young Alumni Award

Thomas Benjoe is helping to shape one of the most important growth sectors in Saskatchewan’s economy – Indigenous business development. Benjoe was 17 when he read a magazine profile about the CEO of a successful First Nations investment company in Manitoba. “I want to be that guy,” he remembers thinking. “That company was building wealth for communities, and its success inspired me to want to work and support our communities in the same way.”

Benjoe is the president and CEO of File Hills Qu’Appelle Developments Ltd. (FHQ Developments), which was formed through a limited partnership agreement of the 11 First Nations communities that make up the File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council in Treaty 4 territory.

FHQ Developments was established in 2010 to contribute to its partners’ long-term economic independence by investing in business ventures and supporting community economic development. FHQ Developments’ companies now generate over $35 million in annual revenues, with interests in construction, drilling and a hotel located beside the Living Sky Casino in Swift Current.

Benjoe graduated from First Nations University of Canada in 2011 with a Bachelor of Administration degree. While there, he served as vice-president of Finance for the First Nations University Student Association, and as president of the Business Students’ Society. He also helped develop an entrepreneurship camp for Indigenous youth who had no previous exposure to business or a university campus.

Benjoe had several job offers before he graduated, but choose to join the Aboriginal Banking unit with the Royal Bank of Canada. Besides achieving spectacular growth in his client portfolio, Benjoe has also worked to develop new products and services for First Nations and helped strengthen the bank’s Aboriginal strategy.

“ His humble leadership, passion and respectful manner in all aspects of his life inspire me. ”

He was on a path to a leadership role at RBC when members of the FHQ Developments Board of Directors approached him about becoming the company’s president and CEO. One of his first tasks was to improve the way the company structures new partnerships and investments.

Leanne Bellegarde, who has served as a director on the FHQ Developments board with Benjoe, heartily endorses the recognition. From the outset, she recognized him as one to watch. “He struck me from the first impression as a well-grounded, thoughtful leader from my home territory.”

Bellegarde, who is director of Diversity and Inclusion with the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, adds that she has benefited from having Benjoe as her millennial mentor. “ His humble leadership, passion and respectful manner in all aspects of his life inspire me. ”

Benjoe was recognized in the past with a Young Humanitarian award from the Canadian Red Cross and was a member of CBC’s Future 40.

Away from the office, Benjoe and his wife Dana have three children: Patience, Thomas Jr. and Evelyn. He does the beadwork for his family of Powwow dancers, keeping alive a tradition handed down from his great-grandmother. Patience is already a champion dancer. “It’s important that my family be part of Powwow and other traditional ways,” he says. “I’m encouraged to see other people – including recent immigrants – come out to a Powwow to learn about the Indigenous people of this territory and discover who their neighbors are.”

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