Wigham's birthday was within a day of Jerry Garcia's - a musical wonder in both our lives. Always gave us at-least once annually to reconnect. Love you, man... We'll keep watch on the family...

bo & Suz

Melissa and family, Angela and I are so very sorry for your loss. Ron was always a great friend from the first time we met at Peters & Co. as fellow employees, and that never changed despite my changing jerseys to go over to FirstEnergy. I always greatly enjoyed my time with Ron, whether it was over a beer at the pub or trapped in an unexpected overnight tentless bivouac on a precarious scree slope in a summer snow storm at 10,500 ft. (ed. I maintain to this day that we survived only because Ron packed a large bag of Melissa's Chocolate Chip Cookies!) Ron always seemed happiest when he was recounting the accomplishments of his children. We will miss him greatly yet feel very fortunate to have had some great quality time with him over the years.

I want to express my sincere condolences to Melissa, Marshall and Loren and Mac. May his memory be a blessing.

On behalf of the United Way family, please accept our sincere condolences for your loss. Ron was a champion of supporting his local community and his legacy will live on because of his kindness, generosity, and caring nature.

Our thoughts are with you during this difficult time.

Your United Way Family

So many wonderful shared memories in childhood and adolescence with Ron and the Glencoe swimmers and our kind coach, Jim Bruce.

I remember one Saturday morning after a swim workout, going with Pat and Ron for Mrs. Wigham’s delicious French Toast covered in maple syrup and icing sugar… I believe the three of us polished off an entire loaf of bread.

It has been many years since those early times but I remember Ron fondly.

My sincere condolences to Melissa, Pat, Marshall, Lauren and family as Ron will be missed.

At the very time when I could use Ron’s big brain to help me more accurately recall our adventures together, he is MIA, off on a solo adventure, probably still absorbing data like a sponge, giving out giga-tons of details to anyone who asks. The term Wig-a-pedia occurred to me last night. He was also the quickest responder to texts and emails of anyone I know. Like Google, he would spin out answers and responses faster than you could think. Maybe he was an alien robot. If so I’ll take a dozen of him. I sure liked his CPU and his high clock speed.

He was my friend, a long term solid unwavering friend. We met in the Glencoe Swimming pool around 1965. Our first encounter was a shoving match. I probably felt threatened and Ron would not back down. He was tough, had a buzz cut and was a better swimmer than me. I recall summer days, we would sleep over at Dave Crombie’s house, drink tons of pop, walk up alleys twice a day to swim workouts, “exterminating” along the way. This involved blowing up dog poop piles with fire crackers. We thought we were being helpful.

He was a phenomenon then and throughout his life, certainly physically, and most definitely intellectually. Ron and I swam together happily and successfully for several years after the shoving match. He and I combined with Dave Crombie and Brent Foster to capture some age group Canadian records in the medley relay. He went off to Oregon, I went off to Massachusetts for university. We kept in touch and met up again at the Canadian Olympic trials in Ottawa in 1976.

Along the way we had many climbing and camping adventures together. He often led the tougher rock pitches. We also did some frozen waterfall

Climbing together. Our best efforts were on Skyladder and the Wenkchemna Ice Tongue, both long multi-pitch hanging glaciers. Both were epics, 24 hours of moving on those long summer days. Jamie Mackie was a constant companion in those days too, both in the pool and in the mountains. We also did several rock routes on Mt Yamnaska including Redshirt, Kings Chimney and the pumpkin route. Ron did a lot of serious rock climbing over the years including a Yam route called Direttissima. It’s a hard climb, the name translates into “direct”. Sounds like Ron. More recently his adventures were more around bagging peaks than pure rock routes.

Here’s a crazy memory: working on Kenting drilling rigs in the summer of 1976. Ron was preparing to enter law school that fall. It was quite a scene with this giant brain reading big books and working with the other roughnecks on the drilling floor. Ron could do manual labor. He could deal with ordinary people but he always stuck out. He was an outlier, an anomaly, more than two standard deviations off the norm.

I think my favorite part of Ron is his brain. If possible I would like to see it in a big glass jar. We frequently speculated that we might just be brains in fluid filled jars plugged into a giant computer. Sort of like Matrix. Now the brain in a jar would actually be true. I might even plug in some electrodes to see if I get any responses. Ron-bot. Jar-o-Ron. Related to this thought is a statement I made years ago to him, something about how life is better than the alternative. He replied instantly “how would you know?” Oh fuck off Ron. I get it, it’s unknowable. Well, maybe now Ron does know. I hope his journey has improved. Mine has gotten worse for losing him.

Ron claimed to be a nihilist and that therefore nothing mattered. I think a lot did matter to him, I’m certain that Melissa, his kids and grandkids mattered a lot to him. He spoke often how much he enjoyed time with the grand kids recently. Ron also claimed to believe in determinism. This is the thought that everything had been predetermined once the Big Bang occurred — all particles set in motion at that moment determined all subsequent motions and interactions. Hmm. Maybe so. I still choose to believe that I have a free will.

Pick it up Ron, pick it up, sprint sprint sprint, really pop your belly button on this one — a frequent quote from our Glencoe swim coach Jimmy Bruce. We used this and many other phrases repeatedly (relentlessly) over the decades, poking fun at anything and everything. Similarly, “get up, get down” was a frequent phrase. Ron said they used it a lot at Peters and Company. It evolved from a lab test he gave our overly obedient poodle one day in Calgary.

Then there were the intense times in his music “bunker” in his Calgary basement. His amplifier was the size of a good car engine. Big speakers, extra high density CDs, incredible clarity, absolutely zero extraneous ticks or noises. Ron called this the “blackness”. It’s what you pay extra for he said. He would never tell me how much he paid for the system. Music is another thing Ron cared deeply about. He would turn off the lights — the sound experience was intense. Any other sensations just got in the way.

We had some great times at our cabin on the Ghost River west of Calgary. It was primitive, electricity and phone line but nothing else. We lived like nomads in the summer out there. In the winter we built ponds and sweat lodges and heated rocks in a fire for the sweat. We blew on each other inside the sweat lodge, an intense burning event (boiling face and head, freezing toes and butts). Meanwhile our black lab compulsive retriever would be shivering and barking his fool head off outside the “lodge” to get us to throw something for him. The lodges were willow sticks jammed into the ground and woven into a small dome, then covered by tarps. I still have an old canvass tarp that smells of sulfur from the hot rocks. The smells take me back instantly to those times.

Cars: Vera Valliant. Ron’s Mum’s car and probably Ron’s first too. Best thing about it was the stereo. He would put 5 weight oil in the engine, believing that the thicker oil wouldn’t leak onto the driveway as much. Then there was the Aphid, a mottled green VW beatle. We slid into a big tree one day out at the Ghost River. Ron gets out, takes a look, pulls the dented fender off the tire and exclaims “there, fixed”. Similarly, whilst doing reconnaissance (we were lost) for a climb one day, the distributor cap split in two and fell off. Ron got out the electric tape, zip zip, “there, fixed”. Then there was my dad’s Super 90 Porsche. Probably a mid life crisis thing. We used to take turns on my parents driveway. One would steer, the others would push, getting up to maybe 2.4 miles per hour, then the driver would slam on the brakes before hitting the road or the garage. Laugh laugh, my turn. Then after I got my drivers license we would burn around in the Porsche. It wasn’t fast but it was low and cornered like a fiend. Ron would reach over with his foot and push my foot down on the accelerator pedal. Woa, stop that you crazy man.

Ron was hard but he was also very honest (maybe even blunt), direct and transparent. I admired him greatly for everything he was and did.

“Suck Wig, all I ever wanted to do was endorse swimming products”.

“What’s the difference between a duck” “One of its feet are both the same”

And, the tapeworm joke. Punchline is “where’s my cookie?”

My condolences to the family. May peace be with you all.

Melissa and family:

It is very difficult to express the true regret that we are feeling about the loss of Ron, especially for you, but also for everyone who knew him. We certainly want to offer our sincerest sympathy to you and to all your family.

Ron was always greatly respected as a Managing Director, Executive Committee member, and then Vice Chairman of Peters & Co. Limited. In a speech some years ago, I described Ron as “perhaps the smartest person on a capital markets desk in Canada”. He was always calm and unflappable, and brought excellent judgement to bear on whatever circumstance Peters & Co. was encountering, as well as on people, companies and investment opportunities. Ron had a remarkable sense about which investments were truly sound and offered opportunity; and he did everything in business, and personally, in such a calm and first-class way.

We also always respected his (and your) generosity to not-for-profit organizations over a long period of time. Neither of you ever looked for accolades or recognition; only to be supportive and kind.

We feel particularly sorry that the advances in medical science, about which Ron certainly became most knowledgeable, were not able to extend Ron’s “runway” further than they did. Everyone tried so hard, but the challenge was a great one, to try to “turn the tide” on his illness.

Our thoughts are with you all at this difficult time. May your memories, of the terrific person that Ron was, provide comfort in this time of sorrow.

Sincerely,

Mike & Renae Tims

Missy - our condolences to you, your children and grandchildren and Pat at this time. I knew that Ron was unwell, but failed to appreciate his grave condition. Going back 50 years to our high school Alma mater, Wise Wood, and Glencoe swimming days (Ron was tier 1, and I was in tier 2, but the size of the team so small that was always an inclusive fun group), Ron was the epitome of a small cohort of genius, outdoorsy athletic HWW “Warriors” that lived life large but equally without pretension. Ron was a no BS guy, and easily moved amongst (and through) many circles. Thinking of you at this time. Chris Davis (and Mirella Rullo)

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. My thoughts are with you, Melissa, Marshall, Lauren and Mac.

So sorry to hear the news about Ron. Spent many hours at the University of Oregon, Leighton Pool and wandering the campus on the way to Duffy’s or Taylor’s. Ron’s special stories about the oil rigs and his summers of adventure were always a joy. If there was a smarter student on campus I never met them! He was a great friend and the hardest worker. So many memories, too many to list here, but the one that sticks, is you could trust Ron. That was huge for young swimmers who were finding our way. RIP my friend.Our thoughts and prayers to Missy and the whole family.

Tom and Deb Gamble

Go Ducks!

Heartfelt condolences to Melissa and family . i have known Ron for 30 years . He is certainly of of the smartest people i have ever met and his dry sense of humour made meetings and marketing trips very enjoyable . He will be sadly missed by many many people . RIP Wigs.

I am very sorry to hear that Ron has passed away. I have known Ron for many years and went to school with him from grade one to grade 12. He was a great swimmer and I remember him as a star on the Glencoe Club speed swimming team. I would like to pass on my condolences to all of Ron's family.

I am very sorry to learn of Ron's passing and send heartfelt condolences to his family.. We were friends and classmates at Woodman and Henry Wise Wood Schools. I remember his as smart, funny, and of course an outstanding swimmer and outdoorsman. Life afterwards took us in different directions geographically but we reconnected a few years ago before the pandemic impacted travel so much. I'm sure his memory will be a blessing to his loved ones.