Going it alone
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TFN decides to build its own sewer plant
Mixed signals
Opponents host meeting on plan for radio towers
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At Home
Warming up for fall and winter
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Optimist
Davis domination Mt Doug running back is too much for Sun Devils
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Reaching out
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Fergus remembered fondly Boater who went missing last week while checking crab traps in Boundary Bay called a ‘loving human being’ BY
JESSICA KERR
jkerr@delta-optimist.com
When 43-year-old Cory Fergus left his girlfriend’s house last Monday evening to check his crab traps in Boundary Bay, she didn’t expect emergency crews would end up combing the bay looking for him. “He was getting the crab for my son’s ninth birthday,” Simone Still said. “He said he would be right back.” She said all four of her children love crab and Fergus was hoping to have some for the special birthday dinner. Still said she wanted to go with Fergus to get the crabs, but he insisted she stay home — it would be too cold for her. Fergus never returned. Delta police said yesterday the file is still open but the active search has been concluded. Through her grief, Still laughs while recalling stories from the couple’s two years together. She remembers last Christmas when she was lamenting the lack of snow in the Lower Mainland. “He said, ‘You will have a snowman,’” Still said. And on Christmas morning, she awoke to find a giant snowman in her driveway. Fergus had collected all the ice from the arena and used it to make the snowman, complete with a carrot nose. “Who does things like that? He does.” Fergus loved the beach, she said, and often went there to find peace, solitude and to regroup. However, he was also full of energy and strived to live each day to the fullest.
Simone Still said Cory Fergus was like a father to her four children. “He was happy all the time,” Still said. “Sometimes it was irritating because he had so much energy.”
Still, a single mother of four, said Fergus, a diabetic, was like a father to her children, in addition to having two of his own.
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“He was a father to my kids when they didn’t have one,” she said. “He did so much for them... He was a loving father. He was a
loving human being.” Described as a person always willing to lend a hand to others, even strangers, Fergus was helping Still renovate her Ladner home. Neighbour and friend Angus McCreesh said he and Fergus had an instant connection when McCreesh and his wife Eileen moved into the same Tsawwassen apartment building more than a year ago. McCreesh said he and Fergus became fast friends. “It was as if we had known each other for a lot longer,” he said. McCreesh, who is confined to a wheelchair, said the two men bonded over shared struggles (both had spent time at GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre) and an interest in astronomy. “We discovered we were kindred spirits,” McCreesh said, adding that he and his wife are still in shock over what happened to Fergus. “He’s a very special guy,” he said, describing Fergus as caring, selfless and quick to lend a hand. McCreesh said he was having difficulty getting out onto the couple’s balcony. When Fergus found out, McCreesh said, he quickly got his tools and some materials, and in no time fixed it so he could easily navigate his wheelchair onto the deck. Still said she is now finding peace in a fact she got to know, and be loved by, Fergus. “That’s the only thing that gives me peace right now... I had it. Even if it was for such a brief time.” See FERGUS page 3