Steve Kereliuk Reveals his Lifetime of Community Giving

Steve Kereliuk Reveals his Lifetime of Community Giving

Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent

Steve Kereliuk always flashes a friendly smile and gives a warm greeting to everyone.

Steve was born on October 15, 1930, on a farm seven miles northeast of Hairy Hill. “I was born at home. I grew up with two brothers and two sisters. I had excellent parents. We were very poor. But people didn’t need money back then because they helped each other out.

We had plenty of food. We didn’t have any toys. The first toy I got was a cap gun for Christmas when I was nine-years-old. I remember that Christmas, a guy who was playing hockey shot his puck towards my pocket where the gun was and it broke into about five hundred pieces. I felt bad and so did the guy who shot the puck at it.

We were on the farm till I was in Grade Two. I started school in Grade One in Shalka. At that time, our barn burnt on the farm. So instead of rebuilding the barn, my dad decided to build a house in Hairy Hill where I attended school until I graduated from Grade 12. I liked playing sports better than going to school. Otherwise, school was good because I had a lot of friends. I was a good baseball player and a good hockey player,” Steve said.

Steve knew his wife since he was young. “My future wife, Virginia grew up in Hairy Hill. She was a friend of my sister and one day I realized what a beautiful lady she was and we went steady from there. Then we got married on June 11, 1955. We had three children-Randy, Crystal, and Dena who all turned out well; we never had any problems with them. I really enjoyed being married. We were married for 63 years. I credit my long marriage to not drinking or smoking. We never argued; if we had a problem we used to sit down and talk about it together. Virginia was very kind and a wonderful lady all her life. But she passed away on August 14, 2018. I don’t know if I will ever get used to losing her because she was always around before.

After I finished school, I went to Edmonton and worked for Pioneer Foods. Then in 1958, I bought property in Vegreville and I built Steven’s Drive In and ran this business for 11 years. It was a wonderful business; I had excellent staff. In 1970 I sold the drive-in and went into the service station business.

After this, I moved to Lavoy and sold holiday trailers, used cars, and mobile homes. In 1980, I went back to school and got my insurance and real estate license. In 1985, Virginia came and joined me and we owned Kerr’s Agencies Motor Vehicles Issuing and we ran this business until we retired.

We had three grandchildren-Kayla, Colin, and Colten and I now have a great-grandson, Luke who is a month old.

I really enjoy living in Vegreville because it is a friendly town and I was able to get involved in sports by being a coach and I played hockey, baseball, I curled, I golfed, played tennis and volleyball where my team and I won many trophies. I did a lot of activities with my wife too; we used to golf until it got dark.

My life is good now. I live in my own home and I still drive and play golf. I got a hole-in-one at Vegreville Golf Course on September 7, 2020.”