Stompin’ Tom’s Thesis

Stompin’ Tom Connors, awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree, addressing graduates June 19: “I don’t know of the hard work that you have put into your studies and all of that kind of thing, because the university that I came from is a little one-room school in Skinner’s Pond, P.E.I. It is still standing there. We had one teacher and eight grades. They didn’t have any degrees or anything, but I thought maybe some day if nothing ever happens to me I’ll turn around and buy the school. So, when they were going to tear it down, I bought [it] for a buck.

“The way I was brought up there was very little opportunity for education or even a good job or anything else. There are an awful lot of people out there in the country today who have been brought up the very same way as I have.

“I hope that the people of my ilk will see what’s happening here to me today and they will say to themselves, ‘If Stompin’ Tom can do it, we can do it, too.'”