The original five (left to right) Father Bob Neville, Rankin MacDonald, Jackie Sunderland, Eleanor Macdonald, and Lawrence Ryan.
The Oran is 50 years old this week.
We have sacrificed our best years and health on the altar of the Oran for half a century and that is an Inverness County fact that is difficult to get our heads around.
Where did the 50 years go?
Well the last 50 years, the history of Inverness County has been written down, and the people have had the opportunity to express their legitimate opinions and tell the story of this great county.
It was a wet March day in 1976 when a small group gathered at the Stella Maris Parish offices to find out what the county needed.
The five responsible for the birth of the Oran were Eleanor Macdonald, Jackie Sunderland, Lawrence Ryan, and Rankin MacDonald, four “hippie types,” and a radical priest, the late Father Bob Neville.
Others contributed to the 8½” x 14″ “blue book” printed on a Gestetner loaned to us by the parish as well as an office which soon was transformed into a newspaper office.
We printed 400 copies for the first issue and within weeks neighbouring communities called with their stories to tell.
It wasn’t long before we were covering the whole of Inverness County from Meat Cove to Whycocomagh to Marble Mountain to Port Hawkesbury.
We knew little about putting out a weekly newspaper but others in the industry came to our aid and we bought the books and learned quickly what we wanted to present to the readers of Inverness County.
We moved from the Old Post Office to the St. Mary’s Building (next to the morgue), then to the basement of the Credit Union (old one), and finally in December of 1992, we erected The Oran Building on Central Avenue in Inverness.
Father Neville, Lawrence, and Jackie left after a year, so Rankin and Eleanor decided to try to make it a success.
Fortunately, Frank Macdonald was a better writer than school teacher so he was asked to become part of the Oran and three was the charm.
We travelled the length and breadth of this county, getting lost often in the early years, but we discovered this was our calling, no more university, but the best and holiest part of it all was meeting the wonderful people of Inverness County who allowed us to tell their stories.
Let’s aim for another 50 years!