By Chad Klassen

Family of John Dormer remembers his impact as dad, mayor of Kamloops

Apr 17, 2017 | 6:00 PM

KAMLOOPS — The family of John Dormer says he was the best father and husband — a kind, genuine man who would always brighten up a room. 

“It’s still a shock,” said his son Dave Dormer. “The last few days, I’ve been sitting at home and sometimes I wait, and I expect, to hear his feet coming up the stairs. When he would walk in the house, the whole hosue would light up. And even if you weren’t in the room, you knew he was there because all of a sudden it just got brighter.”

But that brightness dimmed on Friday when Dormer, going about his day after having breakfast with his granddaughter, suffered a stroke. 

“They took him to the hospital, and my brother and sister and my mom were with him. It was a few hours. They said he wasn’t in pain, but he was unconscious, and then my mom held his hand. She was hold his hand when he passed.”

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Dormer became mayor of Kamloops in 1986, defeating the incumbent Jim Walsh. 

He sat in the mayor’s chair for merely two years, but he left a lasting legacy for Kamloops, most notably helping pass a referendum to build the Riverside Coliseum during his last year in 1988. 

“It’s meant a tremendous amount to Kamloops,” said Dormer in a 2015 interview with CFJC Today. “It’s created a whole new energy and thought-process. There’s been a lot of sporting events held here. There’s been a lot of culturally events.”

Mayor Peter Milobar added, “just think about what this city would be like right now if we didn’t have a building like that since 1993. These buildings take a long time, and for him to have that vision and drive to push it through is going to be a longstanding legacy.”

Beyond his tremendous work in kamloops, Dormer was a family man. But out in public, he would always get stopped by people. 

“The one thing I really think about is, he used to say ‘do you want to come to the store with me. We’re just going to go for five minutes. I’ve got to go get the lottery tickets, or get something for your mother.’ But it was never five minutes because everywhere we went, everybody wanted to stop and talk to him,” remembered Dave. 

Everyone in the city seemingly had the Dormer’s number. 

“People would just call the house. He would give his number out to everyone,” said Dave. “They were telling us about this guy. He was a down-on-his-luck guy. He wanted to take his bottles in, so he could buy his partner a magazine, because they were taking the bus somewhere, and he had no way of doing that. The only person he knew, he had my dad’s phone number. So he called my dad and asked him, and my dad went down and drove that guy down. He would do that for anybody.”

John Dormer was 72 years old.

A Celebration of Life for dormer will be at the Coast Kamloops Hotel on Saturday, April 29th at 2pm. In lieu of flowers, the family is asking people make a donation to the Marjorie Willoughby Snowden Hospice Home in Kamloops.