Guest of Honour at the Glengarry Highland Games 2024 is Voice of Glengarry Highland Games

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MAXVILLE — The 75th Glengarry Highland Games have selected a special local guest of honour for their milestone event, which is expected to attract thousands of visitors to the region from August 2-3.

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Almost anyone who attended the Games over the last 30 years before his retirement as MC in 2019 would recognize Reg Gamble’s clear, booming voice. — be it announcing the masses of bands coming onto the field or welcoming guests on stage during the tattoo.

“I’m not a prime minister, I’m not a star hockey player and I’m not a hero … so I’m very honoured (to be guest of honour). I’m very proud to have been asked and I hope I live up to it,” Gamble said. “It’s going to be an emotional affair for me too. All my family members are dead except Don … They couldn’t have lived in our house without knowing what the Glengarry Highland Games were and what they meant to us and the community.”

Gamble said he had recently discovered some interesting information about how he believes the Glengarry Highland Games actually came about, and he would share this as part of his speech, which he has already begun preparing.

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The middle child of Don “Doc” Gamble and Violet May of Maxville, Reg Gamble could be called one of the “sons of the Glengarry Highland Games.” It was Don and Peter MacInnes who decided in 1948 that the Glengarry area needed a Scottish festival to celebrate Celtic traditions.

Gamble said his father originally came to Maxville to play for the Maxville Millionaires hockey team and fell in love with bagpipes, which is how he came into contact with MacInnes and the rest of the “famous Glengarry Five,” including Osie F. Villeneuve, John D. McRae and Clark Hoople.

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“Make no mistake, it wasn’t just my father who was involved in these games. My mother and Peter MacInnes’ wife were also very involved, as was Osie Villeneuve’s wife,” said Gamble.

Attendees can expect nostalgic anecdotes during Gamble’s speech. Gamble said he can still clearly remember how the games have evolved over the years.

“Reg has humbly accepted this invitation (as guest of honour) and I am sure his father (Don, now deceased), one of the co-founders of the game, and I, his nephew, will be beaming with pride,” said his nephew, also named Don Gamble.

Reg is a passionate supporter of the Highland Games and was one of the founders of the North Lanark Highland Games in Almonte in 1983, with the first event taking place in 1984. He has served as MC for the North Lanark Highland Games continuously for 35 years and was elected Guest of Honour at these games in 2018 for his services to the event and the community. His experience as MC in Almonte led to him first trying his skills in Glengarry in 1990, typing the entire programme on his old Underwood typewriter.

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Before Gamble took on the organizing committee role, he initially played the tenor drum with the Glengarry Pipe Band in 1965. In 1967 he became Glengarry’s first drum major. That same year he became tenor drummer with the RCAF Rockcliffe Pipe Band and won silver in the North American Grade 1 Championships at the Glengarry Highland Games with the drum corps taking first place.

In 2016, Gamble received the Sir John A. Macdonald Award from the St. Andrew’s Society of Ottawa for his “honour and recognition to the Scottish community of the National Capital Region”.

For further information on the 2024 Glengarry Highland Games programme, including ticket information, visit www.glengarryhighlandgames.com.

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