The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

s10 tribune february 1 1989 s5 bills road is 25 years long by jim thomas whitchurch twentyfive years of change hasnt changed bill dike now a foreman with the whitchurchstouffville road department bills just as dedicated to his job today as a quarter century ago and just as modest on jan 24 he declined any handshaking ceremony when members of council chose to honor his milestone accomplishment instead supt ron gibson drove over to vandorf and presented bim with a town pin personally pat the clerkcoodinator knows i dont go for that sort of thing he said he also rejected the tribunes plea to take his picture thats where i draw the line he stated firmly but he somewhat hesitatingly agreed to an interview recall ing how he first came on staff back in 1961 when ernest sandy davis headed the department he sandy wanted me to help out when some of the boys were on holidays then he asked me to stay he recalls bill admits the winters now are nothing like back then we had two graders with plows wed run them 24 hours-a- day he remembers today they deal more with ice than with snow while bills been fortunate to remain accidentfree he recalls one occasion when the heater quit in the cab of his grader it was 24 below zero bill speaks highly of all road department employees and ron the superintendent lie keeps in touch with his former boss and accompanies him to superintendent meetings sandy still enjoys getting together with the fellows he says the vandorf detachment of five employees maintains close to 70 miles of roadplus a number of subdivision streets they try and do the school bus routes first he explains a policy that sometimes irritates commuters in more builtup areas on a morning like thursday when rural roads were like skating rinks its difficult to cover the area as quickly as theyd like he explains when conditions are extreme the men come in at 430 in the morning three hours in advance of their usual times now 62 bill hopes to continue another three years however retirement wont mean giving up work he his brother delbert and a nephew operate a dairy farm on the 5th concession south of pine orchard there an additional fulltime helper will no doubt be welcomed meanwhile bill dike will continue doing what he enjoys doing best twentyfive years hasnt deterred his dedication as a member of the old school hes learned his lesson well