Former Delta Mayor Doug Husband has passed away.
The Delta flag at all civic facilities will be flown at half-mast this week, said Mayor George Harvie on social media Monday afternoon, noting Husband was an outstanding member of the community.
A descendant of the Pybus pioneering family, Husband was elected five times to Delta council, including a term as mayor from 1987 to 1990.
He continued to be a long serving community volunteer.
In 2019 he was named Delta Citizen of the Year.
Volunteer organizations that he had given countless hours to included: Delta Hospital, Little House Society, Delta Sport Development Centre, Delta Museum and Archives, Delta Police Board, Delta Hospice Foundation, BC Arbitration and Mediation Institute, and the National Parole Board of Canada.
He was until recently, still a member of the Delta Heritage Society and was a member of the Rotary Club of Ladner as a director.
In 2002, he was the recipient of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal for Community Service.
In 2012, Husband started writing the Community Comment column in the Delta Optimist and turned those columns that he wrote for five years into a book called Community Comments.
In the past year, he also spearheaded a fundraising campaign to secure an original oil canvas of Port Guichon, circa 1903 painted by world-renowned marine artist John Horton.
The painting was donated last fall to the Delta Museum and Heritage Society.
This May, friends, family, dignitaries and invited guests got a chance to pay homage to Husband as the City of Delta hosted a small, socially-distanced gathering at a soft opening of Delta’s new cultural centre, named the Douglas J. Husband Discovery Centre.
“When you look at the history of former mayor Doug Husband, it is pretty outstanding what he has done for this community over these many years,” Harvie told the Optimist when council approved the name of the centre. “Doug has played a huge role in the heritage and the museum development, so I thought it was very fitting that we honour Doug for his lifetime contribution to the community of Delta.”
Married to wife Maureen for 58 years, he was a father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
