A state funeral will be held in Saskatoon Oct. 5 for former lieutenant governor Sylvia Fedoruk.
Saskatchewan’s first female lieutenant governor died Sept. 26 at age 85 after complications from a fall.
Born in Canora, Sask., where the town’s curling rink is named in her honour, Fedoruk became a biophysicist and in 1951 was a member of the research team that developed the cobalt-60 therapy unit, or the cobalt bomb.
The therapy was first used on a 43-year-old woman with cervical cancer. It cured her and she lived another 47 years.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, to which Fedoruk was named in 2009, says the therapy helped more than 70 million people in the last half of the 20th century.
Fedoruk was also a noted university athlete, playing hockey, volleyball, basketball and softball, but was probably best known for her curling ability.
She was a member of the team that won the first national women’s championship and was inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame in 1986.
Fedoruk was inducted as the 17th lieutenant governor in September 1988 and served until 1994.
She remained until her death a regular in the crowd at University of Saskatchewan Huskies basketball games.
Premier Brad Wall said it wasn’t hyperbole to say women all over the world are alive today because of Fedoruk’s work in nuclear medicine.
She didn’t just change lives, she saved them, he said.
“She was just the epitome of what is good about the province of Saskat-chewan.”
Lt.-gov. Vaughn Solomon Schofield said Fedoruk was extraordinary and would be missed.
There are books of condolence at the legislative building and Government House in Regina and at Saskatoon City Hall and Room 212 of the Peter MacKinnon Building on the University of Saskatchewan campus. Members of the public can sign the books during regular building hours.
