Murray Knight was a man on the move. He was always found driving around Morinville in his Buick SUV, stopping for coffee at Tim Hortons, coaching at the arena and speaking at town council meetings. He couldn’t go to the grocery store without stopping to chat with someone from his broad circle of friends. They all knew him from his volunteer work, which ranged from coaching the Morinville Jets hockey team to being treasurer of the Morinville Historical and Cultural Society to his work with the Canada Day flag initiative.
Originally from Ontario, Knight had a 37-year career with CN Rail, volunteered as a firefighter, and coached six different hockey teams while living in Peace River before moving with his family to Morinville around 1982. He quickly became a fixture of the community, the kind of thing that happens when you coach hockey in a smaller town.
It’s also what happens when you spend time talking in front of town council. According to friends, Knight was a good public speaker, though in an unorthodox way. He was not polished, but when you listened to him, you knew that what he was saying came from his heart. He would occasionally curse, something not everyone in town could get away with at a council meeting, and his delivery could be emotional. The town and its history were important to Knight — you could tell in the way he spoke about them.
The Morinville Notre Dame Convent, which housed the town museum, was condemned in 2005. The building had been handed over to the town by the Historical and Cultural Society before asbestos was discovered. The closure created renewed interest in the society and the town’s museum, and people in town started work to save and rehabilitate the convent. A mini museum arose off site to display some of the artifacts while the bulk of the collection went into storage.
This is around the time that Knight became involved as the society’s director and later treasurer. He was talking with his wife, Renee, who felt that the building should be saved. Knight, true to form, decided to act, taking on the project. In 2006, the convent received funding through the Provincial Historic Resources Project, and the Musée Morinville Museum reopened in the rehabilitated convent in 2009. The following year Knight received the Silent Hero award at the town’s 24th annual volunteer appreciation night for his part in saving the building and the museum inside it.