Graham Hart, a longtime trustee and social justice champion, dies at age 79

A longtime former Oxford County school board trustee is being remembered as champion of education and social justice.

Woodstock native Graham Hart, a trustee for more than 20 years with the former Oxford County school board and later the Thames Valley District school board, died on June 12.

He was 79.

Sheri Polhill, a London trustee with the Thames Valley board, described Hart as a valued mentor who had nothing but integrity when he advised her on board decisions.

“He was a great advocate for Oxford County,” Polhill said Tuesday during the last board meeting of the school year. “He advocated for French immersion, new school builds and always had the Oxford hat on but equally he came to the board knowing his role, his governance was for Thames Valley.

“And often that put him at odds but he always seemed to balance the ability to make the right decision. I could always look to be able to weigh out the priorities of the board. (He was) always wearing the governance hat, perhaps on top of the Oxford hat,” Polhill said.

Hart once told the Woodstock Sentinel-Review that he was proud of what he was able to accomplish in striking a balance between closing and keeping open rural schools. Hart said he worked well with urban trustees and worked to find compromises between their communities and his.

He said that though schools closed in the Drumbo, Princeton, Beachville and Ingersoll areas, the board built new schools in their place that “protects the interest of rural parents and particularly to minimize the time on a bus.”

Hart arranged to send discarded desks, shelves and office supplies overseas for schools that otherwise would have none in a project for Rotary International, Polhill said.

Hart also volunteered with CUSO, VON, the Alzheimer’s Society, and Oxford’s homeless shelter Inn Out of the Cold, his obituary said.

A farmer for 45 years, Hart studied agriculture at the University of Guelph and education management at Indiana University.

He was predeceased by his wife Eleanor Hart.

First elected in 1998, Hart was acclaimed in the 2014 election and was narrowly defeated in the 2018 election.

He was later recruited to fill a vacancy on the Thames Valley board after Oxford trustee Bill McKinnon stepped down. Hart chose not to run in the 2022 election.

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