After five years of being shut down, past employees of the H & B factory have gathered for a reunion together for a day of memories and fellowship. Dozens of employee’s attended the reunion Saturday (May 24) at Moose Lodge in Wallaceburg. From 3 p.m-8 p.m. an employee slideshow was featured with music and a luncheon provided with donations being fundraised for three different organizations: Wallaceburg Junior Hockey, Wallaceburg Minor Baseball and Baldoon Junior Golf.
Event organizer, Mary O’Neil said since H & B was closed five years ago this month, she wanted to plan an event to bring everyone together again. “When the plant closed we were all just devastated but no different than anyone else would be. I just thought after five years of being closed, it would be nice to have everybody come and see everyone and there’s actually a pretty nice crowd”.
O’Neil said the owner Jack Hillary made everyone feel that they mattered which brought a closer working relationship between employees “It was just such a nice place to work. It was like a family down there and our owner, Jack Hillary made it a family and that’s how we all felt”
O’Neil also recognized Denise Shephard who put a lot of time and effort into the picture slideshow for the reunion. “She worked really hard on putting this all together and it’s just really nice”.
Past employee Jody Lauwers said everyone coming together after being closed for five years has made her thankful for the close relationships she made with her coworkers.
“It’s so nice to see everybody,” she said. “There’s a lot of people we haven’t seen in years. I started there 23 years ago, so a lot of these girls we all had babies while we were there and now our babies are in the 20’s. It’s awesome and its all to my mom [Mary O’Neil]. She put it all together and called hundreds of people. She did everything”.
Lauwers said a lot of the food including the meat and veggie trays came from the new owner of Hometown Deli and past employee of H & B, Melissa Cadoo. Salads and deserts were also provided.
Lauwers also said how unique her job really was. “In the mid 90’s they brought over the composite stick from California and we had our own little building on McNaughton Ave. We had to sign confidentiality and nobody was allowed in our building because the composite stick was like NASA high security. There was very few of us who knew the process that made the composite hockey stick. It was a pretty big thing back then”.
Lauwers added, “You got to meet some NHL players like Joe Thornton, Steve Yzerman and Mark Messier because they wanted to see how their stick was made. It was an awesome place to work, with an awesome group of people”.
Past H & B Plant Chair, Ron Cooper said it was a great idea to bring everyone back together like old times. “ It’s nice to see everybody after five years,” he said. “Wallaceburg is a small town but it’s amazing after the plant was done how long it takes to see everybody”.
The H & B factory employed 220 people from Wallaceburg and the surrounding area. H & B specialized in Louisville Slugger baseball bats, hockey sticks and golf clubs.
