Gabriel Wortman had always dreaded mid-April, for that was the anniversary of when UNB students nominated for “The Asshole of the Year” award

UNB has a number of student residences, some famous for being very MALE and very rowdy and some co-ed and much more tame, like MacLeod House.

Bridges House was far and away the most male and the most rowdy : a man’s man sort of place.

The sort of place where a man’s man like 18 year old Gabriel Wortman might feel at home.

But there are limits even for the most macho : so Bridges House residents annually voted an award handed out each mid April to ‘the biggest asshole” in that rowdy residence - and thus over the whole campus generally : the much feared CHUCK COSBY award.

Even to merely nominated for it was enough to make you a social outcast.

The residence student government strongly supported the award as they said the mere fear of receiving the annual award was very usefully in restraining boorish behaviour all year long.

And it was indeed.

But it also scarred the winners, er losers, for life and eventually the Dean Mary Lou-Stirling got rid of it after hearing from some former recipients. (Stirling’s academic career had focussed, in part, on the study of process of victimization.)

Several online sources (people who were residing with him in his dorm at the time) have suggested that Gabriel Wortman won the CHUCK COSBY award.

Both the 1991 savage student riot when the award was cancelled and an obituary I saw online  strongly suggests the Chuck Cosby award process was a very important event in students’ lives in that decade and not easily forgotten : so I am inclined to think their memories are correct.

But in any case, remember even to be nominated for it was bad enough : “Runner-up for Asshole of the Year”.

I went through the student newspaper at UNB for the names of the award winners the years Gabriel Wortman was there but they didnt seem to publish the names and probably didn’t have to : the bush telegraph quickly spread it through the campus, to staff and student alike.

But it seems that the very next year Gabriel was at tame & quiet Macleod House, where CANDY PALMATER said the kids still didn’t like him much. (But they at least didn’t make a big campus-wide announcement about it).

I heard our RCMP Commissioner telling the CBC National that only a deep probe of Wortman’s background is going to give them a profile as to what may have led Gabriel to his murderous end.

Just like the way that the film  “THE GRADUATE” had some pithy advice for Benjamin (“ one word : plastics !”), I too have some pithy advice for the Commissioner and her team : “CHUCK COSBY”.

It might not be ROSEBUD in uncovering the mystery of this man’s life, but it might be very close....