On November 7, 2008, over 180 friends, family, patients and colleagues gathered at the Lord Nelson Hotel in Halifax, Nova Scotia to celebrate the career and retirement of Dr. T.J. (Jock) Murray. During the evening, we heard from a number of special guest speakers including Yves Savoie, president & CEO of the MS Society, Dr. Roger McKelvey and Trudy Campbell, from the Dalhousie MS Research Unit, Dr. Paul O’Connor, medical & scientific advisor to the Society, Alexander Aird, chair of the endMS campaign cabinet, Dr. Murray Brown, Reid Nicholson, Catherine Edward and members of the Murray family.
The evening highlighted Dr. Murray’s medical accomplishments and his multi-dimensional personality. Janet Murray’s stories of her husband had the entire audience on their feet and the hilarious homemade video from his four children had us roaring with laughter.
As a tribute to his significant contributions to the field of multiple sclerosis in Canada and with the hope of continuing his legacy, Dena Simon, president of the Atlantic Division, was delighted to announce the $100,000 Dr. T.J. (Jock) Murray Scholarship in support of the endMS Research and Training Network. Lou J. Maroun, past chair of the national board of directors and a member of the endMS campaign cabinet, announced the first two contributions to this award – a donation of $5,000 from Charles J. Ford, chair of the Atlantic Division board of directors and another gift at this amount from Dena Simon. Lou made a wonderful gesture by matching these donations and inspired guests to make a contribution of their own. Since then, two more Atlantic Division board members have announced their $5,000 donations.
In total, the gala raised over $45,000 in donations. Thank you to Pfizer Canada, Biogen Idec, McInnes Cooper, EMD Serono and TEVA Neuroscience for sponsoring the event and for helping make the evening a tremendous success. It was a fantastic opportunity to involve the medical community, pharmaceutical companies and corporate supporters in the endMS campaign.
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