Dana Austin remembered as ‘stubborn in a good way’

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This article was published 19/01/2024 (647 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A longtime Brandon volunteer is being remembered by her friends as someone with strong principles who wanted to improve her community.

Dana Austin, who served as a past president of the board for the East End Community Centre and most recently served on the board of the Park Community Centre, died on Tuesday at the age of 51.

Much of Austin’s volunteerism happened alongside her husband, Peter Nissen, who died after a battle with cancer in July 2022.

Their daughter, Kayla Drakeley, told the Sun that while her mother’s cause of death is uncertain, the family believes it is related to heart issues she had since birth. She said both her parents set a good example and that she will “strive to keep their legacy alive.”

“She was stubborn, in a good way,” Drakeley said. “Always wanting to do things for people around her and just support her community.”

One of Austin’s favourite things, Drakeley said, was to hang out at Boston Pizza with a plate of nachos and good conversation.

Reached by phone on Thursday, friend Drew Caldwell — a former Brandon East MLA and city councillor — said Austin “was a very, very special and much-loved human being.”

Caldwell praised Austin’s community work, especially in establishing skating programs at the East End Community Centre and keeping that facility alive.

“She and Peter, in the darkest days of the East End Community Centre, they brought new life into that. The fruits of these things today were planted by Dana Austin and Peter Nissen,” Caldwell said, describing Austin as “an inspirational figure in terms of her devotion to this community.”

In 2011, the Sun reported on a successful online funding drive led by Austin so that the community centre could purchase skates and hockey equipment to lend to children who couldn’t afford their own.

Ken Friedrich, president of the Park Community Centre board, said Austin and Nissen came to one of their meetings out of the blue a few years ago and offered their assistance in helping to save the facility after their previous experiences with the East End Community Centre.

“They came in with a fountain of information that really helped us get off the ground running,” Friedrich said. “It was really, really unbelievable what they brought to the table.”

He described Austin as a passionate, opinionated woman who enjoyed getting to know you as a friend. Despite health challenges, including a stroke, as well as Nissen’s death, she never slowed down and still attended board meetings whenever she could, Friedrich said.

“I’m going to probably hold an empty chair for her at the table until we get this done,” he said about the ongoing efforts to get a new community centre built. “And when we do get our new community centre, I want to do something for her … she was an integral part of this.”

Coun. Tyson Tame (Ward 10), another friend of the family, said Austin had “very strong principles.”

When Tame was running for city council in 2022, he said Austin called him and said she wouldn’t vote for him unless she knew he was in favour of saving the Park Community Centre. She set that condition even though they were friends and her husband had served as Tame’s campaign manager in a previous race.

“I feel like she would go to the moon for me, but at the same time she wouldn’t vote for me if I was against the item that she was passionate about,” he said. “It just kind of shows the level of commitment and dedication that she had … You didn’t get to take her vote for granted.”

Drakeley said a funeral or memorial service has yet to be scheduled but that she encourages people to make donations to their local community centre if they’re interested in honouring her mother.

“We’re just looking at it as hopefully with her passing, hopefully they’ve gotten back together and probably tying someone’s skates up in heaven or just finding some sort of way to do community outreach, wherever they are,” Drakeley said of her late parents.

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