Official Ceremonies

The first massed bands of the day and hear from our official guest at 12:30 pm in front of the grandstands.

Guest of Honour - Reg Gamble

From astronauts to Prime Ministers, each year the Glengarry Highland Games welcomes a Canadian celebrity to officially open their premier celtic event. This year the Games are delighted to have one of their own fittingly officiate as their Guest of Honour.

Reg Gamble who served as Games MC for thirty years will be back at the microphone when he takes to the stage on Saturday, August 3rd.  As Games President Don Gamble states, "In preparing for this upcoming Games I have asked a Son of Glengarry, Reg Gamble, who has been known as the Voice of the Glengarry Highland Games Tattoo and MC of the Official Opening for many decades, to be our Special Guest to open this year's 75th edition”. 

Reg is the middle child of Don 'Doc' Gamble and Violet May of Maxville. His father along with Peter MacInnes decided in 1948 that Glengarry should have its own Scottish celebration to keep their ancestral traditions alive and the Glengarry Highland Games was born. Reg grew up with the Games and Scottish culture and first started playing the tenor drum with the Glengarry Pipe Band in 1965. He moved on to become Glengarry’s first Drum Major in 1967. The same year he became a tenor drummer for the RCAF Rockcliffe Pipe Band which took 2nd in the Grade 1 North American Championships™ at the Glengarry Highland Games with the drum corps actually placing first.

In 1983 he was one of the group that began the North Lanark Highland Games first held in August 1984. He served as the MC for the North Lanark Highland Games continuously for 35 years, and was chosen to be Guest of Honour at those Games in 2018 for his service to both the Games and the community.

Reg being such a natural as an MC made for the perfect choice to also do the duties for the Friday night Tattoo at the Glengarry Highland Games in 1990. Initially, the Tattoo was labeled a “pre-games” concert and Reg would print the whole program (jokes and all) on an old Underwood typewriter.

In 2014 he celebrated 25 years as MC of the Glengarry Highland Games and in 2016 he was presented with the Sir John A. MacDonald award by the St. Andrew’s Society of Ottawa for “bringing honour and recognition to the Scottish Community of the National Capital Region.”  He retired as Games MC in 2019. Reg and his wife Gail reside in Almonte, and have two sons, Josh and Jake, and three grandchildren.

Don Gamble, this year’s President, fondly adds, “Reg has humbly accepted this invitation and I am sure his father, one of the Games co-founders, along with me, his nephew, will be beaming with pride”. Everyone gathered for this year’s Official Opening will share in this pride as they warmly salute one of the Games’ favourite people.