Alex Trebek Honoured with Three-Storey Mural in Sudbury

The tribute to the iconic 'Jeopardy!' host will be completed this month

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Aug 13, 2021

The late Alex Trebek will be honoured in his birthplace of Sudbury, ON, with a new three-storey mural.

Currently underway, the mural is being painted on the side of the beloved Jeopardy! host's alma mater, Sudbury Secondary School.

The tribute, painted by Canadian artist Kevin Ledo, will be completed in time for the 2021 edition of Sudbury's Up Here festival, set to run from August 20 to 22.

Ledo is recognized for his massive portraiture murals of Leonard Cohen in Montreal, Rosa Parks in Detroit and David Suzuki in Toronto. He began work on the wall August 11, and will take a little over a week to finish the painting.

"This is going to be a really special piece on a really special wall," said Ledo in a press release. "And, how fitting is it to have it go up facing the Sudbury Public Library — a place of knowledge, curiosity, and everything Trebek stood for."

Born George Alexander Trebek in 1940, the beloved Jeopardy! host attended Sudbury Secondary School (then Sudbury High School) in the 1950s. Trebek's mother, Lucille Marie Lagacé, has a street named after her family in the city's historic Flour Mill neighbourhood.

In 2019, Sudbury Secondary School issued an honorary diploma to Trebek, which led him to write back in a note of thanks, "I plan to use it to lobby for a raise in salary. Still have fond memories of Sudbury High."

"Trebek has always had a really special place in all our hearts," Up Here co-founder Christian Pelletier said in a press release. "He's kind of been the unofficial mascot of all our projects, going way back to the We Live Up Here books in 2013. We made pins of him to raise funds for pancreatic cancer research. Heck, even when we had to change the name of the festival from Up Fest to Up Here in 2016, we jokingly considered changing the name of the festival to Trebek Fest."

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