Features Editor
“The worst thing I saw, we were right in here,” Dr. Timothy Winegard said, pointing at a map on his computer screen. The Canadian history professor who now teaches at CMU was pointing to the Medak Pocket in Croatia, a hotspot of ethnic violence during the Balkan Wars of the ‘90s.
As an airborne sniper in the Canadian Armies, Winegard saw the conflict firsthand.
“We heard that there was a weapons cache on a Croat farm,” Winegard said, describing one mission in 2000 that he and his unit were assigned as part of the deployment.
Winegard was a lieutenant at the time, deployed to the region with the NATO Security Force to Bosnia.
As dusk approached, Winegard’s unit asked the owner of the farm if they could search an old barn. The farmer refused, saying that the building was unstable and could collapse.
The soldiers restrained the farmer and set about searching the barn. They brought their vehicles forward and directed their headlights at the barn doors.
There were no weapons inside. Winegard and his comrades found bodies — innocent victims of the conflict.
Between his experiences in the military and extensive travels across the globe, Winegard brings a vast personal knowledge to his lectures.
“It was definitely a whole different view on history,” Jamie Quere, sophomore, said. Quere took a U.S. History course with Winegard. “You could really tell he had experience. He used to tell crazy stories.”
Winegard has visited every country in Europe and the former Soviet Union, China, Korea, Mongolia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Lesotho, Morocco, and various countries in Central and South America.
“I’m very knowledgable about history because I have lived through some of it,” he said. “I can bring a personal element to it rather than just pointing to a map and saying, ‘This happened.’”
Winegard was born and raised in Ontario, Canada. Growing up, two of his major interests were hockey and history. Education initially took a back seat to hockey, but Winegard seriously injured his shoulder at 19 while playing in the Ontario Hockey League, ending his hockey career.
He joined the military, following the example of his grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather, and used the opportunity to study history, obtaining his undergraduate degree at the University of Western Ontario, master’s degree at the Royal Military College of Canada and Ph.D. at the University of Oxford.
Following his military service, Winegard was drawn to Grand Junction and CMU by love.
He met his wife, CMU alumna Becky Raney, at a Washington Capitals game in 2009 while he was in Washington, D.C. researching at the National Archives.
crclark2@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
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