Free Press crossword author Adrian Powell dead at 74

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This article was published 22/04/2022 (1600 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What’s two six-letter words for “puzzle master?”

The answer: Adrian Powell.

Powell, who created several of the most popular daily games in the Free Press, including the daily crossword puzzle, Sudoku and Cryptoquotes, died last week at age 74.

His path to puzzle making started with an effort to win a long-ago bet.

Ruth Brauer, Powell’s neighbour, relayed the story. A few decades ago, he was having dinner with a friend when they began talking about crossword puzzles.

“He said he was complaining about the crosswords in the newspaper and said, ‘I could do better than that,’” Brauer said Friday. “His friend said if you can make one and get it published by a certain date, I will pay you $50 and buy you dinner.”

When a newspaper accepted the puzzle — and then asked how much he wanted to be paid for it — a light bulb went on. Before long, creating crosswords became a part-time job and later, a full-time one.

“And it was all because of that bet,” Brauer said.

Powell was born in England and came to Canada with family in 1967. He went to the University of Manitoba from 1969 to 1973, and graduated with a master’s degree in mathematics.

During those years, Powell also performed in Rainbow Stage productions, among other groups.

Andrea Pratt McDowell, Rainbow Stage executive director, said company records show Powell as part of five shows in three years (1970-72), including Hello, Dolly!, Fiddler on the Roof, and Peter Pan.

“He was very involved,” McDowell said. “In Fiddler, he played Nachum the beggar and in Peter Pan, he was Noodler, a Lost Boy.”

Powell worked for several years with Manitoba Telephone Systems, running the department which produced the white and yellow pages, as well as creating mathematical models to predict telephone sales growth.

He produced his first crossword puzzle for a weekly publication in the early 1990s.

His son, Leighton, said his dad not only created crossword puzzles, he loved playing them.

“He could do them off the top of his head,” Leighton said. “I know one of the earliest places which had his crossword in was Senior’s Today.”

From there, Powell’s crosswords were published in the Free Press, Canadian newspapers such as the Ottawa Citizen, St. John’s Telegram and Kelowna Courier, and elsewhere (USA Today and the Vox website).

Leighton said his dad was “a pretty simple guy… He didn’t even have a cellphone. He always wanted to have a conversation with people in person.”

Another of Powell’s neighbours, author Daria Salamon, said the man was renowned in the area for buying seed for birds and peanuts for squirrels to eat outside the house he rented a suite in.

“I had hundreds of peanuts in my garden and I once gave them to him and said, ‘Why don’t you just give it to them again?’” Salamon said with a laugh. “When a tree fell down, out of the hollow came thousands and thousands and thousands of peanuts.

“When the fire truck was outside (last week), I wondered who they were there for… Then I saw the empty bird feeders and I choked up because I knew it was Adrian,” Salamon said. “He was just a super interesting guy.”

Building landlord Jeff Choboter said when Powell came to apply to rent a suite, the employment and income portion of the application form was filled with a long list of newspapers his crossword puzzles were published in.

“Everybody in my building loved him,” Choboter said. “He was a very kind soul.

“I know already the critters miss him. I asked him once how much bird seed and peanuts he bought, and he said he was paying as much for seed as on rent.”

Powell’s final giant crossword is published in the April 23 edition of the Free Press. His daily crosswords will continue until the end of next week. His Manitoba crossword and Sudoku will continue until sometime in May.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @KevinRollason