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A year in review

Here are some community highlights, look back at the first six months of 2012.

AS THE year comes to a close, take one last look at some of the highlights of the first six months of 2012.

January

Terrace’s new year’s baby arrives at 12:16 a.m. Jan. 1, Donald Alfred Leonard Philip Morrison – the first son for William Morrison and Kyra Price of Greenville.

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Lost Christmas photos finally make their way to intended recipient Evelyn Baxter after someone finds them and drops them off for Catherine Baxter, who realized they weren’t hers.

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A class of Grade 9/10 girls at Skeena Junior take a day off from wearing makeup and doing their hair to make a point about girls bullying others about their appearance at See Me 4 Me, organized and planned by Tanya Corstanje’s Inquiry class.

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Four young people are commended by the Thornhill fire chief for saving two men from serious burns after a spark ignites spilled gas into flames on Jess Hansen and Murray Hamer. The four are Murray’s sons Patrick, 12, and Nickolas, 9, and his niece Dayne Wright 12, and nephew Parker Wright, 8.

February

Brenda Haakstad gets her head shaved and plans to continue every week for one year to raise awareness about the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.

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Dr. Robert (Ted) Edmund Musgrave Lee – Dr. R.E.M. Lee – dies in Victoria at age 85 and is remembered for being generous, lobbying for a community theatre that now bears his name, spearheading the group who set up the Dr. R.E.M. Lee Foundation, being dedicated to bringing the hospital up to the highest standards and maintaining them, making sure a band program started in schools, and for being on the committee that laid the foundation for Northwest Community College.

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Brooklynn Stanvick, 6, is featured on the front of a brochure for the War Amps Champ program, a program that’s part of the War Amps and looks after paying for prosthetics for children, including extracurricular limbs for sports.

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An anonymous donor covers the $2,000 needed so Nass Valley residents still have free access to Terrace’s public library this year after the Nass Valley school district said it couldn’t pay the user fee for the valley’s residents – the valley does not have a public library.

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Animal lovers raise money so Wolfie, a blind mixed breed born at the city animal shelter, can have eye surgery with the hope he will be able to see.

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Gitwinksihlkw Elementary School student Owen Percival, 10,  goes door to door in New Aiyansh, where he lives, on two evenings and collects pennies and donations totalling $365 to help the people in Burns Lake after the mill fire there in January.

Percival had missed the coin drive in which the nearly 50 students at his school collected more than $500 in coins.

All together, the school donates $941 to the Burns Lake Community Relief Fund.

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Amy Spencer vows to wear a garbage bag to prom if she raises $1,000 for the Cinderella Project  – a Lower Mainland charity that gives less fortunate girls used prom dresses – as her protest against girls trying to outdo each other for prom, when other girls can’t afford a prom dress.

March

dentist Dr. Vincent Drouin, two other dentists, two hygienists, a dental assistant and a registered nurse go to Bangladesh to hold a dental clinic.

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Friends of Jack Armstrong, 3, who was diagnosed with the most common type of leukemia in children, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, rally around with several fundraisers to help with the boy’s three-year treatment.

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Singer Maggy Ottenbreit, 13, writes and records a song “Beaten” and give it to the cancer society as a way to raise money because many members of her family either have, or have died from, the disease.

April

The Rock Christian Community celebrates its 25th year.

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Braun’s Island resident Rita Hoekstra shuts down her Sage and Sunflower bedding plant nursery, which has been around for more than 20 years, after the heavy winter snow collapsed the roofs on her five greenhouses.

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Martin Loggin and Arjunna Miyagawa are nominated in the Aboriginal Storytelling category for the film Race Club at the 17th annual EyeLens Film, Video and Animation Festival.

May

Joe Mandur Sr., one of a core group of divers who founded the water rescue team component of the Terrace Search and Rescue organization, is being honoured posthumously with a lifetime achievement award from the provincial government.

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Yvonne Nielsen is the inaugural recipient of the Trevor and Debbie Greene Award of Honour, a national award, recognizing work done to make people more aware of acquired brain injuries.

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Thornhill Junior band students win their highest number of awards at Music Fest Canada in their last time there: the concert band wins gold, the jazz band wins gold and the jazz combo wins silver in what was also the most musical groups the school has ever entered, said band teacher Mike Wen.

June

PARKSIDE SECONDARY School sees its largest graduation class in the last six years, nearly 50 grads.

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Nirmal Parmar is presented with the 2011 Volunteer Service Recognition Award by the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of British Columbia. It recognizes Parmar’s 26 years of contributions to the Terrace and District Multicultural Association, of which he is a founding member, and to the Skeena Diversity Society.

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The annual review of the 747 Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron sees cadets receive awards.

 

Awards were given to LAC Josiah Bahr for being the best first year cadet, to Sgt. Lesley Green for best attendance, to F/Cpl Samuel Christiansen for best uniform. To WO2

Alway Dawson for NCO of the Year, to Cpl Lesley Hansen and F/Cpl Nicholas Friesen for most improved cadet and to WO2 Alway Dawson for espirt de corps.

 

Sgt. Dakota Taron was presented with the commanding officer’s award, F/Cpl Samuel Christiansen was named cadet of the year, Sgt. Nicholas Ross and LAC Patrick Hamer were given citizenship awards, Sgt. Lesley Green was given the winter survival award and F/Cpl Ashlee Thompson was presented an award from the sponsoring society.

Cpl. Michell Hess was given an award for most improved shot, LAC Liam Vales for best first year shot, F/Cpl Tristen Christmas and Sgt. Christopher Bishop shared marksman of the year honours.

 

The Cadet Long Service Medal went to Sgt. Christopher Bishop and Sgt. Lesley Green, Sgt. Dakota Taron received the Legion Medal of Excellence and Sgt. Lesley Green received the Lord Strathcona Medal.