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THURSDAY, MAY 18,2000 THE NEW TANNER t GRAP Spirited students Students, teachers and staff hoed, hauled, pulled, planted and cleaned up their under-construction millen- nium garden at Acton High School on Friday. The reclamation project has gen- erated generous donations of time. talents and goods from the commu- nity and teacher Norbert Axtmann said the great turnout shows a lot of school spirit with teacher advisory groups. "We told the kids that they could take off and go to Tim Hortons or stay and get together as a team and already there are a bunch of kids out there -- these students and society are greening up and maybe once a month we'll go out and take care of our piece of turf," Axtmann said. Cinderella story Kudos to Acton's Kyra Parker, 11, who is dancing with the National Bal- let of Canada in a walk-on role in Cinderella at the Hummingbird Cen- tre in Toronto. Kyra, who attended the National Ballet School this year after being one of those chosen in cross-Canada au- ditions, is now waiting to hear if she'll be invited back for a second year. While understandably thrilled and very proud of Kyra's accomplish- ments, mom Karen said Kyra was picked for the Cinderella role -- she's one of two angels in the wedding scene at the end -- because of her height. : "She was short and it was cast strictly by height, so she was lucky and it might not have been her talent that got her there -- but she's there." Kyra has already made two per- formances and-has four more before Cinderella wraps up on Sunday -- a performance that will be attended by family, friends and Suzanne Keith, Kyra's Acton ballet teacher. FoodShare board openings Interested in having a say in the operation of FoodShare, Acton's food bank? FoodShare is holding its annual general meeting next Thurs- day (May 25) at 2p.m. at St. Alban's Church and is asking for new volun- teers, not so much with the day-to- _day operations but in a governance role. "We have a minimum of four meet- ings per year," said FoodShare treas- urer Eileen Dix, adding the right board member -- they need three -- is some- one who cares for the community. FoodShare served an average of 60 families a month last year -- main- taining record high levels of use. While the exact number of hungry people fed and the amount of food and donations aren't available until the general meeting, Dix said it was a good year. "Acton is extremely generous, without us having to solicit, and the Scout-Guide food drive fills our 'shelves so while the use of the food bank fluctuates, we've never turned anyone away." Lake cleanup The Friends of Fairy Lake are look- ing for volunteers to help with a cleanup of the lake and shore areas in Prospect Park, slated for Sat. May 2 Last year's cleanup was a great success and organizers have help this year from the Ministry of Natural Re- sources and Credit Valley Conserva- tion. Three groups have been set up to clean different areas of the lake and anyone who wants to help should show up at 9 a.m. at the Legion, the bridge by the tennis courts, or at the end of Elmore Street. Super Book Olympics Acton kids aged 6 to 1 lare invited to take part in the Super Book Olym- pics at Acton Baptist Church on the first three Sundays in June. The intent is to have fun and teach the kids about the Bible with a quiz master who will asking skill-testing questions that the kids have to an- swer at home with the help of a Bible or an adult and Acton High School students are organizing some games. The program runs from 9:30 to 10:45 a.m., on June 4, 11 and 18. For details, or-to register call Beth at 853- 0638. i And many more... A belated Happy Birthday to Ac- ton's Don Ryder who celebrated his 80th birthday at the Legion on Satur- day afternoon. Best know for his affable charac- ter, his southpaw pitches and 30 years as ad manager with the Acton Free Press/, Ryder was surrounded by friends and family at a fete arranged by his son David, from Edmonton. Ryder was the star pitcher as Acton took the 1947 Ontario Base- ball Association Intermediate provin- cial championship. fs \ / Bl a Recognition of Excellence better than vandalism Dear Editor, I was very happy to see your rec- ognition of Trisha Bingeman as Robert Little's Student of Excellence. Such an award is indeed quite an ac- complishment which goes beyond either academic or athletic accom- plishment, and Trisha should be con- gratulated. I was surprised that as journalists your community paper failed to in- vestigate who the other local schools honoured as their Student of Excel- lence at the same ceremony. Although I find that the Tanner routinely fails. to recognize the accomplishments of your rural schools (Limehouse Pub- lic School, Stewarttown Middle School and Brookville Public School), who have many students attending that consider their home town to be - Acton, I was very surprised that on this occasion you also missed the accomplishments of students at both Acton High School and MS Bennett Public School. I would hope the Acton Tanner would spend more time giving posi- tive recognition to these accom- plished students than they give to the negative actions of a few van- dals in Acton. Ross Pezzack PS. Biased? Iam biased and proud to be, because my son Darren was one of those Students of Excellence! Editor's Note: The material for Students of Excellence comes from the Halton Board of Education. It is published when The New Tanner has access to it. We expect to receive more material soon. FIRST HOLY COMMUNICANTS: Grade 2 students from St. : f SES se . Joseph's School celebrated Holy Mass for the first time April 30 at their first communion. The students include, front, from left: Steven Okroukh, Katie Heelis, Hilary Raats, Amy Brierley, Lora-Lyn Slama, Arawa Papineau, Chloe Salt, Amanda Popp and Jacob Dougan. Second row: Jamie Campbell, Christopher Dunlop, Katelyn Jordan, Brandon Masini, Sarah Nicholson, Matthew Kutasienski, Nicole Poloz, Andrew Grabauskas and Michael Hachey. Third row: Kevin Cox, Phillip Conlin, Michelle Kupa, Charlotte DeSouza, Carli Bishop, Jennifer MacDonald, Jessica Vlietstra, Steven Slowka and Ellis Lavallee. Back: Samantha McLelland, Katarina Osterman, Matthew Plickert, Matthew Nascimento, Evan McMeekin, Taylor Kendrick, Samantha Briand and Mary DeRabbie.-- Submitted photo a Tired of vandalism? Drop a dime. Make the call. Let the cops know what's going on. That's the mes- sage I took away from last week's meeting between the BIA, the Citi- zens Consultation Committee (CCC), several interested citizens and the police. Elsewhere in The New Tanner, ace reporter Frances Niblock will supply you with all the details of the vandalism meeting. The bottom line, though, should come as no surprise to anyone. If you see or hear a disturbance, call police at the number above. In fact, I encour- age everyone to clip this telephone number out and tape it to your tel- ephone. If we all get involved the incidents of unruly behaviour and vandalism will drop off dramati- cally. And our town will be the bet- ter for it. Obviously, the 7,000 or so pairs of eyes of our citizens know what's going on. Why wouldn't we share that information with the people we hire and expect to protect us? Some folks might be thinking "I won't rat out to the police." C'mon, let's be adults. These are our homes we are talking about not some juvenile prank. Vandalism costs taxpayers thousands of dollars per year. Those vandalized pay more thou- sands out of their own pockets. vulgar, unruly behaviour disturbs the peace and quiet we all desire. Why would we put up with this nonsense when we can help curb it with a simple phone call? Let me make one thing clear here. Your call may not get an im- mediate response. The police might be busy elsewhere. Calls are graded according to the seriousness of the event reported. All calls are logged in, however, so just reporting the incident will help the police iden- tify any "hot spot." Then the po- lice brass can look at extra pro-ac- tive policing activities. : Some people may not want to "get involved." To those I say that \ you'll quickly change your tune if 878-5511 The Way I See It |; with | Mike O'Leary it's your house or car that is dam- aged. At that time, don't you dare say "Why haven't the police stopped these people?" In this case you are your brothers' keeper. Vandals and the other miscreants who skulk and prowl through the night are cowards. They' ll continue only as long as we, the people, allow them to. Your silence only encour- ages them to continue. Your co-op- eration with the police will send a clear message that wanton destruc- tion and ignorant activity will not be tolerated. It's our town. Will we continue to turn a blind eye when some idiot fouls where we live? I won't. How about you? Kk KK I can't believe they did it. I can't believe the Tories actually introduced legislation to force teachers to con- duct extra-curricular activities. What happened to "common sense?" I tried to think this through. What could the real agenda be? Are all teachers being forced to pay because the teachers in Durham have with- held extra curricular activities for the past two years? This is in Education Minister Janet Ecker's riding. Surely, we aren't being put through this ex- ercise because Madame Minister is throwing a hissy fit over pressure from constituents. But then, we are talking politics here. Are the Tories trying to provoke the teachers out on strike? Most, if not all, teacher contracts are up this summer. Could the Tories be hoping public opinion would be on their side thus allowing the government to leg- islate away the teachers' right to _ But never, in the hundreds ofcon- | ° ~ sttike?: a Machiavellian proposal, to be sure, but not one which should be overlooked. As a parent who fought with the school board, administrators and a few teachers over my chidren's education these past twenty-odd years, I believe changes to the education system were necessary. Most teachers will tell you there was too much dupli- cation and waste in the system. versations and meetings I have at- tended, has the subject of order- ing teachers to coach school teams come up. That's what leads me to believe there's more to this than meets the eye. believe, unless the Tories back down, that there will be a teach- ers' strike this fall. That will be a tragedy for the kids and for the majority of teachers who only want to be in class. For the kids in the new, compacted four year high school program a protracted strike will be especially difficult. My fear is that the personali- ties involved on both the govern- ment and union side will not give in to each other. Neither wants to be seen as losing. The real losers, as usual, will be the kids and the front line teachers. A pox on all the houses of the leaders who are imitating churlish children in this crisis rather than providing en- lightened leadership. KKK Lastly, don't you wish people who object to Finance Minister Eaves returning up to $200 to us would just shut-up? If you want to donate your share to a hospital, a school, the Food Bank, the home- less, whatever - great. Please do so. Please don't tell me what I should be doing with mine. It's none of your business. For the record: I intend to blow most of my $200 on wine, women and song. The rest I'm going to spend foolishly. WHAT'S VOUR REEF? Put it in a letter to the Editor! Deadline is Tuesday at noon.