The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
There were several surprises revealed during a February 3rd monthly assembly held in the Gordon R. Doak Gymnasium at J.H. Kerr School. They included, but were not limited to, the presentation of several banners and a strong indication from school staff of the lengths they will go to in order to convince children to take up reading. The first banner presentation involved one that had been announced last month (2003 Manitoba Hydro PowerSmart Sportsmanship Award for Volleyball), but put off until this assembly, because of the importance of the award. Teacher and coach Alan Beilman was asked to speak first and introduce his team. He stated an obvious pride in his young charges and extolled the enormity of their accomplishments. He then told a story about how some time back they had beat out a team from R.D. Parker Collegiate in Thompson. "That team was picked from a high school with over 1,000 students, J.H. Kerr has 85 high school students," said Beilman. He added that after the win, a girl from Thompson was heard to say that the R.D. Parker team had just been beat by a team from the "bush". He noted that for a team from the "bush", J. H. Kerr had quite a few banners in their rafters. Following Beilman's address, Principal Dean Elliott offered up his congratulations while concurring with the sentiments expressed by Beilman. With that out of the way, Ken Sul of Manitoba Hydro spoke on the background of the award and then, while acknowledging each team member individually, made the presentation. The team was nominated for the award by referees at the Provincial Volleyball Championships, which were held last fall in Landmark, Manitoba. Some of the criterion for the achievement includes positive team behaviour and the collective attitude the girls displayed on and off the court at this tournament. The other presentation that took place during the gathering was the awarding of the banner for the Zone 11, MHSAA Curling Championship. The school's Senior Girls team of skip: Jacqueline Borchardt, 3rd: Tyne Campbell, 2nd: Jennifer Rolles, lead: Sara Ladaceur, and 5th: Allison Klyne were victors in the event, which was held in Snow Lake over this past weekend. As well as adding another zone banner to the ceiling of the gym, the team, along with their coach Marlene Gingera, will be traveling down to the Provincial Championship, which will be held in Gimli from March 4 to 6. In addition to the awards, the assembly included some fine entertainment by Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 3, and Grade 4 students and an interesting PowerPoint presentation on a Grades 7 and 8 music and photography project entitled "MOODS". Principal Elliott closed out the assembly by officially kicking off February as, "I Love To Read Month". In doing so, he announced that if the students of the school could meet a month long challenge that would have them read books to gain points, all school staff would do something "out of character" in return. This comprised of everything from taking a pie in the face to a male teacher wearing earrings for a week. To a chorus of whoops and hearty laughter, Elliott himself declared that he would shave his head. When, and if, the agreed to 3,000 points are attained, pies will fly and hair will be dyed, styled, and in Elliott's case, worn a little closer to the wood.
