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The Prince George
Citizen
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18,1986 40 CENTS
School team sponsors? 3 'Regiments too white' 9 Perreault packs it in 13
......26,27
..........9
City, B.C........... ...2,3,10,11
Show still 'go' for Snowbirds .
An accident involving two Canadian Armed Forces Snowbirds planes has not affected plans for the team of precision flyers to perform at the Vanderhoof International Airshow next month.
“They still will be coming to Vanderhoof,” said airshow spokesman Jacquie Roth. The Snowbirds are scheduled to perform twice during the July 5 and 6 weekend.
The Snowbirds performed as scheduled Tuesday after two of their planes brushed each other en route to an airshow in Alberta.
Capt. Bob Curran of Courtenay, B.C., who ejected safely after his plane touched another Tutor jet, was in satisfactory condition in hospital.
Curran’s Canadair-built trainer was destroyed when it crashed into the Great Sand Hills, about 200 kilometres southwest of Moose Jaw, said Capt. Tony Paquin, information officer at the Snowbird’s base.
Curran, the narrator and co-ordinator of the Snowbirds’ show, was picked up by brothers Rick and Bill Toney of Gull Lake, Sask., who were working their fields when they saw his parachute.
The other Snowbird, piloted by Capt. Gino Tessier of Joliette, Que., sustained only minor damage and continued on to Medicine Hat, Alta, for the show.
No reason for the accident will be released until an investigation is completed, said Jocelyn Cloutier, another spokesman at CFB Moose Jaw.
. . .and in tomorrow's Citizen. ..
Thursday, you’ll read about how the Sikh community is changing in this country.
Also planned:
■ Developments in trade with the U.S.
■ Money experts: do they practise what they preach?
Tiny fingers, big ideas
by BEV CHRISTENSEN Staff reporter
Mini-typists could soon be flooding the job market.
Although that’s not the aim of a project begun at Vanway elementary school, students there are being taught typing skills as early as Grade 1.
The idea of having classes of mini-typists was developed after it was found the introduction of computers into the homes and primary and elementary classes has resulted in students developing bad typing habits, which were very hard to break when they began typing lessons in secondary school.
The Grade 1 students at Vanway elementary are introduced to typing using paper keyboards on which they’re shown which finger to use for for each key, said school principal Mark Cramer.
By Grade 4, students attend typing classes using both electric typewriters and computers. The goal is to have them accurately typing 15 words per minute by the end of the year, says Grade 4 typing teacher, Virginia Harris.
Inter-school co-operation and community initiative led to the computer lab being established at Vanway elementary.
At very little expense the school was able to obtain 10 older-style typewriters being discarded by the school district.
Twenty more typewriters which were not being used at College Heights secondary school were then moved into the Vanway computer lab.
Terry Ryan, principal of College Heights secondary, says the requirement that secondary-school students take more academic subjects has meant fewer of his students were able to work typing classes into their schedules. As a result, the school had too many typewriters for its needs and decided to loan the 20 typewriters to nearby Vanway elementary.
Six Apple-compatible computers have also been installed in the computer lab. Four were provided by the school district under a recent computer acquisition program, the local community association provided the fifth computer and the sixth was purchased with money raised by parents of students in the school.
The students are using an instructional program, Keyboarding for Elementary Students, developed by two secondary business instructors and an elementary teacher during the summer of 1985.
“We are one of the first schools to make extensive use of the program in a lab situation,” Cramer said.
Vanway teachers have attended workshops to learn how to instruct the students and then book their classes into the lab on a first-come, first-serve basis. Since the program began earlier this year the classes have been averaging three periods per week, Cramer said.
The computers are also used to assist students who need extra help with subjects such as English and math.
TYPISTS START YOUNG HERE
TIGHT SCHEDULE
by BEV CHRISTENSEN Staff reporter
Cancellation of the school bus service from Aleza Lake and Sinclair Mills to Upper Fraser elementary has left nine students stranded.
During their meeting Tuesday. School District 57 trustees decided to discontinue the school bus service after being told only nine students are expected to use the service in September.
At the beginning of the 1985-66 school term, 28 students were being transported to school by the bus. Annual cost of the service is $47,990.
Parents of the nine children affected by the school board’s decision to cancel the service are not
ave a handicapped child who is 10 and it will be a disaster if I have to put her on correspondence (courses),” said Linda Hailey, a widow with two children who lives in Sinclair Mills.
“I leave for work at 6:15 a.m. and that’s too early to take her to school. I have to work to support my children.”
But trustees thought a projected cost of $5,332 per student to trans-rt the nine children to school in jptember was too high.
Trustees Adrienne Radford and Gordon Ingalls opposed the deci-
sion and Trustee Bob Holtbv asked that the matter be reconsidered in September when the actual number of students who would use the bus was known.
The five families affected by the decision will be eligible for the district’s transportation assistance of 30-cents per family per day plus 13-cents per kilometre for two return trips to the school each school day. The maximum amount of transportation assistance the board will pay each family is $6.30 a day.
If all the families accept the assistance it will cost the district a total of $5,885 a year and result in a saving of $42,105 annually, trustees were told.
Following the meeting, Hailey said the parents are considering approaching the board with an alternative proposal for providing transportation to the school.
“If all these students go on correspondence next year, the Upper Fraser school could be closed,” she said.
Citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch
Selena Wagner, a Grade 4 student at Vanway elementary, concentrates on her copy during typing class.
Trade talks
'going well'
by BRIAN BUTTERS Southam News WASHINGTON - Chief Canadian negotiator Simon Reisman put a happv face on chances for a comprehensive free trade agreement with the United States as negotiating teams for the two countries completed their first day of substantive talks Tuesday.
“I think the meeting argues well for the prospects of eventually getting an agreement,” Reisman told
'MiniWAC'
delivers swan song
by Canadian Press VICTORIA (CP) — Barring an emergency summer session, Bill Bennett walked out of the British Columbia legislature Tuesday knowing he probably will never enter that chamber again as premier.
Bennett J|g|^ announced late v
last month he is 1
resigning as par- T
ty leader — and \
therefore as pre-mier — later this summer. He it ^-jfer plans to continue ■ L M\ sitting as the f ■ j
member for Oka-nagan South until bennett the next provincial election.
After sitting for 53 days since March 11, the fourth session of the 33rd legislative assembly adjourned Tuesday until the government decides to recall it.
One of the last items debated was the spending estimates for the
Rremier’s office, and Bennett used le occasion to deliver a reflective farewell speech touching on his decade in office.
"I’m going to miss the debate in the legislature,” Bennett told reporters afterwards.
“Some of the most intense debate, in restrospect, was the most enjoyable — it’s an experience that you really can’t describe to people unless you’ve been in it.
“But that part may be over for me,” said Bennett, who will run the province as premier until he hanas over the job to his successor following the July 28-30 Social Credit leadership convention.
During his speech in the house, Bennett jokingly invited the Opposition to call him ;11 those nasty names one last tinK for old times sake.
He listed some of them: MiniWAC (a reference to his father,-the late premier W. A. C. Bennett), dictator, wimp, Three-Dollar-Bill, a leader who cannot control his cabinet and never listens to his ministers and backbench, and head of a jackboot government.
“Please, one more time before I go I’d like to hear those words,” Bennett said.
Proceedings in the legislature had been overshadowed by Expo 86 since the world’s fair opened May 2 in Vancouver. The Socred leadership race — with four cabinet ministers and three backbenchers among the candidates — also drew attention away from the house.
The NDP surprised and embarrassed the government by winning a 21-19 vote in committee of supply last Thursday.
The procedural coup did not bring aown the government, but prodded its scattered members to return to Victoria for a motion — passed Tuesday — to nullify the earlier vote.
reporters after he and other Canadian negotiators conducted an allday negotiating session with his U.S. counterpart, Peter Murphy, and the American team.
“I think things are going very well. What I like especially is that we view the whole enterprise not as a sort of a contest between us, but as a co-operative enterprise in which we’re going to try to make a bigger pie out of which both countries can benefit.”
Reisman said the two negotiating teams “are getting to know eacn other and understand each other. The background is very co-operative.”
They meet again today for a second session in Washington. Similar two- or three-day sessions are planned on a monthly basis over the summer.
“We’ll be planning at these meetings our work for the ensuing meetings in July, August and September,” Reisman said. “That will enable us to have a first run at all the issues. Where need be, we’ll establish some working parties and things of that sort.”
Both sides have agreed to a news blackout and Reisman refused to release any details.
“I’d like very much to talk to you, but you can’t really negotiate under the floodlights,” he said.
Reisman made reference to the tight schedule the negotiators are on in order to complete their work before “fast-track authorization expires. Any other method of getting a negotiated agreement ratified by Congress is considered impossible.
“There’s no question whatever that we can, within the time frame available under fast track, if we work diligently and we work cooperatively as we’ve started, we can make an agreement.”
The fast-track authorization expires at the end of 1987. A negotiated agreement would have to be submitted to Congress at least three months before then to beat the deadline.
Reisman said individual trade irritants are going to continue to come up as the negotiations proceed.
“You can’t say ‘stop the world, I want to get off,”’ he said.
“The world goes on. We’re going ahead in a very co-operative spirit and I’m very encouraged by what we’ve talked about.”
Service union back at work
The pickets are down and maintenance workers with the British Columbia Housing Management Commission are back on the job after a one-day strike Tuesday.
Hank Hackett, administrator of the Service Employees International Union, Local 244, said the union had to activate its strike mandate, which expires in about a week.
But he said if negotiators cannot reach an agreement on the outstanding issue of contracting out, further job action is likely.
No meetings between the union and the commission were scheduled as of this morning. Contract talks broke down two weeks ago when the SEIU asked the mediator to book out.
The workers want protection from the contracting out of maintenance work to outside firms.
John Leman, general manager of the Crown corporation, said the commission agreed to provide that protection, but Hackett said the offer did not go far enough.
SPATSIZI PARK MYSTERY
Fire-bomb clues checked
getting this cake out of the oven!"
by ARNOLD OLSON Staff reporter
Several leads now being followed by Dease Lake RCMP could lead to someone getting a $5,000 reward offered by the Forests Ministry for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a fire bomber.
A reward was being offered for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons thought to have started 10 forest fires in the Spatsizi Wilderness Park by flying over the area and dropping some sort of fire-starting device.
Of the 10 fires, the last one was found Monday. Paul Pashnik, Prince Rupert regional forest protection officer, said the fire was smouldering for about 10 days before it was spotted.
Five of the fires burned out by themselves, but the five that had to be fought have been costly because they were in some of the most difficult places in which to work.
Pashnik estimated the fire-fight-
ing costs at $150,000 and said the $200,000 mark will be passed before the fires are mopped up.
Two of the 10 fires — Monday’s and one found Friday are still burning out of control in the park, 300 kilometres north of Smithers.
One fire has covered 60 hectares and the other 65. Fortunately, the two are close together and even though the same men and equipment can’t be used, at least supply systems aren’t separated.
About 50 firefighters and four helicopters are fighting the fires.
Pashnik said investigations led him to believe the fires were set by an incendiary device, such as a flare dropped from an aircraft.
In the past, the Prince George Forest Region has had cases of incendiarism caused by people trying to create or improve cattle or wildlife range areas, or by unemployed people trying to create jobs.
Pashnik would not guess which type of person set these fires.
i
“We’ve never had a problem like this before. It’s the first encounter.”
People in the area — guides, vacationers, trappers, prospectors — are asked to report any airplane they’ve seen in the area recently. Finding out whether any such aircraft were equipped with floats or wheels, or if helicopter were seen, could help the RCMP in its investigations, he said.
“We’re really concerned about this. This is a vast region which has long-term potential for timber.”
The valley, in the upper reaches of the Stikine River, is 16 kilometres wide and 160 kilometres long and is about 160 kilometres from the nearest road access.
“That’s one heck of a distance,” Pashnik said.
“If a fire got out of control in there, it could bum all summer long because it takes days to access almost any area.”
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