Steelers upset Colts /9
MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2006

Couple Preserving headed for 70th ballet anniversary /13 /24

Shelley Winters dead at 85 / 18

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MLAs mull beetle help for schools
by FRANK PEEBLES Citizen staff The cost of harvesting dead trees off school yards across the district may be picked up by government as an extraordinary event, said two Prince George MLAs. Prince George-Mount Robson MLA Shirley Bond, the province's minister of education, and Prince George Omineca MLA John Rustad, both former school trustees, said they are aware the cost of removing the trees killed by the pine beetle is being borne by School District 57 out of the building maintenance budget. So far the bill has hit about $400,000 and is expected to reach $600,000 by the time the beetle has finished chewing. "The school district has had to spend a significant portion of the money they would use for roofing, flooring, painting, all the things that keep schools in shape," Rustad said. "So should the government cover off that money? From my past experiences in the emergency situations like this, there isn't really anything in the education ministry's guidelines that spells out where the money should come from." Bond said the Ministry of Education may well be where money comes from, but it has not been put through proper scrutiny yet. "We are always open to hearing concerns," she said. "We have had some discussions with the Minister of Forests on this already, the issue has been brought to our attention, certainly, but we have a ways to go." Rustad said the issue of pine beetle infestation is similar to the seismic upgrades schools had to undergo in the Lower Mainland to safeguard against earthquakes -- perhaps making it a potential safety issue for the Solicitor General. He also wonders, since most schools in need of pine tree removal, are within city limits, if Ida Chong, the minister responsible for municipalities, might also be an option. The school district has been cutting trees on school properties since spring of last year, with at least one more major harvest to go. A number of letters and calls have been directed to the government asking them for financial help on this issue, with nothing in the way of a commitment so far.

Gun club aims for new range
by FRANK PEEBLES Citizen staff The Prince George Rod and Gun Club is expanding in a big way. Their range on Hartman Road is active with 550 members sport shooting there. This spring they will open an additional, much larger facility on Blackwater Road. This new range has been discussed within sport shooting circles, but it has not been introduced to the general public until now, according to Roy Lemcke, the club's president and one of those spearheading the development project. "We have good support from the Regional District and B.C. Lands, whom we are dealing with for the property, and we have lots of encouragement from the Canadian Firearms Centre to build it to CFC-inspected standards," said Lemcke. "We've been in the development process for the past five years. The only 1,000-metre range in the area presently is at Burns Lake, and, when we get our 1,400-metre range built, we will be the largest range in Western Canada. We are getting a lot of outside interest for this." The current home of the " ... when we PGRGC has regulation shooting alleys for shotgun trap shooting, get our small-bore and big-bore rifles, In1,400-metre ternational Sport Shooting Federation handgun, IPSC (Internation- range built, we al Practical Shooting Confederawill be the tion) handgun, black powder shooting and indoor air guns on largest range in their 100-acre campus. Western The Hartman Road facility will Canada." continue as usual, but, in a few months, the PGRGC will unveil a -- Roy Lemcke, brand new 750-acre secondary president, home near Baldy Hughes AdvenPrince George Rod tureland -- complete with a small and Gun Club mountain as one of the safety backdrops. This facility will start with an 800-metre rifle range and will quickly expand to include a 1,000-metre range and eventually a 1,400-metre range. Steve Storch, a club instructor coaching the area's shooting team for the B.C. Summer Games says the new range will open doors not only for the shooting community but for the local economy. "There are a lot of shooters in the States, especially for longrange shooting in those 1,000-metre and longer distances," said Storch. "This range holds a lot of tourism potential because these shooters are very serious about their sport and they are always looking for ranges and competitions. They will come here with their RVs and stay in hotels, injecting new dollars into the local economy by doing something a lot of local people are doing, too." Lemcke said the PGRGC stands to gain members and host more competitions with the expanded facilities, but it will also be a vital back-up plan if urban encroachment jeopardizes their Hartman Road location. Other gun clubs in B.C. have lost their place when gunfire noise became an issue for homeowners as subdivisions sprang up in the adjacent areas. The PGRGC has called Hartman Road home since 1946 and they have a lease with the city until 2014 with hopes to extend that, but the Blackwater facility gives them a contingency plan if urbanization pushes them out of their original home.

Citizen photo by Brent Braaten

THE DRAGON'S MAW -- Members of the Chinese Benevolent Society practice the Dragon Dance for a New Year's celebration next week. The event for CBS members will be Sunday at the Golden Palace restaurant.

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Fine-arts advocates sketch out strategy
Citizen staff A group of parents and teachers is gelling together hoping to push an agenda of more fine arts instruction in local schools after a meeting this past week. The group believes the more local students study musical instruments, painting, drawing, drama, singing, etc. the better they will do in their academic courses, and the better people they will be in general. The first meeting of the advocacy group was held Thursday night. The school district's fine arts co-ordinator Gerda Blok-Wilson facilitated the meeting. She said 16 parents from 10 different schools plus four music teachers attended, which they all felt was a great start to the fledgling organization. "The meeting brought out four key areas we want to focus on," Blok-Wilson said. "First we will look at maintaining programs in schools where fine arts already exist, but a lot of the parents were also focused on the big picture and want to see it expand to students in schools where they aren't getting it now, so there was discussion on building mentorship. There was discussion about looking at other districts' models, which has not been done so far. The fourth area was communication with administration and trustees in a positive way at an advisory level to help the school district toward its own goals, with a fine arts foundation." The school district has identified the priorities all staff and administration are encouraged to work toward: improvement in numeracy, literacy and social responsibility. These parents and teachers believe they have a strong case for bolstering all three of those through improvements to the fine arts in all local schools. Music and other creative skills were taught in virtually all classrooms, at one time. Now full music programming is only offered at a handful of local schools. Blok-Wilson said budget reductions began to hurt fine arts programs in earnest about 12 years ago, so now it has dwindled to only a few embers across the district. "There used to be two music co-ordinators within our district; now I'm the only one and I'm half-time and I was hired only for one year," she said. "But we have some good people in our system and we have to use them as our mentors and go on from there...I've really enjoyed being at the board office with all the specialists there in curriculum and instruction. There are great discussions and collaborations going on there all the time about the direction of education. There is a lot of action, and everybody wants to do what they do to improve numeracy, improve literacy, improve social responsibility, and to move things ahead for our students. I think fine arts is a big part of what lies ahead, because of the way it impacts students in all the other areas of their schooling." There are two essential roadblocks ahead, BlokWilson said. One is the challenge of finding and deploying specialist teachers (many of whom are still in the district teaching general subjects and could be reactivated as fine arts instructors), and the other is getting universities to restore fine arts as a priority in their teacher training programs. More parents and teachers are invited to join the advocacy group, which will be meeting again in the next few weeks. A date and location will be announced soon.
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INDEX
Annie's Mailbox . . . . . . . . 17 Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 City, B.C. . . . . 3, 5, 13, 16, 17 Classifi ed . . . . . . . . . . . 20-22 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Horoscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6, 7 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-12 World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14, 15

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