THURSDAY, september 12, 2019 Vol. A-75, No. 37
Serving Fort St. John, B.C. and Surrounding Communities
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Silver Spitfire expedition pilots Ian Smith (left) and Steve Brookes at the North Peace Region Airport, Sept. 5, 2019.
Spitfire expedition makes stop in Fort St. John matt preprost editor@ahnfsj.ca
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A restored British fighter plane from the Second World War landed in Fort St. John Thursday, Sept. 5, en route to Alaska and on a global jet-setting journey celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force. The Silver Spitfire expedition touched down in Fort St. John 33 days and 6,450 miles into its 27,000-mile mission. British pilots are flying the newly restored original Mk IX Spitfire
as part of a four-month trek circumnavigating the globe. “The scenery is beautiful here, it’s God’s country. It was a fantastic day,” said pilot Steve Brookes. The plane left Britain six weeks ago, and also made stops in Kelowna and Williams Lake last Thursday. The next stop was Alaska, and the expedition was scheduled to spend a night in Whitehorse, with stops in Fort Nelson and Watson Lake last Friday. The Spitfire being flown in the expedition was made in
Castle Bromwich in 1943 by British manufacturers Vickers Supermarine Ltd., and flew more than 51 missions, according to the expedition website. Brookes and Jones found the jet sitting in museum storage and began restoring it in 2017, piece by piece over two years before unveiling it to the public this spring. “The decision to fly the Silver Spitfire around the world was an instinctive one to honour the plane’s history, the people who built, maintained
and flew it through more than 50 missions, and we want to commemorate those who lost their lives in the pursuit of freedom,” said pilot Matt Jones, who launched the expedition with Brookes. “It’s going to be exciting to bring the Spitfire back to many of the places it has served and to fly it for audiences who will see this beautiful and historic machine for the very first time.” Follow the expedition at silverspitfire.com.
Heather Hannaford to be honoured in new school matt preprost editor@ahnfsj.ca
Fort St. John’s new elementary school will recognize the important work and legacy of a long-time trustee and supporter of the local arts. The School District 60 board of education announced Monday that the music room at Anne Roberts Young School will be named after Heather Hannaford. Hannaford was a school trustee for nearly three decades, was a founding member of both the North Peace Potters’ Guild and the Fort St. John Community Arts Council, and was instrumental in helping to establish the North Peace Cultural Centre after two referendums. She died of cancer in December 2016. Hannaford “was a great advocate for public education, supporting the arts in schools and our community,” board chair Ida Campbell said in a statement. “She was a very talented artist herself
and was known provincial wide for her passion for keeping the fine arts in public education. Heather leaves a legacy of amazing work she did for schools in our district and community.” Hannaford was born in 1941 in Wales, and came to Canada in 1965. She found her way to the Peace region after getting a job driving a van for the Anglican Church,
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where one of the stops was the Hannaford Ranch. There, she met her future husband John, whom she married in 1966. Hannaford, along with Edna Adlard and Vonnie Dixon, established the first pottery studio in Taylor in 1968. Hannaford taught pottery at Northern Lights College in the early 1980s until the program was shut down. Through her work as a trustee, Hannaford advocated for French immersion, sports, fine arts, project-based learning, combined classrooms, scholarships, and the Cameron Lake outdoor education site. Hannaford also had a great love of music, and was adamant children should have some sort of musical education. She regularly attended and volunteered for the Performing Arts Festival and often helped the adjudicators with their notes on the performances. It was this love of music that led to the creation of the Heather Hannaford Music Award, given annually to a student at North Peace Secondary School.
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