7 16 RMG April 21st 2016

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The Rocky Mountain Goat News PM42164515 Serving Valemount, McBride & the Robson Valley since 2010. Locally owned & operated.

Thursday April 21st, 2016

Volume 7 Issue 16

Dunster school mortgage paid off

1st place B.C.-Yukon, 3rd in Canada *See A4

By LAURA KEIL

Early wildfire season

A12

Little info on outages A10 Listings on P15!

Prince George

521 Main pros and cons

A05 & A06

Photo by Laura Keil Chantal Swets and Pete Amyoony, two of the Dunster Fine Arts School Society members hold up their fundraising sign which now reaches the top. The Society has had to raise close to $1000 a month for the past six years in order to cover mortgage payments and operational expenses.

MCFC survey results released A08

Margaret remembered A02

Enter Draw for Basket from April 21 - May 5 when you bring in used ink or OR Shop with your own bag batteries or your own bag We accept used we need your help to ba�eries & printer ink phase out plastic bags

On the sill of a Dunster Schoolhouse classroom window, several potted plants lean towards the sun. Their plantlets hang down searching for a place to root. It’s not so much the miracle that these plants thrive – fed and watered by the hands of volunteers and community members who happen to check on them – but the miracle that they are inside these walls. This month, the Dunster Fine Arts School Society will send the final mortgage payment to the school district for the purchase of the school. Six years ago, the Prince George School District voted to shut down the K-7 Dunster Fine Arts School and send its 27 students to McBride or Valemount elementary schools. The two-room schoolhouse had once had as many as 50 children in its walls. The district cited low enrolment and the benefit those children would have in McBride and Valemount schools which were dipping in enrolment. Dunster enrollment itself had held steady at around 30 students for the previous decade. In light of the school district’s decision, community members staged a sit-in where they occupied the school for five days. The school district sought a Supreme Court injunction which ordered them to leave or face arrest. During the sit-in, the Dunster Fine Arts School Alive was born which later became the Dunster Fine Arts School Society. The Society collected more than 100 memberships that summer. That fall, seven students attended homeschooling classes in a bus and canvas tents outside the school building. In October 2010, the Society purchased the building and 3-acre property from the school district after eight months of negotiations. The school district told the Society that if they found 20 new children Cont’d on A07

Valemount Glacier Destinations A09 considered Refill and Save $ with

Simply Clean Laundry Detergent & Rocky Mountain Soaps’ Shampoo

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7 16 RMG April 21st 2016 by The Rocky Mountain Goat News - Issuu