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The Citizen, 2012-11-22, Page 1CitizenTh e $1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, November 22, 2012 Volume 28 No. 46 MEDALS - Pg. 16Residents honoured withJubilee medals FESTIVAL - Pg. 27Resident wants Festivalrun by committeePARKING- Pg. 14Blyth parking signs to beremovedPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK: Awards should continue despite school closures Eaglesmith concert to kick off season Light the lights! Saturday night was a busy one in Blyth as a 12-hour Dance-A-Thon was held at Memorial Hall to benefit the Blyth Legion’s building fund. The event raised over $2,500 and it led right into the Blyth tradition of the lighting of the lights. At 6:30 p.m. the Blyth United Church Choir, seen above, began the evening, led by Floyd Herman, left, before the lights were officially turned on at 7 p.m. (Jim Brown photo) Early Tuesday morning a tentative agreement was reached between the Avon Maitland District School Board and its OSSTF secondary teachers and occasional teachers. As a result of this tentative agreement sanctions by these employee groups have been lifted in Avon Maitland Secondary schools. The deal is subject to Minister of Education approval and ratification by both parties. No details will be released until that time. Negotiations are continuing for OSSTF-OCTEA and OSSTF-PSSP representing office, clerical, technical workers, educational assistants, early childhood educators and professional student services staff and these two employee groups have agreed to pause their sanctions at all schools. In summary, there will be no job sanctions this week by any members of the OSSTF at any Avon Maitland Schools as a result of a tentative agreement with secondary and occasional teachers and continuing negotiations with the OSSTF support staff. The Avon Maitland District School Board (AMDSB) has assured community members that many secondary school awards will continue to be handed out despite the closure of several local public schools. The conversation began late last year when Blyth’s John Elliott contacted Mike Ash, the board’s superintendent of education, regarding the future of the Norman Parks Garrett Memorial Scholarship. Since 1989 the scholarship has been presented to students from Blyth graduating from Central Huron Secondary School. The award was last handed out earlier this year. Since the award’s inception, Ash said in a series of e-mails written back to Elliott, it has been presented to students who met all three of the award’s criteria. First, the student must be a resident of Blyth. Second, the student must be a graduate of Central Huron Secondary School and third the student must be pursuing post-secondary education, including apprenticeship, college or university. While Elliott was originally concerned about the future of the award, Ash says that the award, while it is tied to Blyth, has no official connection to Blyth Public School, meaning that the school’s closure will not change any of the award’s criteria. “Given that the criteria do not require attendance at Blyth Public School, we will not need to consider any changes to the award criteria after the closure of Blyth Public School,” Ash wrote in one e-mail. In an interview with The Citizen, Ash said Blyth’s situation is not new, as schools have been closed throughout the board’s boundaries before and if an award has been tied to a school that closed, the wording has often been changed to encapsulate a geographical boundary similar to the school’s former enrolment boundary. That decision, however, is made by the sponsor of the award, he said. The only thing the school does is choose who the award will go to, Ash said. The criteria for the award is set by the award’s sponsor. Norman Parks Garrett was a life- long teacher, beginning at the secondary level at Blyth Continuation School before it closed and students were transferred to Clinton District Collegiate. Ash said the difficulty in recent years has been that many award sponsors are now deceased, making it harder and harder to track down those responsible for awards being handed out at area schools. An example of a local award with an uncertain future is the Brussels Community Development Trust Scholarship, which is awarded at F.E. Madill Secondary School and St. Anne’s Catholic Secondary School every year. The award stipulates that the winner has to be a graduate of Brussels Public School, which was closed last spring. Ash says the future of the award will have to be determined by the award’s sponsor, which in the case of the Brussels Community Development Trust Scholarship, is the committee representing the former Village of Brussels. Keith Mulvey, a representative of Fred Eaglesmith, the Canadian singer/songwriter whose songs were at the heart of last year’s Blyth Festival runaway hit Dear Johnny Deere, will be kicking off next year’s Festival season in style on the Memorial Hall stage. On Saturday, May 25, two weeks before the Dear Johnny Deere remount takes the stage, Eaglesmith will be in Blyth performing on the Memorial Hall stage. The concert is the brainchild of Eaglesmith’s promotional team and Blyth Festival General Manager Deb Sholdice who says an Eaglesmith concert could be mutually beneficial. Tickets for the show went on sale on Nov. 13 right after it was finalized. Customers can buy them by calling the Blyth Festival box office at 1-877-862-5984 or online at www.blythfestival.com “[Eaglesmith’s] people were quite excited about the remount,” Sholdice said in an interview with The Citizen. “They had actually hoped to do something like this last year, but Fred’s touring schedule didn’t allow it.” Sholdice says the event will be a great kick-off to the season and a great way to introduce the Blyth Festival audience to the man behind the music. She says that people who saw Dear Johnny Deere last year, or who are hoping to see it this year during its limited two-week run, are probably interested in where the play’s songs came from. The Dear Johnny Deere project began as a concept of playwright Ken Cameron, who had previously penned Harvest for the Blyth Festival. Cameron was introduced to Eaglesmith’s music and said he had never heard such perfectly crafted stories within the confines of a song before and he immediately began working on a script where he would craft a story around the songs of Eaglesmith. The play went on to be a huge hit for the Festival and achieved both critical and financial success. However, because of the casting that needed to take place, the show could not be shown in repertory, leading to a shorter run than Festival’s fans are used to, Sholdice said, leaving many members of the Festival audience with not enough time to see the show. That was behind the decision to remount the play, in addition to its huge success. “We’re hoping to cross-pollinate our audiences,” Sholdice said. “We want to introduce the Blyth Festival audience to Fred and we want to introduce Fred’s fans to the theatre.” The Eaglesmith show will hit the stage just days before the Dear Johnny Deere remount takes over for dress rehearsals. The Dear Johnny Deere remount will run from June 11 to 22. The Festival is also currently running a cross-promotion between the concert and the play and when someone buys a ticket for the Eaglesmith show, which is $25 per ticket, they can buy a ticket to any performance of Dear Johnny Deere they would like for an additional $25, meaning tickets for both can be purchased for $50, tax included. For more information on the show, call the Blyth Festival at 1-877-862- 5984 or visit them online at www.blythfestival.com By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Teachers’ deal in place, board will avoid job sanctions Continued on page 26 By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen