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Our Amazing youth
We’ve said it in this space many times, but considering the wonderful news reported in Tiger Talk on page 8, and in Uxbridge Secondary School’s own ad on page 6, it’s certainly worth saying again: the youth of Uxbridge are fabulous. To raise $33,000 for cancer research in their first Relay for Life, more than three times their own goal when they initiated the project, is nothing short of breathtaking. Township Council was absolutely right Monday morning to take a moment to recognize the achievement.
Individually and collectively, Uxbridge’s kids do remarkable things every week. Our own pages are constant reminders of the unlimited potential they seem to possess. Just the last two issues of the Cosmos are ample evidence of what we’re saying. Last week, we featured the award-winning experiences of Grade 9 student Lauren Reid at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Los Angeles. This whiz kid has taken the renewable energy industry by storm, and stands to become very wealthy with her innovations for improving the efficiency of wind turbines. We’ll examine the science of Lauren’s ideas next week in an interview by our science writer Stan Taylor.
Also last week, we reported on the achievements of the 25 members of the Uxbridge Youth Choir, who flew into Vancouver for Music Fest Canada and flew out again with Gold and Silver to their credit. This week, starting on page 6, you can read the journal of their conductor, Jennifer Neveu-Cook, who you can almost feel choking up with joy and pride as her charges rose to a very challenging occasion.
As a vocal teacher, Jennifer has the stimulation of watching young people rise to challenges most of her working life. One of her former students, and someone who began her vocal career in an earlier incarnation of the Youth Choir under Donna van Veghel (our cooking columnist and the award-winning proprietor of Baked at Frankie’s), is Leah Speers (now Leah Daniels professionally), who as we report on page 9, is launching her first CD at the Music Hall next week. Leah is just one of a bunch of talented songbirds who’ve emerged from Scott Central Public School in Sandford (it must be the water), and she’s as gifted in her own way as Lauren Reid (and deserves to get just as rich!).
Another woman who seems to derive a lot of her seemingly endless energy by working with young people is Roxy Theatres owner Cathy Christoff. The Youth Film Festival we tell you about on page 9 is just the latest in a series of youth activities she’s championed, including Voices of Youth and the township’s unique youth service club, Roxy Kids in Action. No surprise, Cathy is heavily involved in the Youth Centre as its fundraising chair; the youth could have nobody better raising the bucks for them.
While we’re talking about amazing youth, we’d like to take this chance to thank our USS correspondents for the last four years, the initiators of Tiger Talk, Sarah Rogers and Sean Wetselaar. They’ve been a great team in contributing more than 150 columns on every topic under the sun, and they’re both moving on this fall to post-secondary programs in communications. Thank you, Sean and Sarah, for a job superby done; we’re sure it won’t be the last we hear from you.
