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The achievments of youth
There must be something in the Uxbridge air.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been telling you about some pretty remarkable local young people. Actually, on May 6, many of them told you about themselves, in our special section on the Victory in Europe Tour being undertaken by 65 students from Uxbridge Secondary School. That section was written before they left. This week, on pages 7 and 11, they report on their experiences over there. After getting a very close look at exactly what Canadian soldiers and airmen achieved in the World Wars, we suspect that the Uxbridge branch of the Royal Canadian Legion will continue to attract more members from their midst, bucking the national trend that Harry Stemp talks about on page 5.
On April 29, on our cover, we told you about an ingenious computer scientist named Andrew Schoenrock, raised right here at USS, who helped develop a program to map the interactions of proteins, which may ultimately pave the way for breakthroughs in the fight against some major diseases. That’s pretty heady stuff. If Andrew started to tell most of us about how the program works, we’d be dizzy in a matter of moments. But it’s very important work; the kid could win a Nobel Prize some day. A lot of computer geeks learn how to design computer games. Not Andrew. He wants to save lives.
This week, our cover story’s about another lover of math and technology. While most of us this past weekend were basking in the sun and taxing our brains no further than trying to keep track of how long to keep the burgers on the grill, Peter Coughlin was working feverishly at the RIM Park in Waterloo, surrounded by dozens of other dedicated trades apprentices. He’d been given a complex problem out of the blue, and had 12 hours to complete it. That’s one tough problem, tough enough that not even half of the competitors even finished the job, let alone did it correctly and creatively.
Peter not only did a better job than any of the other plumbing apprentices, he got higher marks than any of the carpenters or masons or cooks or painters or auto mechanics. Again, that’s pretty amazing, a remarkable accomplishment for a graduate of a school which doesn’t exactly have the best-equipped technology shops in the country. Peter credits his teachers and employers. But maybe it’s also that rare air.
We think, considering all the wonderful young people we’ve told you about in the last five years, there should be some sort of public recognition that forever throws in shadow the bad apples that tend to get way too much of the ink. How about a Mayor’s Medal, that could be awarded to a select number of people under the age of 25 each year, people who’ve achieved marvellous things in sports or science or the arts, or have contributed in other ways, like raising money for charity or maybe even saving somebody’s life? The criteria could be totally wide open.
Uxbridge has a right to be proud of these young people, but we shouldn’t be so shy about showing it. Let’s give them the spotlight they deserve.
