INAND AROUND: SNOWRIDGE ELEMENTARY | SCHOOL FAMILY LIFE PROGR PROGRAM PARENT ORIENTATION In. conjunction with Cassiar Secondary School, we hosted an orientation meeting for parents for the new Family Life Program which has been mandated for all students in Grades Seven through Twelve. This meeting was held on January 20, 1988 at 7:30 P.M. at Cassiar Secon- dary. School and we appreciate the interest from the parents of Grade Seven students who attended. The program itself began the following week. It consists of ten - one hour segments which will be presented weekly until Spring Break. Gane PROGRAM This program Pwil be implemented: in Grades . Kindergarten through Grade Two during the month of April. Our teachers will receive an inservice for the program on February 19th and a parent information meeting will be held in March. SKATING All classes began a skating program during the week of January 18th - 22nd and will continue for five weeks through to the week of February 15th - 19th. The ONE EXCEPTION for this schedule occurs for Grade Seven and Grade One who will skate on Thursday, February 25th to make up the time lost on Thursday, January 28th due to the fact that it was a non-instruc- tional day. The Skating Schedule for individual, classes is as follows: KGN. Wednesday 10:45 - 11:15 Gr. 1 Thursdays 2:00 Gr. 2 Wednesdays 1:30 Fridays 1:30 Gr. 3 Fridays 1:00 Gr.4 Wednesday 1:00 Gr. 5 Wednesdays 2:00 Gr. 6 Fridays 2:00 Gr. 7 Thursdays 1:00 GRADE SEVEN VOLLEYBALL The Grade Seven Class from Watson Lake Ele- mentary were guests of our Grade Seven Class on Friday afternoon, January 22nd. The feature event was a volleyball: rematch between the two teams, with each of the mixed teams claim- ing a victory. A good time was had by all the ‘students. ‘DOG MASTER VISIT Snowridge had a special visitor on Friday, Jan- uary 15th. R.C.M.P. Corporal Bretfield and his German Shepherd, Pax, came to the school to give a demonstration. The students enjoyed the presentation very much and we thank Cor- poral Harrison and Constable Driscoll” for making this opportunity available to our students. TIMELY TEDDY During January: the Grade Four Class enjoyed Teddy’s presence. in their classroom. —§ They had the least number of lates for the month of December and are determined to keep Teddy through the month of February, too. sont tions Grade Fours! INTRAMURALS Our intramural program is.continuing to be successful. A reminder. that these games start promptly at 12:20 so children should bring a lunch on the days that they play. ACTIVITY AFTERNOONS These have now been. scheduled for the last four Friday afternoons before Spring Break. Parents and community members who might be interested in helping out with a recreational or craft activity are asked to contact the school. ASSEMBLY. The Grade Ones presented their: assembly on. Friday, January 29th. These little guys did a ~ fine job and the show was enjoyed by the stu- dents and parents. ~Secondary »School at 7:30 -P.M: gees Julie MacRae as STUDENT ABSENCES Parents who are keeping their children at home due to illness or some other reason are asked to phone the school and inform the secretary. This helps us keep track of where the children are and could safeguard your child from spending unnecessary time out in the cold in. the event that’ they should “lose track of time’’ or “‘get lost’’ on the way to school during the winter months. LOST AND FOUND Our lost and found box is getting quite full and there are some valuable items in it. Please find time to check it out on your next visit to the school - or, remind your child to do so. NON INSTRUCTIONAL DAY Thursday, January 28th was a non-instructional day for students. Our teachers were involved with in-service activities related to our new Math Curriculum. SCHOOL ADVISORY COUNCIL The School Advisory Council meets on the second Wednesday of every month at Cassiar Parents are invited to attend these meetings - they are open to the public. NORTHERN INVITATIONAL FRIENDSHIP GAMES Some of our students will be taking part in the Northern Invitational Friendship Games in Watson Lake on February 19th and 20th. More > details on this will be distributed as they become’ available. Ptr Mss ooo oo oo coo cco CCC CCC COCO O OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOO COO COO OOOO OOO OOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOO OOOO OOO COO O OO OOO Oooo. : earn Be AUCTION ACTION ‘88 gunday. ‘March 13, 1988 2: 30 D. m. We oe help ~- with. donations and at the auction Proceeds to Sacre Society — : Thank you for. your. support! If you have any items to donate please contact Cassiar Secondary, Schoo! 16. 7367. Re edieaitenshn ute POOCOCCOCOCOCOCOC OOO SOS SOOO SSeoceco PAPAOOOOQOOOOOOCOCOCOCOOC OOOO OO OOOO COOOL Olae ‘ = = SS a ATH LETICS The Cassiar Eagles Junior. Boys’ and Senior Girls’ basketball teams participated in a tourna- ment at Fort Nelson on the weekend of January 22 - 24. The Junior Boys are coached by Mr. Ted Beck and the Senior Girls by Mr. Vickery. Please note that the Cassiar Eagles Senior Girls’ team will host a five-team invitational tourna- ment at the Cassiar ‘‘Forum’’ on the weekend Os pee Tee 713. STUDENTS’ SOCIETY AUCTION iss a santal Cassiar Students Society T: V. ‘auction "will be held-on Sunday, March 13 at 12:30 noon. ae Check tie ad on. fae 10. for WUERUI details. ee ee a ee ret ae AS "FAMILY LIFE UPDATE ne “Snowridge Elementary and Cassiar Secondary hosted a “Family Life” orientation meeting at Cassiar Secondary on Wednesday, January 20. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce to parents. the provincially mandated “‘Family Life Education” program. which is a compulsory ten hour course for all grades 7 - 12 students. The actual program will commence at Cassiar Secondary in “R” (repeat) block on Friday, February 5, and will run for 10 consecutive “R” blocks.’ FUND RAISING If the beams of your roof are bending under the weight of the snow load, consider having your roof shovelled by a team or organization from Cassiar Secondary. Please seen 778-7367 for further details. “ss CRITICAL NOTES wa “I can sing anything, anything at all”. What singer of today would dare to utter such words and not be met with disparaging laughter? In the case of Dinah Washington, it was a fact. Strangely, this very musical ability made her a difficult product for her record company to categorize and market. Born in Tuscalossa, Alabama in 1924 she learned to play the organ and the piano and sang in the church choir. She toured as an accompaniest for the gospel pioneer Sallie Martin and sang lead in the first female gospel group, formed by Ms. Martin. This gospel immer- sion no doubt imbued her singing throughout her career with deep feeling and conviction. From the gospel tunes she moved to the blues of her idol Bessie Smith and then branched into the jazz stylings of her mentor, Billie Holiday. When she began to record the pop stand- ards of her day, you could hear the gospel intensity, the blues intonation and jazz phrasing and inventiveness both in the melody and lyrics. In the jazz tradition she functioned as a horn among horns, trading melodic improvisations with the best players in the business. The voice can best be described as smokey, sen- sual, bittersweet, defiant, tender and sometimes saltily. humorous. Dinah always sounded worldly wise in her _ singing and tended to make her contemporaries sound like little girls. The blue quality of her voice made the * songs of lost or unrequited love her best renditions and ~ seem tinged with sadness. even the wistful, “When I Fall In Love” or “It’s Magic”, What was also exemplary ~ about her singing was her meticulous attention to diction - she cultivated it and was most depreciative of those singers who made the lyrics impossible. to understand. She best described her approach to singing by saying. . . “T like to get inside a tune, and make it.mean something to the people that listen, something more than a set of lyrics and a familiar melody”. She sang from the _ heart and her songs were conversations with.the listener, making you feel that she is singing to you alone.. Dinah” also possessed that rare gift to record a song in one or two takes and not the twenty takes or spliced per- formances of many of today’s singers. It was said Dinah talked the blues and sang the ballads. While her career knew few ups and downs, her personal life was another story. One of her first blues recordings was “Evil Gal Blues” and this was also the proposed title of the autobiography that she was reported to be working on at the time of her death in 1963. She felt her art and personal life were intertwined and stated. . “any singer is an exact copy of the lifestyle she leads”. This truth also bears witness in the lives of Bessie Smith, Edith Piaf, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday and of course “* Dirfah. “Both’ on and ‘off: the Stage, thése ‘women’s lives ~ were lead on the emotional edge. Similarly, they had In the last’ issue of the “Courier” | wrote in some detail about the ‘‘Passport to Education’”’ program which will give cash credits to the top 30% of the students in grades 9 - 12 beginning in June, 1988. - The program states that one-third of the“‘selec- tion weighting” established criteria such as effort, citizenship and community involvement. the staff at Cassiar Secondary has decided upon the following criteria as our one-third component Y of the Passport Program. In order to qualify for credits for the “Passport for Education Program” students must meet the following criteria in any given academic | year. 1. Candidates will have had no “U's” in work | habits on their report cards. chy . Candidates will be “punctual”. arrival at school. Candidates will. in their 2 3 have no absences. from school that are “truant”’ in nature. 4. Candidates will not have been a discipline problem in the school. 5 6 Candidates will have been active in school/ 53 community affairs. Candidates will have no failures on their final report. LOCAL SCHOLARSHIPS | am pleased to announce that a scholarship for $300 has been obtained from the proprietors of Cassiar Hair Design. This brings the total value of scholarships avail- _ including commuptty able to our graduates, and provincial scholarships, to $5,900. the feeling they were unlovable and unattractive - their talent became both their salvation and their curse. No man could fill the emotional void left by an audience and many of these men exploited the women, which no doubt reinforced their feelings of unworthiness. Many articles like to wax to the maudin about the longtivity these women might have enjoyed had they not possessed such rare talent. However tragic we might view the circumstances of their lives, I seriously doubt any would have forefeited their gift. Dinah, for one, revelled in her talent and was grateful for an escape from a life of certain poverty. She masked her insecruities with an extreme bravado and could be very demanding and critical of those that did not meet her fier musical standards. The art of art, she realized, was to make it all seem effortless - when, in reality, it required dedication and hard work. She recognized a form of musical roots and indebtedness to those women singers who came before her. Dinah expressed her appreciation in a tribute album to Bessie Smith and Aretha Franklin likewise gave the nod to Dinah. During the period of the late 1940s to the early 1960’s we can compare the recordings of Dinah with those of Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald on identical tunes. These three artists all at the peak of their talent and profession reveal three distinct approaches to the art of popular recording. Sarah delights in singing well above and below. the written notes in a breath-taking demonstration of her amazing vocal range. Ella demon- strates her love of melody, phrasing and beautiful tones. As the two most renowned jazz singers in history, these two women use their voices as instruments and reveal a wealth of melodic invention. Dinah’s goal was to communicate the meaning of the lyrics and reveal the emotional depth of a song while still displaying superior vocal technique; though not for~its sake. alone. Her _ nuances -and-shadings-only add to the performance and never distract the listener from grasping the lyrical mes- sage of a tune. Billie Holiday admirably displayed this very . technique in a more jazz-oriented performance — and with a limited’ vocal range and power, aimed for an understated emotional performance. Compare versions of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, “Lover Man”, “The Man That Got Away’, “More Than You Know”, and “Willow Weep For Me”, to see three unmistakably unique interpretations of this material. Dinah approached each song as if it were a short play with a definite be- ginning, middle and end, with each progressing logically in the formation of an emotional statement. The only white singers who appear. to have followed the same “musical ~approach“and- with mucli~success, “are ~Bartbata Streisand and the late Judy Garland. Both these women ‘should be based on school Consequently, — ORERET TELECONFERENCE Ten grade 12 students from C.S.S. visited the Northern Lights College outlet in Cassiar to: ‘take part in the University Teleconference pro- gram. The purpose of the program is to enable grade 12 students who attend schools in remote areas of the province to ask any questions that the student might have about the post-secondary institutions taking part in the teleconference, which included U.B.C., S.F.U., U. Vic., and VBC REPORT CARD NIGHT A large number of parents attended the. second “Report Card - Night’ at Cassiar Socordaly on the evening of January 28. PERFECT ATTEN DANCE | would like to congratulate the ‘ollowingt stu- dents for having perfect attendance, including no lates, from September 8 to January 15. Jennifer Becket -. Jason Hardy David Lanphear Stephen Ryan Sonia Saro Spotlight on Dinah Washington ___ by Brian Nicholson considered themselves as actresses who sang and this might be a clue to their approach to interpreting a song. The song and album most identified with Dinah is “What A Difference A Day Makes” which crossed over from the black market to the mainstream of popular music. Another tune from this album “I Thought About You” is given a poignant reading and when she softly sings the lyric “I really felt the blues”, the sadness and - remorse are almost tangible. “Blue Skies” is given a marvelous, swinging rendition full of improvisations as Dinah sings just ahead of the beat giving a feeling of excitement to the song. Irving Berlin’s “Say It Isn’t So” is the classic type of torch song that Dinah performed so well but the performance is never overwrought or artificial in its delivery. ‘I Don’t Hurt Anymore”’ is given a powerful delivery which seems to contradict the title as the feelings of bitterness and anger reveal a hurt that is certainly not over! “Softly” is an example of a less-than-great song that Dinah pulls off by turning it into a smoldering and sensual song of seduction. Billie Holiday was also given sub-standard material to record and managed through melodic and lyrical alterations to bring off a superior performance. suffered from. saccharine-sweet background vocals and poor arrangements but still do not manage to diminish the honesty of the lead vocal. Dinah was also aware that her black audiences looked to her as a replacement for Bessie Smith. The comparisons were often unflatter- ing when it concerned her personality and lifestyle as both women lead a life of hard drinking and. loving. After seven husbands Dinah honestly said, “I change my men before they change me”’ This assertive and spent part of her nature was also to be found in such tunes as “Blowtop Blues”, “Send Me To The Electric Chair’ and “Evil Gal Blues”. _ Dinah could easily evoke the sound and fury of Bessie but was more diversified in her musical talent, she still - however, referred to herself as Queen of the Blues. It has been said that having heard these women in person their wound would haunt the listener long after the ~ performance was concluded. With the recent production of compact discs, these hard to find recordings are now becoming available to the current listening public. Should you decide to investigate the recordings of Dinah Washing, ton you will see she could sing anything Cassiar r Courier, EE Soa 1285: Page ell These songs also ° -~