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Our favourite stories of 2014

MARIO ANNICCHIARICO Nov. 26 Golfers rally round a friend in need The Olympic View Golf Club was dark. Rain had fallen for most of the day, limiting play on the Latoria Road course in the West Shore.
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VICTORIA, B.C.: June 4, 2014 - Students take part in a walkout over the teachers

MARIO ANNICCHIARICO Nov. 26

Golfers rally round a friend in need

The Olympic View Golf Club was dark.

Rain had fallen for most of the day, limiting play on the Latoria Road course in the West Shore.

Chris Nordell and Matt Matheson sat in the darkened clubhouse lounge and spoke about Nordell’s battle with stage four renal cell carcinoma, which had metastasized to his lung.

After years of sponsoring Matheson and the Vancouver Island Pro Tour, Nordell would be the beneficiary of some financial aid — courtesy of a fundraiser planned by Matheson and fellow tour members — to help him pay for alternative therapy.

Matheson himself is a survivor, having battled testicular lymphatic cancer 12 years ago at the age of 20.

Tears were shed during the interview, emotions were shared and a fundraising tournament went off without a hitch later that week, raising more than $20,000 to assist Nordell, who has helped so many others.

In sports, life isn’t always about the game.

 

PEDRO ARRAIS Aug. 22

Chrome car a big boost to fundraiser

Attila Bassett got more than the usual 15 minutes of fame when a picture of him and his chromed car appeared on the front page of the Times Colonist.

Not satisfied with buying a $200,000 Ferrari F430 Spider, Bassett, the owner of Paparazzi Nightclub, spent a further $13,000 to have the car wrapped in chrome.

Instantly, he got thousands of requests to be his friend on Facebook. Photographers bombarded him with requests to take pictures of his car and one couple requested he turn up for pictures at their wedding. A YouTube video of the vehicle getting wrapped surpassed 30,000 views the last time he checked.

But his proudest moment was not merely getting his picture taken with the car, but when the vehicle was used to promote a fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Foundation.

“They said they sold a record number of tickets, thanks to the car,” said Bassett.

 

JEFF BELL Sept. 20

School resumes after bitter strike

The teachers’ strike that began in June, lingered through the summer break and re-emerged in September affected people around the province. Twenty-seven days of classes were lost.

As the education reporter at the Times Colonist, my favourite story was one I wrote the day after the strike ended. B.C.’s 41,000 teachers were on the verge of returning to work, so I went to Willows Elementary School — which I attended years ago — to talk with staff members preparing for the start of school.

The school was a hive of activity, and principal Wendy Holob commented on how nice it was “to have people in the hallways and kids in the gym.” The children were there helping parent volunteers to sort school supplies.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Peter Fassbender acknowledged he would have to overcome some negative fallout from the protracted dispute, while Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association president Benula Larsen said it was good to have a contract even though it wasn’t all that she hoped it would be.

Warts and all, the deal was done and 500,000 B.C. students got back to the task of learning.

 

ADRIAN CHAMBERLAIN Aug. 9

Autistic comic riffs on his disability

Sometimes, the stories that linger longest are a little left-field.

This year my favourite story was about a Victoria comic named Curran Dobbs. A boyish-looking man in his early 30s, Dobbs is far from famous. He’s never been on The Tonight Show. Nor has he ever undertaken a national tour backed by the Yuk Yuk’s chain.

What impressed me about this aspiring comedian was that he’s enjoying some success despite his autism (Dobbs is diagnosed as a high-functioning autistic). Locally, Dobbs performs at events such as the Ratfish Comedy Night at the Ramada hotel. This year he performed at the Naturally Autistic People Awards Convention in Edinburgh.

With his spiky haircut and fluffy beard, Dobbs is a charming fellow who offers anyone within earshot a never-ending volley of bad puns. Since interviewing him last August, I’ve never encountered Dobbs without a smile and a quick joke.

He is one of this city’s small success stories.

 

BILL CLEVERLEY April 1

A gotcha moment on April Fool’s Day

An April Fool’s joke and it will go down as my favourite story of the year. Working with former Saanich mayor Frank Leonard and Oak Bay Mayor Nils Jensen, we concocted a story about them approaching the province to rename the University of Victoria to the University of Saanich Oak Bay — USOB — to better reflect where the campus is located.

Of course, a story like this could only work in a balkanized area like the capital region where people living under the umbrella of 13 municipalities would consider the story’s premise plausible. The uptake online was amazing as it became one of the most read stories of the year. And it was hilarious to read the quickly penned emails from outraged readers, many of whom sheepishly backtracked after being pointed to last line, which clearly stated it was a joke.

 

CLEVE DHEENSAW July 25

Islanders win gold and silver at Glasgow

The expected would be to select the top Island sports story of the year — any of the several pieces about Jamie Benn of Victoria winning gold with the Canadian hockey team at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

But why be obvious?

While Benn was growing up in Central Saanich, Ryan Cochrane and Kirsten Sweetland were doing the same as backyard neighbours and friends in Cordova Bay. Years later, on a merry summer afternoon in Scotland, they provided a dramatic 1-2 combo on the opening day of the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Previously injured Sweetland, as part of her stirring career comeback year, won Canada’s first medal of the Games with silver in the women’s triathlon. Later in the day, two-time Olympic medallist Cochrane delivered Canada’s first gold medal of the Games with a last-lap rally for swimming victory in the 400-metre freestyle.

Just another day at the office for Island athletes doing their thing from Sochi to Glasgow.

 

KATIE DeROSA Sept. 26

Cancer survivor gives hope to Tour riders

I wouldn’t say I have a favourite story as much as a favourite moment.

It was Day 5 of the Tour de Rock, the first day that the driving rain relented to offer a bit of sunshine for our ride from Courtenay to Parksville.

It was the day most of us got to know, and quickly fall in love with, Hope Kopeck, a seven-year-old cancer survivor from Royston.

Hope, selected by the Canadian Cancer Society to be a junior rider this year, has a tumour wrapped around her aorta, so close to her heart it’s too dangerous to operate. The tumour puts pressure on her esophagus, airway and spinal cord.

Just before we left the community hall in Bowser, Hope was invited to run through two parallel lines of riders, known in the world of Tour de Rock as running the gauntlet.

With her arms outstretched, her wide smile showing the missing baby teeth, she sprinted between the riders, grazing each of our hands with her tiny fingers.

She ran like a kid running through a field laughing, or on a soccer pitch, just running the way a carefree, innocent child should.

The sun hit the curls on the back of her head that have grown back after she went bald from chemotherapy. In her eyes, there was no hint of the worry that has weighed down her family for the past two years.

And in that moment, she gave us all hope.

 

MIKE DEVLIN July 3

Paul Horn was a musician’s musician

When celebrated musician Paul Horn died at his condominium in Vancouver on June 29, following a brief illness, it fell upon me to cover the news.

The story was published on the newspaper’s front page, which seemed fitting. Horn, who died at 84, had maintained a home in Victoria from 1970 until the 2000s, and he was a frequent instructor at the Victoria Conservatory of Music Summer Jazz Workshop.

In some ways, the hip New Yorker who lived part-time in Tucson, Arizona, was one of our own.

Horn was, among many things, a musician’s musician. He was a giant of the cool jazz scene and one of the founders of New Age music. Flute, saxophone, clarinet — anything that required a set of lungs, Horn could play. And play it well.

But that was only a portion of the public Paul Horn. I would come to find out, through feedback from his friends, family and fans, that his spiritual depth and love of humankind were not small in measure.

 

LOUISE DICKSON Aug. 28

Groom whisked away to jail on wedding night

They say love conquers all.

But not, it appears, if you’re on the wrong side of a provincial court judge for failing to make child-maintenance payments.

The bride, Claire Fresneda, was waiting on Beddis Beach, flowers in her hair, love in her heart.

But the groom, Shai Topaz, who had four warrants for his arrest, was surrounded by RCMP officers, whisked away in his linen suit to the Saltspring detachment, then taken by police boat to the Victoria police station. He spent what was to be his wedding night in the slammer.

“I told him to try and not wrinkle his suit,” quipped Victoria lawyer Tom Bulmer.

In true Saltspring fashion, the guests passed the hat. Topaz was released from jail the next day and married Fresneda later that night.

This story had everything — love, money, reluctant police officers, hat-passing guests.

The glow sticks might have dimmed by the time the ceremony took place, but the couple’s love for each other burned bright.

 

ANDREW A. DUFFY May 10

Furniture store steps in to help after bankruptcy

For the second straight year, inspiration and the strength of this community fuels my choice of the most memorable story I covered in 2014.

After singling out community builder Gordon Denford in 2013, this year I was struck by the generosity of a particular business, Max Furniture, which stepped up in the wake of Stokes Furniture filing for bankruptcy in the spring.

Many customers were out thousands of dollars after Stokes, which had been on the Island for 23 years, closed owing nearly $620,000 to 134 unsecured creditors. Most of the creditors were people who put down deposits on furniture.

But a relative newcomer to the tough furniture game, six-year-old Max Furniture, pledged to try to help those who lost their deposits by granting them store credit for at least a portion of what they lost.

The goal was to instil in shoppers the idea that they could have faith in and continue to shop at local merchants.

 

CINDY E. HARNETT March 4

Civil servant rehired after mysterious firing

Few things are as frustrating as not being able to unravel the “untruthiness” of a story.

When former B.C. health minister Margaret MacDiarmid on Sept. 6, 2012 announced that a sweeping Health Ministry investigation had resulted in the firings and suspensions of seven ministry drug researchers related to alleged privacy breaches and that the files would be handed over to the RCMP, it was unprecedented stuff.

And something about it seemed wrong.

Aspects of the story didn’t add up. Off-the-record interviews with the accused didn’t jibe with what the government was saying.

American drug expert Dr. Jerry Avorn and his colleagues said the story seemed “perplexing at best and sinister at worst.” In November, he expressed his hope that “the bizarre actions of some politicians in B.C. will be undone so that these very very fine scholars can go back to the work they were doing.”

That started on March 3, 2014, when the B.C. government announced the first B.C. public servant, 29-year veteran Robert Neil Hart, was rehired as a demonstration of the government’s confidence in him.

After this, another fired employee was rehired and a third had his case settled. Three union grievances were concluded and the province apologized to the family of Roderick MacIsaac, who killed himself five months after being fired. Two wrongful dismissal cases, one including a drug research contractor, remain before the court.

Reporting this first settlement was the opportunity to be able to say, on behalf of some of those health researchers who were wrongly accused or whose firings were heavy-handed: “I told you so.”

 

SARAH PETRESCU June 22

First Nation leaders join protest over luxury home

This was the first of more than a dozen stories I wrote over the past six months about an ongoing dispute over a luxury home being built on top of a First Nations burial site on Grace Islet, a small island in Ganges Harbour.

This story revealed that current legislation creates serious disparities in the treatment of cemeteries established by First Nations people before contact compared to those created by colonists. It also revealed concerns over priorities of the B.C. Archeology Branch in protecting heritage sites versus landowners’ rights, as well as the provincial government’s responsibility to act swiftly on ensuing conflicts — which it has yet to do.

 

MICHAEL REID Sept. 12

Lively chat with Scottish star of Gracepoint

In vivid contrast to the prickly American homicide detective he played in Gracepoint, David Tennant, chatting away in his natural Scottish brogue, was bright-eyed and brimming with energy despite having put in yet another gruelling Gracepoint workday. Our conversation on Island View Beach was the last of a marathon series of interviews with Gracepoint stars, including Michael Pena, Jacki Weaver, Virginia Kull and Kevin Rankin.

It took place at the end of the five-month shoot here for Fox’s 10-part U.S. remake of the British hit Broadchurch. My time with Tennant was the cherry on top for the challenge of covering the secrecy-shrouded series that attracted international attention. With an A-list team of executive producers headlined by Hollywood power player John Goldwyn, Shine America’s undertaking with far-reaching community impact was the year’s top film or TV production story.

 

AMY SMART July 20

Artist an uncommon independent thinker

Mowry Baden is one of those people who can’t hide that they’re operating on a totally different plane than everyone else, and probably doesn’t try to. I’d heard plenty about the local artist before meeting him at his Saanich home one day in July, ranging from admiration to disdain for his public art installations. But I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

I was not disappointed. From the way he delivered each word to the careful way he listened, and the meandering paths his thoughts took while still remaining on point, Baden proved himself an uncommon independent thinker. The interview was about his plans for a haptic sculpture that won him a Guggenheim Fellowship, but most fun was touring his backyard studio and trying out some of his completed works that toy with perception, and those of others he had collected.

I left with the impression that Baden has approached life and art with a curiosity that many of us can learn from.

 

RICHARD WATTS Feb. 28

The Bible that is also a work of art

The arrival of an edition of the St. John’s Bible, a modern recreation of hand-drawn Middle-Ages calligraphy and illustration techniques, was a special moment.

For a Christian and a journeyman practitioner of the written word, this magnificent book was guaranteed to excite questions: Are hand-drawn words more powerful than mass printings? When does something as familiar as a Bible become an art object in its own right?

Six calligraphers laboured for 15 years to hand-write this Bible’s 1,151 pages in seven volumes. Six artists completed illustrations and decorated opening letters with modern images like automobiles and the triple helix of the DNA molecule.

It was first completed on calfskin vellum. Afterward, 299 editions were printed on paper. But even printers used modern tricks, like watermarks, to recreate the translucence of the original vellum.

This Bible was commissioned by St. John’s Benedictine Abbey and University in Minnesota.

Victoria Catholic Rev. Remi de Roo was responsible for initiating the $155,000 purchase. It has been given to the University of Victoria’s Centre for Studies in Religion and Society.

Make an effort to see this Bible. It will inspire.

 

CARLA WILSON April 4

Retired couple glad to be back on the job

Retirement isn’t for everybody. Just ask great-grandmother Ada Acton, who, with husband Don, launched a new business this year.

After a dozen years of not working, Ada, 71 this year, couldn’t take it any more.

“I was bored.”

Ada and Don spent $10,000 to convert their vacation vehicle into a bright-yellow food truck to sell Ada’s Heavenly Cinnamon Buns. At 5 a.m., Ada rises to prepare the buns.

The truck’s location and hours have varied during the year. Up-to-date information is posted on their facebook page: facebook.com/pages/Adas-Heavenly-Cinnamon-Buns/650751714978405.

This venture takes Ada back to her roots. She ran Ada’s Original Cinnamon Ltd. on Burnside Road for seven years, where customers became hooked on her cinnamon buns.

Ada and Don are inspiring. They are cheerful, down-to-earth, hard-working, and having a blast.

“I’m having so much fun. I’ve never felt so alive,” Ada said.

Don said, “We want to show that we can still be alive and active in our older age.”