By David F. Rooney
A baker’s dozen of young photographers are set to begin chronicling school life this month for The Revelstoke Current.
The Grade Six and Seven students will be using their schools’ cameras to take photos of special events, visitors to their schools and other activities.
It’s fair to say that our schools are important institutions in Revelstoke. Our children spend much of their time there and yet adults rarely glimpse what goes on, beyond set-piece events such as school assemblies and award ceremonies. Virtually every adult in town went through the school system at some point and may, or may not, have fond memories of elementary school — favourite teachers, terrific events we greatly enjoyed, special occasions and visitors who impressed and perhaps even inspired us. But those memories blur with time and it seemed appropriate that a new publication like The Current would try something new when it comes to covering the education system. So why not solicit the kids’ view of school life?
Oh, readers will still get coverage of School Board meetings and key stories about education in Revelstoke, but that will now be supplemented and enlivened by the work of these bright and eager young people.
Who are they? At Arrow Heights Elementary the school photographer is Jacqueline Cottingham. At Mountain View it is Sarah Boaz. At Mount Begbie Elementary there are three photographers: Kaeli Duke, Darren Gallicano and Jordan Vandenberg-Clark. At Columbia Park Elementary there are eight: Angel Durrant, Riley Olson, Hannah Renaud, Anne McKenzie, Kelsey Marsh, Roman McGrath-Beruschi, Stephanie Batke and Robin Fraser.
I am very pleased that they are interested in helping improve school coverage and I hope this project will prove to both fun and interesting for them.
Here are their pictures (we will all, I am sure, be interested to see what they can do on the other side of the camera):