May 9 - High School Plays

7:30 p.m. - South Huron DHS in Exeter performs its final showing of Our Town. Tickets are $7.
8:00 p.m. - North Middlesex DHS in Parkhill performs Grease! You’re the One that I Want. Tickets are $8 for adults and $6 for students.

Cougar spotted in Port Franks?

From the OPP website:
On the 5th of May 2008, a 69 year Port Franks resident reported a possible cougar sighting on Patrick St. in the village of Port Franks. According to the witness, at approximately 7:45 p.m. he was working on a trailer in his driveway. At that time, he heard some rustling in some bushes located about 20′ away. When he went to investigate, he witnessed a large cat walk out of the bushes and across the laneway into another bush area. He then lost sight of the animal.
The cat was described as two-tone brown, light brown colour on top and a darker brown on the belly. The cat stood approximately 14-18″ tall and was about 3′ in length. The animal’s head was described as being large with longer fur. The man indicated that he was sure it was a cat but had never seen one that large before.
The animal was not aggressive and briefly looked at the man before walking away.
OPP have contacted the Ministry of Natural Resources regarding the sighting.

May 6 - SHDHS presents Our Town; Port Franks meeting tonight

May 6 - 7 p.m. - Thedford arena - Lambton Shores is holding a revitalization meeting for Thedford, Arkona and Port Franks. Citizens are encouraged to attend this important meeting. For more details, visit the Lambton Shores website.
7:30 p.m. - SHDHS in Exeter presents Our Town, the Thornton Wilder play. Tickets are $7. For more information, visit the SHDHS website.

Adam van Koeverden heading to Olympics

A man with a Port Franks connection is heading to the Olympics. Adam van Koeverden, whose aunt Theresa lives in the Port, won the K-1 1000 men’s kayak race at the Canadian team selection trials Saturday.
Read the CBC story

May 4 - Pinery Flea Market opens and Studio Tour continues

The Pinery Flea Market opens for the season today, Sunday, May 4 and runs every weekend until Thanksgiving. Also today, the Grand Bend Studio Tour continues from 12 to 4 p.m. at various sites around town. Get out and enjoy the spring weather!

May 3-4 - Grand Bend Studio Tour

The Grand Bend Studio Tour runs this weekend, featuring 25 artists at venues around town. For more details, visit the Grand Bend Studio Tour website. The show runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 3 and from 12 to 4 p.m. Sunday May 4.

May 6-9 - SHDHS presents Our Town; post-secondary grads give advice

Principal’s Page
By Jeff Reaburn

One of the events that we look forward to at this time of year is the annual school show, and it is rapidly approaching. This year’s production, Our Town, by Thornton Wilder, will be performed from May 6 to 9 in our small gym. Director Beth Jantzi and her cast and crew have been rehearsing and preparing for months for this well known classic. The show begins at 7:30 each evening and tickets, which are only $7.00, can be purchased in the main office at the school. This will be an excellent opportunity to see and hear the dramatic talents of many fine young actors, and we encourage you to come out and show your support of our dramatic arts program.
The School Council’s final community forum of the year will take place on Monday, May 5. This one will be a departure from past forums in that it will take place in the afternoon and the audience will be students rather than parents. The topic this time is “What I Wish I’d Known,” and we have invited graduates who have gone on to college and university to come back and speak to South Huron students who will be heading to post-secondary education this fall. Our goal is to have the grads share their experiences and make our current students more aware of the challenges and opportunities they will face when they head off to college or university.
While we believe that we (the school and parents) do a pretty good job of preparing students for the post-secondary world, some lessons, both good and bad, can only be learned through experience. We also think that recent grads may have more credibility with our students than some of us who attended college or university many years ago. The goal of this session is to have the speakers share the lessons they have learned, to offer some tips and pointers, and perhaps help some of our present students avoid the mistakes and pitfalls that sometimes happen at college or university. If this proves to be a worthwhile forum, we may consider offering it every year.
The forum will be open to Grade 12 students who have applied to college or university and will take place in the cafeteria in last period on Monday, May 5. One of our speakers will be speaking to us via the Internet from Rotterdam, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we won’t have any technical difficulties. We encourage the students who will be attending this session to come prepared with any questions they may have about post-secondary education, whether they be about finances, independence, having a roommate, workload, or any other aspect of college or university life.
More information about this forum can be found on the SHDHS web-site at: http://www.shdhs.ca/.
This week we have also entered into the election campaign for next year’s Students’ Council. Campaigning will take place throughout this week, with the election on Friday, May 2. Congratulations to Leanne Hoffman, who was selected earlier this month as the Student Senator for SHDHS. She will be meeting regularly with senators from the other high schools in the Avon Maitland District School Board to discuss issues and provide the student voice to the trustees of the school board. Two of the senators were chosen last week as student trustees and they will sit with the elected trustees at regular school board meetings.
Finally, I would like to remind parents that the Semester Two Mid-Term Report Card was distributed in last period last Friday. If you haven’t seen it yet, you may want to ask your son or daughter about it. For this report students were required to complete a Response Form on which they were to comment on their academic progress this semester and on their goals for the year. This form must be signed by a parent and returned to the school to be placed in the students’ Ontario School Records. The deadline for this is Friday, May 9, and we would appreciate any assistance that parents may offer in getting this task completed.

Vol. 1 #19 - April 16, 2008 Grand Bend Strip

View this week’s edition of the Grand Bend Strip online

Vol. 1 #18 - March 12, 2008 Grand Bend Strip

View this week’s edition of the Grand Bend Strip online

Strip among top three in Ontario for photographer and photo layout

Grand Bend Strip publisher/editor/photographer Casey Lessard has been named one of the three best photographers among Ontario’s community newspapers, the Ontario Community Newspapers Association announced Thursday. The OCNA also named the Strip’s photo page from the Parkhill fair (with photos by Casey Lessard) one of the three best in the province. The winners will be announced April 5, 2008 in Toronto.
This is the second year Lessard has been among the top three for the photographer of the year category at the OCNA awards; he was named second best in 2007 for his work with the Haliburton Echo. Lessard took top honours last year in the feature photo category for a photo from the high school prom.

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