Time to recharge for pupils and politicians
Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Mar 09/01) - School's out, school's out. Teacher let the monkeys out..."
It's a week, maybe two, for kids and grownups to recharge their batteries after a long winter. Whatever deity you worship, you're probably thanking it for March break right now.
To be sure, not everyone gets to enjoy this most delightful of perks. Journalists, enslaved by the demands of the deadline, most definitely do not get a March break. Students get March breaks. So do their teachers. Some politicians get them, in a manner of speaking. How fortunate, then, to find three groups of spring break recipients all in the same place.
The location was the territorial legislature. While MLAs plodded through their last day before the session ended, they were watched from the gallery by a group of students from St. Patrick's high school.
"I'm staying home and not doing much," said Jennifer Stroeder, conspicuous by her St. Pat's shamrock sweater. "I'll be going out with my friends, and go Ski-Dooing," with her friend Stacy Underhay.
Underhay nodded in agreement, adding that she's looking forward to sleeping until noon. "It's nice to be lazy and to relax."
Their student advisor, Renee Lamoureux, is doing them one better, fleeing way south to Varadero, Cuba for a week.
MLAs get a vacation, in a manner of speaking. At the very least, they won't be trapped in a stifling chamber, listening to their colleagues drone on.
Still, it's off to far flung hamlets to visit their constituents. Some are attending feasts and carnivals, several are heading south for conferences.
Deputy premier Jane Groenewegen will be in Toronto with several other MLAs for the Prospectors and Drillers Conference. Thebacha MLA Michael Miltenberger allowed that he would be doing some constituency work first, then "catching some R and R with my wife." Yellowknife South MLA Brendan Bell, perhaps picking up on the vibe from the spectators gallery, is en route to Cuba, with his fiancee.
"Speaker's let the members out..."
