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Moses on the Stampede trail

Fort Simpson teen quits smoking and wins!

Chris Puglia
Northern News Services


Fort Simpson (Jan 31/03) - Tyra Moses is two times a winner.

Not only has she quit smoking, last Wednesday her name was drawn for a trip to the Calgary Stampede as part of the NWT's Quit and Win contest.

Moses, a Grade 11 student, had been smoking for four years, since she was 12.

One day she said she made a conscious decision to stop.

"I was talking to my friend and I said 'I don't really want to smoke any more, I really don't like it'", she recalled. "At times it was really hard. All my friends were smoking around me."

Lots of gum and really hard finger nails helped her through her cravings, said Moses.

"I will never touch a cigarette again," she added.

She kicked the habit a week before the contest and decided to enter for the heck of it.

"I didn't even think I'd win," an elated Moses said, giggling.

She is now excitedly waiting for July when she will be off to Calgary for the annual Stampede. She gets to take one person along with her but she hasn't yet decided who it will be.

"Whoever's nicest to me," she laughed.

Dolly Ablitt, of Yellowknife, won the adult prize, a trip to Mexico.

A smoker for "too many years to count," Ablitt said she has tried to quit a number of times.

"I think that is one of the major things to quitting, it may not happen the first time," she said. "It's an addiction and I had to quit. It really drove it home for me how much power nicotine had over me."

The Quit and Win contest coincided with Non-smoking Awareness Week and Weedless Wednesday. There were more than 500 participants in the contest.

Nancy Trotter, Quit and Win advisory committee member, said they will hold an evaluation to determine whether the contest will be offered again next year.