Dorothy Westerman
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (June 22/05) - Eight Northern students are flying high after receiving aviation education bursaries.

The students - four from the NWT and four from Yellowknife - got $5,000 each through the 5th annual Aviation Career Development program.

Yellowknife student Alaina Botham has her sights set on the aircraft maintenance engineer program.

Jonathan Bembridge of Yellowknife plans to fix helicopters.

Other Yellowknife recipients were William Blauel and Paul Sullivan.

NWT recipients were: Dawn Hansen of Inuvik; Lanita Thrasher of Paulatuk; Alisa Blake of Fort McPherson and Sheldon Lundrigan of Inuvik.

The Aviation Career Development program is offered by the Department of Transportation, in partnership with Canadian North and support from the Northern Air Transport Association.

The program has provided $200,000 in funding to students.