ELECTRIC CAR TURNING HEADS
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A LETTER TO A CHANGED CITY
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KINDER MORGAN SEEKS CONTRACTS
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FRIDAY
MARCH 30 2012
www.burnabynewsleader.com
Ariel Pan won this year’s Grade 7 public speaking challenge by probing the challenges of Àtting in. See Page A5
‘Orange is not a skin tone’ Students to boycott pre-grad tanning Grace Escudero burnabynewsleader.com
MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER
After leading York House to the Ànals of the girls AAA basketball provincials, Burnaby’s Alisha Roberts will be attending Pepperdine University in Malibu, California in the fall.
Chasing her hoop dreams Burnaby teen going to California on full-ride basketball scholarship Grant Granger ggranger@burnabynewsleader.com
Alisha Roberts has a basketball in her hand as she gets up to greet her interviewer. When it’s suggested she was born dribbling those round orange objects she doesn’t dispute the notion, she just smiles and says, “I was. I really was.” Although hoops is in her DNA, she has taken her talent and combined it with a lot of hard work to convert
it into a NCAA Division I full-ride scholarship to Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., and a possible spot on the Canadian under-18 women’s basketball squad. Her father, Norm, grew up a basketball player in his native Zimbabwe. He’d come home from his engineering job and take Alisha and her sisters, Lisa and Norma—both of whom are several years older than her—to the Eastburn Community Centre to teach them basketball. “I fell in love with it from an early age,” recalls Roberts, 17. “I honestly remember being three years
old, maybe going on four, being at Eastburn sitting on the sidelines and my father would come over and he taught me the right-handed layup, the left-handed layup, all the footwork sequences. It took me awhile but I got it.” Boy did she get it. When she was still in elementary school, she’d tag along with Norma to New Westminster Hyacks senior girls practices and games. While her dad helped to coach, Roberts would be right in there doing all the drills during practice as well as in warmups prior to games. Her silky smooth
layups were superior to many of those executed by the senior girls players, even though they were up to six years older than Roberts. In Grade 6 she went to a basketball camp at SFU where she learned a quote that sticks with her. It’s still on her bedroom wall: “Good, better best. Never let it rest, until your good is better and your better is best.” She says, “I’ve always just wanted to be better than I can be. It’s never good to be content with where you are. It’s pushing yourself to the next level.” Please see HOPING TO WEAR, A4
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Gym, tan, laundry. The cast of Jersey Shore would have people believe exercising and maintaining clean clothes are good habits to form, but most people would say there’s nothing healthy about using tanning beds. Students at Burnaby North Secondary have joined the Canadian Cancer Society’s “Tanning is Out” campaign in an effort to discourage students from fake tanning for graduation. “We’re trying to boost people’s self esteem,” said Valerie Lang, a tan-free grad leader at North. “People need to be happy with their skin, they’re beautiful the way they are. There’s no need to look like the people in the media.” Health Minister Mike de Jong recently announced that B.C. will ban the use of tanning beds for people under age 18. Lang said the ban is a good step, but for now, teenagers are still allowed to use tanning beds. see 200 STUDENTS, A3