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❚SURREY
Schools get much needed additions
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TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2010
❚LOTTERY
Surrey resident wins cool $675K
Ted COLLEY Staff Reporter
SURREY – Additions to six Surrey elementary schools and the installation of modular classrooms at 20 more will add 58 new classrooms to the district’s inventory to accommodate full-day kindergarten. The announcement was made Monday morning when Premier Gordon Campbell and Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid visited Cloverdale’s A. J. McLellan Elementary. Health Minister Kevin Falcon and Surrey MLAs Dave Hayer and Stephanie Cadieux also attended. Eight of those new classrooms will be housed in an addition to A. J. McLellan. Lisa Reid and Melissa Beechey are members of the school’s parent advisory council. Both applauded the province’s move. “We’re very happy about this,” Beechey said. “We wrote a lot of letters (to the government) last year, maybe 1,000. We had a big letter-writing campaign where we got the parents to write.” Surrey school district secretary-treasurer Wayne Noye echoed their pleasure.
Ted COLLEY Staff Reporter
see SCHOOL page 4
He trims them, he hugs them, he climbs them B.C. Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid.
LOCKED & LOADED
Sports bra tips 18
New classrooms mean six more schools will offer full-day kindergarten
❚PHOTO/Sharon Doucette
Inside
Shane Blacktopp, a 25-year-old White Rock arborist, doesn’t look at trees the way most people do. Trees represent many things to Blacktopp. They’re a source of income, an unending learning experi❚PHOTO/Brian Howell ence and even a playground in his off hours. See full story on page 32.
SURREY – They say it’s impolite to scratch in public, but Surrey’s Jeremy Pike is glad he did. Pike, 52, won a cool $675,000 Saturday on a Set For Life scratch-and-win lottery ticket. “I bought it at a little gas station at 108th and Oriole. It was one of the last two tickets he had in the store,” the happy winner said Monday from the BC Lottery JEREMY PIKE Corporation Richmond office where he picked up his cheque. “I bought both of them. That was Saturday and I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do ever since. It’s been a sleepless weekend.” Pike, who is married and has one son, said he plans to keep working, but is about to become selfemployed. “I’m a truck driver. I haul general freight to Alberta. I’m going to buy my own truck. It’ll cost $130,000 to $150,000 for the truck, but it’ll be paid for.” As for the rest of his winnings, Pike said the money will come in handy when the time comes for him to retire. Winning that kind of money, he said, takes the pressure off. “It feels terrific.” tcolley@thenow newspaper.com