St. Andrews Native Wins Canadian National Sculpture Competition

Let the ARTrageous-ness begin!

The kick off the St. Andrews festival this afternoon, Kingsbrae Garden hosting the Canadian National Sculpture Competition Awards Ceremony.

Out of 15 finalists, St. Andrews native Alanna Baird winning the grand prize of $10,000.

Baird's sculpture titled "Salmon Vortex" features three wild salmon made from recycled copper roofing. The sculpture now sits in the centre of a pond at Kingsbrae Garden. Baird tells Tide News, "It's exciting for me as a sculptor to get my work out of my studio, out of the tools, out of a chaos, and get them into this kind of setting."

Tide News asked how long it took to make the piece. Her response? "Well, that's something everyone always asks me. I tell them it took me 21 years to figure out how to do it, and then 2 months to build it."

The ARTrageous Festival continues tonight at Kingsbrae with an evening of Jazz, and Saturday is all-day Free admission.

For details on events and tickets, go to their website www.artrageousnb.com .

Student Numbers Drop

Fewer students in the Anglophone South School District in the school year just ending means fewer teachers.
 
Enrollment numbers are down by 650 and Superintendent Zoe Watson says the one place where there had been increases, the Kennebecasis Valley, the numbers have levelled off. 

On the other side of the coin the number of foreign students this year at 15 schools exceeded 500. They're here from China,  Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Europe.
 
The school district is hoping the foreign student programme will be expanded next year to 20 schools.

Security Exercise At Lepreau

Point Lepreau will be conducting a security exercise today.

It involves  the Nuclear Response Force team and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission testing security procedures.

Residents may see emergency vehicles in the community and hear radio communications simulating a security event at the station.

Pensioners Still Demanding Answers

Switching to the Shared Risk Model is an attempt by the provincial government to offload the pension deficit onto the shoulders of pensioners, according to Clifford Kennedy of the NB Pension Coalition.

Kennedy tells Tide News the members are considering legal action, but it's difficult where  there's no other case they can find when a guaranteed plan has been switched to the Shared Risk Model over the objections of the plan members.

Finance Minister Blaine Higgs has said despite the plan's strong returns in the past year, the changes are going to go ahead; however, Kennedy calls it "damning" that the government hasn't released to the pensioners the actual amount of the deficit.

Distracted Driving Pays High Price

Jim Morrison was right when he sang "keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel."

CAA is warning you that cellphones and texting aren't the only dangerous distactions to drivers. Gary Howard of CAA tells Tide News anything that takes your attention of the road dramatically increases your chances of having an accident, including audio books and even your onboard GPS.

A University of Utah study found drivers had slower reaction times, compromised brain function, and less awareness of cues like stop signs when they were distracted by a GPS system or listening to an audio book.

Howard points out phones conversations are more distracting that those you might have with passengers in the vehicle, because the person on the other end of the line can't see whether you're doing a tricky lane change or coping with difficult road conditions, and don't adjust their conversation accordingly as would a passenger.

Widespread Internet Outage Across Maritimes

If you can read this, you're one of the lucky ones.

According to a Bell representative it's not you....it's them. Customers have been complaining of no internet service all over the Atlantic provinces. The representative was unable to say how many customers are affected but confirmed it's a significant number.

Bell says it's working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. In the meantime, you can stop desperately re-setting your router and spending your precious time on tech support.