Thousands of local residents and visiting tourists jammed Main Street in downtown Osoyoos to take in all of the fun and festivities that are part of the annual Cherry Fiesta. As has become tradition, children break out water cannons and douse members of the Osoyoos Volunteer Fire Department during a water fight. (Richard McGuire file photo)
The introduction of a new summer music festival for Osoyoos, cancellation of a popular triathlon event and graduation of more than 50 students from Osoyoos Secondary School made headlines in July.
Fifty-four students at Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) celebrated their graduation, many of them receiving multiple awards, bursaries and scholarships to recognize their achievements.
Graduation took place despite the labour dispute between the provincial government and the British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) that kept most teachers away from the ceremony.
Peter Gajda, who delivered the keynote address, was the only striking teacher to play an active role in the ceremony.
Gajda said he limited his participation to the address, which had been agreed to long before the strike, and which had the support of his teacher colleagues.
“Please don’t take the other teachers’ absence from this event as a sign that they don’t care about you,” Gajda told the graduates in his speech. “We all care very much, not just about your grades or test scores, but about you as a person.”
The evening also saw the valedictory address delivered by the tall Brian Malcolm and the diminutive Shelby Schroeter, who evened things up by standing on a crate. The two joked about the contrast.
“At every moment, we are constantly evolving,” said Schroeter. “None of us were the exact same as we were a moment ago, let alone five years ago. We have all grown so much and some like Robin have grown taller.”
“And others like Shelby have stayed the same size and grown much more intellectually,” Malcolm quickly added.
School principal Mike Safek congratulated all of the graduates for a job well done.
“I challenge you to go out and pursue every passionate interest that you have and don’t be afraid to make mistakes,” he said.
In Safek’s closing remarks, he also handed out some advice.
“Remember that popular decisions are not always the right ones and the right decisions are not always popular,” the principal said. “You will have to live with the choices you make, so make good ones. And if in doubt, listen to your mother. She is always right.”
Meanwhile, the man who helped organize the Desert Half Ironman in Osoyoos for the past nine years cancelled the 2014 event just days before it was scheduled to take place the first weekend in July.
Joe Dixon, the owner of Outback Events, announced on the Desert Half Ironman website that the 2014 event had been cancelled.
“I regret to announce that the Desert Half Ironman Triathlon scheduled for Sunday, July 7 has been cancelled due to insufficient registration,” wrote Dixon. “As the organizer of this event for the past nine years, it is an extremely difficult decision to announce this cancellation. As an event organizer, the last thing you want to have to do is cancel an event that you have produced with such history.”
With the number of registrations down more than 60 per cent, it simply did not make sense to move forward with the 2014 race, said Dixon.
The inaugural Desert Live Music Festival went off without a hitch and attracted an encouraging number of music fans over five days, says the chair of the organizing committee.
Mike Campol said even though there were a few glitches along the way, he is pleased with how the first Desert Live festival went off.
“Perhaps the thing I’m most pleased with is we held a first time, five-day festival with a beer garden and there wasn’t a single incident,” said Campol. “There were a few things we’re going to have to improve on, but overall I thought the festival went very well.”
The organizing committee had three goals while organizing Desert Live and they succeeded in meeting those goals, said Campol.
“We wanted to show that the municipality was behind us and would support a large event like this and the town was great in helping us put this together and town council showed tremendous support through their financial contribution to Desert Live,” he said. “We also wanted to have a well run and well executed event and I think we pulled that off.
“And we wanted to enhance the guest experience for those visiting Osoyoos and based on the number of comments I heard and received, we were very successful in that regard as well. I think we were successful in reaching all three of our goals. We only received bad comments about two or three of the bands. The night time acts we booked, including all of the headliners, were very well received and I thought they all put on a terrific show.”
Campol promised the 2015 festival would be bigger and better.
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Osoyoos Times
Shawn Hook, from Nelson, engaged the audience at Desert Live as the headliner on the Saturday evening of the June and July festival. He played rock on electric and acoustic guitar and keyboards. (Richard McGuire file photo)
Graduates look happy after receiving their diplomas. In foreground from left are Netu Dhaliwal, Charles Nyarza and Kristi Gehringer. (Richard McGuire file photo)
