Legistative Library. Parliament Bldg Victoria, B. C. vBV x4 Vol. 41, No. }0 501 Belleville Sst Cast] Bn Sarg 60 Cents ar News ga CASTLEGAR, BRITISH COLUMBIA, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1988 WEATHERCAST Cloudy Thursday with snew flurries but small ond the weekend is mostly cloudy with periods of snow and milder temperatures 4 Sections (A, B, C&D) Castlegar to lose jet service By RON NORMAN Editor Castlegar will lose its only jet service beginning May 1. Canadian Airlines International announced Monday that it will replace the 122-seat Boeing 737 jet on its Castlegar to Vancouver route with a 52-seat Dash 7 aircraft. The Dash 7 will be operated by Time Air, Canadian Airlines’ Lethbridge, Alta.-based partner. Canadian presently operates the jet once a day Sunday through Friday. Time Air operates two flights a day between Castlegar and Vancouver, in addition to a daily flight between Castlegar and Calgary. Castlegar Mayor Audrey Moore expressed “regret and sadness” that a major airline will no longer be serving the Kootenays. “I'm concerned that we're losing a major, inter. nationally well-known airline,” Moore said in an interview. Officials from Canadian Airlines and Time Air met with representatives of the Castlegar, Trail and Nelson city councils, and area chambers of commerce Monday afternoon to inform them of the change. Moore said she told the airlines that Castlegar council is “very, very concerned” about the local Canadian Airlines workers affected by the change. Canadian employs four or five ticket agents in Castlegar. However, Moore said Canadian Airlines officials assured her no one would lose their job. Moore said the Canadian employees will be able to use their seniority to “bump” others within the company, or stay in Castlegar with Time Air. “They did not foresee any net loss of jobs,” she noted. However, Moore said she doubts whether all the jobs will be retained. Moore acknowledged that Castlegar has been well served by the smaller aircraft, adding: “I think we all knew that the jet service was going to be phased out.” However, she said council is still “concerned.” Meanwhile, Duncan Fisher, Canadian Airlines’ vice president for the western region, told a news conference Monday at the Sandman Inn that the jet just wasn't economically viable on the Castlegar run. He said the jet averaged about 30 passengers a day, “which really makes it not viable for an aircraft with 122 seats.” Fisher said there was a time when Canadians’ predecessor, Pacific Western Airlines, operated the jet twice a day between Castlegar and Vancouver. But he said that was when there were no other airlines offering flights. The jet is now just one of five daily flights to Vancouver. Time Air and AirBC each fly two flights a day. Fisher also cited the jet's 3:10 p.m. departure from continued on page A2 Student transfer opposed By BRENDAN NAGLE Staff Writer Felix Belezyk arrived home in Castlegar to a hometown welcome of close to 150 people at the Castlegar Airport on Sunday The throng of well wishers greeted the downhill skiiig ace with a loud cheer as Belezyk hugged his mother Renata after entering the terminal building. ¢ “I'm really happy to be back home,” Belezyk said. “We (the Can. adian ski team) were just thinking about being on the plane and getting back to Canada because we've been over there for 11 weeks and we BELCZYK ARRIVES . . . Downhill skier Felix Belczyk stepped off the plane to a warm welcome from local residents on Sunday. The air- Crowd welcomes Belczyk were starting to get tired.” Belezyk said the fact that the Canadian ski team was so looking forward to going home was a large contributing factor to the team's uninspired performance in Schlad. ming, Austria. “I think the fact that everybody was thinking more about the plane and going back home than on the race is the reason the results weren't so good,” he said Belezyk said the changes in the race schedule in Europe due to the lack of snow didn't hinder the Canadian team as much as the host European squads. port was filled with well wishers as Belczyk returned from his most successful World Cup ski weekend to date. “I think the Europeans had it tougher,” said Belezyk. “They're not used to always having to break up their training patterns.” He said the Canadian team is used to travelling around Europe during the World Cup season and changes in scheduling are far less imposing because they are constantly on the road anyway. Belezyk said he would spend four or five days at home relaxing. “This is a time to re-charge my batteries,” he said. He said he is looking forward to the Olympic Winter Games in a. CosNewsPhoto by Brendan Nogle Calgary and hopes to be competitive enough to get a medal. “My objective is to get a medal in the downhill event,” he said. “Hope. fully, I'll come through.” Belezyk said he'll leave Thurs day for the Canadian men’s downhill championship at Panorama, though he won't take part in the race. And then it’s onto training for the Games. The men’s downhill race in Calgary is scheduled for Feb. 14 Belezyk didn't say where the Canadian downhill team will be training. Torch run turns -into family affair By BONNE MORGAN Staff Writer It was a big day for all those who got to carry the Olympic flame this weekend. For four Castlegar residents who ran Sunday in the’ Olympic Torch Relay, “sharing the flame” was the best part of the whole thing. Garry Graham of Castlegar was the first person to carry the torch into Christina Lake. It was cold but bright in that section of the relay, and swarms of Christina Lake residents and friends and family of the runners stood in groups along the roadside to watch the torch go by. For Graham, the run wis complété when his 11-year-old nephew, Jadak Oglow,. vith him and helped carry the torea. The two had been disappointed when Oglow wasn't also picked to carry the torch. They had both filled out almost 200 applications and had sent them in at the same time. “It was very exciting,” Oglow said. After receiving the OK from the relay crew, Oglow and Graham took off with the torch. “Iran the whole kilometre,” Oglow said. Oglow and Graham passed the torch to another Castlegar resident, Dan Haack. Haack had “about a dozen” family and friends out to cheer him on. His niece and nephew were able to hold onto the torch for a bit. “It was great, there was a great bunch of people organizing the run,” he said. But although Haack said he enjoyed being part of the Olympic relay race, he admitted he passed up post-torch festivities to go home and watch the Superbowl. continued on poge A2 By BONNE MORGAN Staff Writer A suggestion to move Grade 8 students from Kinnaird Junior-secon dary school to Stanley Humphries secondary school and more Grade 6 students to KJSS from area ele. mentary schools has not met with an overwhelming show of support, assis. tant superintendent of schools Lach Farrell told members of the Castlegar school board Monday. The board's newly-formed edu cation forum looked at reports from the Long Range Planning Committee on “future directions” in the Castlegar district The general flavor of reports presented at the meeting indicated it is better to keep some Grade 6 and 8 students at KJSS, to maintain the transitional “middle school concept” and to make the best use of building space. The district's Long Range Plan- ning Committee gathered submissions from Castlegar school district staff, parent groups, and individuals on areas of concern such as curriculum, facil: ities, transportation, class sizes, fin- ance, cultural and extra-curricular pro- grams. Farrell cited overcrowding of Grade 6s in elementary schools as a reason for continuing to have Grade 6 students at KJSS. Farrell said the trend is for high enrolment in thé Grade 6 levels at elementary schools and that KJSS should be “flexible” and act as a “buffer zone” to absorb some of that high enrolment. “We're running 165 to 175 (stu dents) in each grade for the next year,” he said. “We looked at the possibility that we could have absorbed in any of the bulging elementary schools, roughly 50 to 80 Grade 6 kids. And they might come from any of the schools “This would still leave the ele mentary schools as K (kindergarten) to FLAME . . . Castlegar resident, Alison White carries the Olympic flame a few kil through the West Kootenay. lometres past Christina Lake on Sunday as the torch relay winds CorNewsPhoto by Bonne Morgen SPECIAL Grade 6, for all intents and purposes,” he added. Farrell said, “The general con- sensus is we like the middle school idea of the seven and eights in terms of suitability, the age appropriateness. “We like for the most part in terms of the social elements and whatever else to keep our K-6 children separate,” he said. But, Farrell said the feedback from teachers at Kinnaird Junior, Grade 6 students, and their parents was not negative. “They said, ‘Hey, this is not de- vastating,..this has worked out quite well for us,’ ” Farrell said. “Even if you moved your eights into the high school you wouldn't be creating something that is unique. It's something that's been going on throughout the province as the pop- ulations have shifted through B.C.,” he said. Farrell said it is common to see continued on page A2 INSIDE Lottery numbers The winning numbers drawn Tuesdey in the Lotto West/The Pick lottery were 2, 5,32, 37, 40, 41, 45 and 52. Belczyk = profi le = page B1 SERIES BEGINS CasNews publisher Burt Camp. bell was one of 11 journalists from community-newspapers across Can. ada invited to view Canadian Forces Europe's participation in NATO exercises in West Germany last fall. While the Department of National Defence provided air transportation on military aircraft in Canada and across the Atlantic and ground transportation in Germany, the media representatives were resp. onsible for all other costs. The group visited Lahr, the U.S. Army's military establishment at Hof, and the war exercise, Rebel Saddle, in the Hohenfels training al in Bavaria Campbell's series starts today on page Cl, continues Sunday and will conclude in next Wednesday's ed. ition of the CasNews. Nachbauver waiting page B2 Fire trock