local woman’s novel debuts
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leaders’ spin contest ends in tie
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shop ’til u drop hits metropolis
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big win for sFu as they beat dixie state at tery Fox Field. See page A16
wednesday
OctOber 3 2012 www.burnabynewsleader.com
Zhao’s killer given life
10 years too long for guilty verdict in case: Kwan Wanda chow
wchow@burnabynewsleader.com
MArIO bArteL/NeWSLeADer
after raising her three kids at home for 20 years, nancy von euw is embarking on a new career as a model. she’s trying to become the “face” of surrey central city shopping mall against other models young enough to be her children.
From the Fringe to the runway Mario bartel
photo@burnabynewsleader.com
Last week Nancy von Euw was a swearing, smoking alcoholic dying of throat cancer. On Saturday she hopes to become the new “face” of Central City mall in Surrey. The former is a role von Euw played in a production at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. The latter is an unexpected turn for the 51-year-old mother of three who’s competing against 17 other finalists—most young enough to be her children—in the Central City
Model Search. The winner, to be determined by an online vote and a grand finale modeling competition at the mall on Oct. 6, will be featured in the shopping centre’s advertising campaigns, on billboards and transit posters for the coming year. Von Euw, who studied theatre when she was much younger, thought she’d left footlights and pancake makeup behind when she started working overseas, met her husband, then eventually settled in Burnaby to raise her kids. A family
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health crisis a couple of years ago changed her outlook, rejigged her priorities. “I realized life is too short,” says von Euw. “Life can change in an instant and if you have things to do, you should do them.” With two of her kids off to Simon Fraser University, and the third in high school, von Euw decided it was time to get back into acting. She started auditioning for roles in community theatre. Inevitably she was cast in “mom” roles. She did a few modeling gigs,
mostly as the mother of the bride or groom in wedding scenarios. When von Euw saw an ad in the NewsLeader for the Central City competition, she thought why not? “Who else was going to be crazy enough to be a model at 51?” she says. “What’s the worst thing that can happen? They can say no and I move on.” They didn’t. Of more than 400 applicants, von Euw was shortlisted for an interview that would determine the contest’s 18 finalists. please see SettINg AN exAMpLe, A13
Ang Li, long accused of murdering his girlfriend Amanda Zhao in Burnaby, has been found guilty of murder by a court in China and sentenced to life in prison. While Li, who has since changed his name to Jiaming Li, is likely to appeal, the verdict brings to an end a decade of frustration for Zhao’s family. Zhao was a 20-year-old exchange student from China living in a Burnaby basement suite when she was killed in October 2002. She had been living with Li, her boyfriend and also a Chinese exchange student, who reported her missing. Zhao’s body was found 11 days later in the woods near Mission and two days after that, Li fled to China and he was eventually charged in absentia with murder by the RCMP. see A ‘very’, A3