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Library brings smiles along with books to shut-ins. Page A5
NEWS: Your candidates grilled on key issues /A3 ARTS: The fling’s the thing at Highland Games /A14 SPORTS: Student dives into weightlifting /A20
OAK BAYNEWS Friday, May 10, 2013
www.vicnews.com
We’ve got the election covered On Tuesday, the rhetoric and bluster of provincial election campaigning will end, and the people of B.C. will make their choice in the 40th general provincial election. The team of reporters and editors from the Victoria News, Saanich News, Oak Bay News, Goldstream News Gazette, and the Peninsula News Review will be on the ground and on the web with election results as they roll in, posting reactions from the newly elected victors, and from those who didn’t make the cut. Greater Victoria has seven constituencies – Victoria-Beacon Hill, Victoria-Swan Lake, Oak Bay-Gordon Head, Esquimalt-Royal Roads, Saanich South, Saanich North and the Islands and Juan de Fuca – and election results will be routed through a one-stop shop: vicnews.com. Results will also be tweeted from @VictoriaNews and through the Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay, Goldstream, and Peninsula Facebook feeds. General voting is May 14, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Advance voting is open until Saturday May 11. See elections.bc.ca/ ge2013. editor@vicnews.com
Don Denton/News staff
Oak Bay aims high Oak Bay Grade 9 student Una Farrar takes aim during the junior girls javelin event at the Lower Island Track and Field Championship at the University of Victoria's Centennial Stadium on Wednesday.
Honouring a forgotten hero Historian leads charge to memorialise First World War Victoria Cross recipient Kyle Slavin News staff
Ninety-five years ago today, as the First World War was well underway, Lieut.-Cmdr. Rowland Bourke, a volunteer rescuer, made a valiant plea to lead his Motor Launch into enemy fire, determined to find survivors of the sunk Vindictive ship in Ostend harbour, Belgium. “He could hear voices in the water. And he went back not once, not twice, not three times – four times he went back into the battle area to find those voices. And he finally found three men, and he saved their lives,” said Bart
Armstrong, an passionate amateur military historian from Victoria. “One of them happened to be a British knight by the name of John Alleyne. And for this rescue (Bourke) got a Victoria Cross.” The Victoria Cross is the British Commonwealth’s highest military honour awarded to recognize bravery in action. Roughly eight years ago, Armstrong learned about a Victoria Cross recipient – Bourke – buried at Royal Oak Burial Park. “I went there and I couldn’t find his marker. I ended up getting directions, and when I found it I was a bit chagrined,” Armstrong said. “What I found was the marker that’s there today – flat
Celebrate a mother's love
and dark. You would never know he’s there unless you specifically went on a hunt to find it. I thought, ‘This guy is a hero. Why isn’t there something a little bit more significant?’” Since then Armstrong has fought to turn Bourke’s final resting spot into a place of recognition, to pay tribute to a military man who earned such an important honour. On Wednesday, Armstrong finally had a smile on his face visiting Bourke’s grave, as a new upright monument was unveiled recognizing the significance of the man buried below. PlEASE SEE: Hero finally recognized, Page A17
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