Bayside Plumbing & Gas Fitting
Calendar Lake Country
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Winfield, Oyama, Okanagan Centre and Carrs Landing since 1951
Qualified, reliable, bonded. Over 30 years exp. res./comm. service renovations, new installations, h/water tanks, dishwashers, washers, dryers.
250-317-2279
July 24, 2013
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Athlete on Team Canada deaf volleyball squad KEVIN PARNELL
Malindi Elmore out-paces the field through Napa wine country. ...............................
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The Orchard hosts Shari Ulrich, her daughter and classmate, in an outdoor concert July 26. ...............................
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Flyers ■ Home Depot ■ JYSK ■ Shoppers Drug Mart
For most of her young life, volleyball player Bree Sproule has been a rarity in the small community of Oyama. She’s the only deaf person in Oyama, the northern-most point of Lake Country. She was the only deaf player on her school and club volleyball teams and the only deaf kid of six siblings, born and raised in Oyama. But over the past year Sproule, 19, has been hanging with people much like her. She has completed her first year at Gaulladet University in Washington, DC, the world’s only university specifically for deaf people where she was a member of the women’s volleyball team. And last week she departed with 10 other deaf volleyball players, as part of Team Canada, to take part in the 22nd Deaflympics in Sofia, Bulgaria. Close to 4,000 deaf people from 84 countries will be competing. “It’s really exciting, I’ve never been to Europe before,” said Sproule through her interpreter, her sister Brooke. “It’s going to be a new experience for me. I’m really excited to see the different culture and to learn about the history. “It’s going to be really fun to be with the team because we are all going to be together and there
KEVIN PARNELL/LAKE COUNTRY CALENDAR
OYAMA resident Bree Sproule has left with Team Canada for the Deaflympics in Bulgaria where she is a member of the Canadian women’s volleyball team.
is going to be a lot of deaf people there.” Sproule was born with no hearing and was a perfect candidate for a choclear implant which can restore partial hearing. However, given the choice Sproule decided to accept the fact she was deaf and communicate using sign language. It didn’t make her trip through school any easier as she battled not only her inability to communicate using her voice but also some people’s perceptions of just what she could accomplish.
“In the beginning it was really hard,” she said using sign language. “There was a lot of criticism of deaf people and how we couldn’t do things, even in school. But there are a lot of different things that I have done. “There are a lot of successful deaf people and I had to prove myself. For me I just felt the same as everyone else. Now (at deaf university) it’s really cool because I can get a good education in my first language.” Sproule definite-
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preter so we used hand signals or numbers to communicate what type of set and then we would practise them often. Sometimes there was miscommunication but mostly it was smooth.” At the Deaflympics, Sproule is looking forward to competing with and against other athletes who are in the same situation. Interestingly North American sign language differs from sign language used in Europe so Sproule and her teammates will be able to communicate without giving away strategy. But it will also make it a challenge to sign with other people she meets from Europe. “North American sign language is not universal,” she said.
SEE VOLLEYBALL A3
Worst ending for ATV ride Two people reported missing Thursday, July 18, in Lake Country, were found dead the next afternoon. A man and a woman, both 30, had gone for a ride on a quad to the Oyama Lake Road lookout Thursday at 9 p.m. When they did not return to a residence on Middle Bench Road where they were expected, a search began. On Friday at 2:50 p.m., Kelowna Search and Rescue located the quad in a ravine off Oyama Lake Road. “The persons were located and were fatally injured,” said Cpl. Barbara Holley, with the Lake Country RCMP. An RCMP press release had stated that the couple were unfamiliar with the area. The ATV accident remains under investigation and the B.C. Coroner Service is now involved in the case. Besides Kelowna Search and Rescue, the search involved the RCMP helicopter and the Lake Country Fire Department.
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ly didn’t let her lack of hearing keep her from taking part in activities at school. She started playing volleyball in Grade 8 and her skill soon took over and she became an integral part of George Elliot’s girls volleyball team. By the age of 14 she had made the Team Canada’s women’s deaf volleyball team and she also continued to play other sports like basketball and soccer. Being a setter on her high school team, Sproule and her teammates developed a unique language all on their own. “Most of my friends know how to sign because I have been teaching them and in school I had an interpreter,” she said. “But on the floor I couldn’t have an inter-
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