Podunk Below the Masthead Friday, May 15, 2009

Blockstock is back on the agenda for Seafest weekend, the School District formulates a plan for H1N1 and the students of Prince Rupert create works of art and raise funds for Transition House. Some of the Friday offerings in the Daily News.

BLOCKSTOCK IS BACK IN PRINCE RUPERT-- The city's outdoor music festival, normally tied in with Seafest weekend will return this year, thanks to some organizational help from some local business owners. Ted Keehn, Ted Sylvester and Joe Viscount have come together to keep the Blockstock groove happening. All that stands in the way of roadblock is a lack of talent, the organizers need at least six bands to sign up for the evenings showbill to make it work. Hopeful acts should contact Ted Keehn at Teddy's downtown for more details (see article below)

The H1N1 virus hasn't hit the North coast as hard as other parts of the province and country, but the School District is still preparing a plan to deal with it should the student population start to show signs of the virus. School officials will be watching for a trend of more than ten percent absence for the student population, the key indicator before they need to contact health officials for further guidance.

Prince Rupert's secondary and elementary students have worked together to help raise funding and awareness for Transition House. Friday's paper outlined an art project at PRSS which saw art students at the high school create vases, that were then turned over to elementary school students for painting. Newsletters went home with the students to explain the project and the work that Transition House does in the community, the awareness campaign paid off with a huge dividend as well. The vases and cash donations provided the students with a cheque for 603 dollars which they turned over to Transition House for its programs.

Friday's sports page featured a preview of the upcoming Rugby season, featuring some details on the training camp of the Prince Rupert Seamen.

Total pages in the Friday paper (16)

BLOCKSTOCK IS BACK IN PRINCE RUPERT
By George T. Baker
The Daily News
Friday, May 15, 2009
Page one

The town's two Teds are taking talent as far they can.

Teddy Keehn and Ted Sylvester are bringing Blockstock back from the brink so that Rupertites can enjoy youthful music at this year's Seafest.

After hearing that this year's Blockstock was on the chopping block, the two local businessmen felt compelled to save the annual rock concert, feeling that young artists' could use a leg up the music ladder.

"The kids just don't get many opportunities to show off their talent and so we thought this was worth doing," said Sylvester yesterday as he and Keehn were hunkered down in the repair area of Teddy's Records.

Up until last month's Completely Plugged_event, it.. appeared that the opportunity for teenage rockers to flesh out their ambitious careers was going to be April and then zilch.

But perhaps unbeknownst to many, a few older fans were bobbing their heads in the back and lamenting that the outdoor rock event looked to be a no go. The older trio was Keehn, Sylvester and local rock and roll supporter Joe Viscount.

After seeing Viscount's and Sylvester's sons play in the band Huddlestone, they thought - probably as any parent would - that their kids were pretty good and deserved more time in front of crowds.

Viscount will be supplying the gear including the drums, while Keehn will be supplementing anything else that needs to be done.

And the other positive for Sylvester is that he gets his son's band out of his house for an evening.

"The music is hard on my ears but the Completely Plugged event was really great and it gave them (Huddlestone) the chance to try out an audience. We just wanted to give them another opportunity."

While getting that racket out of his house is probably not necessarily what he was after, the owner of Breakers thought that it would probably be best that his son's band Huddlestone play in front of more audiences rather than mom and dad.

That opportunity will be there only as long as others join in.

The catch to this year's Blockstock is that organizers need at least five or six bands between the ages of 13 and 19 to sign up as soon as possible to make it work. That means local teen artists who reaily want to participate need to get on the horn and either call Keehn at Teddy's Records or go down and sign up.

Should it all work out, the event is taking place at Mariners Park from 7 p.m. to, " as long as we can