Angela: I currently live in Grande Prairie, Alberta and I teach English, Film Studies and Drama to some ragamuffin high school students at Charles Spencer High School. I attended Artstrek in 1988 and loved it so much that I went back in 1990 to study Romeo and Juliet as well as West Side Story.

I’d love for people to know that having the opportunity to meet others who love Drama as much as you do can be life-affirming. Artstrek allowed me to be my true self and I was able to throw my whole heart and soul into something that I had only stifled so far. I tell my Drama students every year about this program in the hopes that one day one of them will go and come back changed like I did.

At 14 years old, I left home to travel alone on a Greyhound bus to a camp in a place I had never heard of: Vermilion, Alberta. Despite my brave demeanour, I was so lonely I thought I was going to die. We were studying The Visit by Frederich Durrenmatt and I felt about as scared and confused as the characters in the play.

It wasn’t until Thursday of that week that I finally realized that I was somewhere I utterly belonged. I was sitting alone and hoping that the earth would just swallow me up when two young gentlemen, and I use that term loosely, asked me what I was doing letting a fly crawl all over me. Didn’t I know that the fly would lay eggs and then I would have to take care of little maggot babies? That was it. Their humour matched my own and from then on we were attached at the hip.

Thank you Karl S., Brian W. and Brian H. for gathering me into your fold and helping me feel as though I belonged with such like-minded people as myself.

Angela didn’t submit a picture with her Artstrek memory, so we thought it would be fun to dig up the program brochure for that year. Hope this brings back some more great memories, Angela!