REVISITING SOME MEMORABLE MOMENTS FROM 2017
Many are photographed, not all are chosen to appear in this column. Those seen here all hit 2017’s cutting-room floor, but have been retrieved to get 2018 started.
AFTER JACK: As usual, many journalism students attended the Jack Webster Foundation’s awards banquet in October. Some may have echoed past student attendee Marina Percy’s opinion of big-time journalists at the microphone who “stood up and told us how good their careers were.” More likely hoped that today’s fewer salaried reporters will take buyouts, get sacked, or die and open up jobs for them. Impressively, though, the mostly young folk present had dedicated years of their time and bundles of their or their parents’ money to prepare for a career that the event’s top awardee, Sun/Province reporter Kim Bolan, called “honourable.” Good for them and for the larger community that let’s hope they’ll serve.
FRONT-ROW DAN: Sun reporter Dan Fumano won the Webster award for science, technology, health and environment, and split the Excellence in Legal Journalism award with colleague Matt Robinson. The late Jack Webster would likely have approved Fumano’s press-ahead style that continues off the job. A hooker with the Meralomas rugby team, he has seven brawny guys shove him forward and the same number force him backward in scrums. Dad Gus, who played the same position, had a fellow Meralomas announce his 50-year tribute dinner in characteristic rugby style: “This is our chance to really give it to the old bastard!” In July, Dan will marry Megan Close, marketing director at The Cross Decor & Design store, where an extensive china shop awaits her fiance’s charging-bull ways.
RIP NEXT WEEK: Rugby teams handle even wakes inventively. When Bruce Claridge’s Kats teammates staged one for him in 1998, they scheduled it a week before he died. “Of course he’s here,” one said. “Why would he want to miss all the great lies and b.s. about him?”
GEROY CORNERED: Another football game was involved when much-loved former B.C. Lions slotback Geroy Simon had daughter Jaden and son Jordan see him inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame at April’s Banquet of Champions in the Vancouver Convention Centre West.
OFF THE BEAT: National Day celebrants at the Italian Cultural Centre in June included Luigi Aquilini, who with 24 other industrialists, had recently been declared Cavalieri dei Lavoro (Workers’ Knight) by Italian President Sergio Mattarella. He was accompanied by Jim Chu, who retired as Vancouver chief constable in May 2015 to became a vice-president in the Aquilini Investments Group that Luigi heads.
ICE TIME: Luigi Aquilini’s son Paolo and his wife Clara were at Rogers Arena in May, not to see the family’s Vancouver Canucks play, but for the Reveal gala that raised $1,025,000 for the Canucks Autism Network the couple founded in 2006. Clara co-chaired the event with Christi Yassin, and the Canadian Tenors sang Happy Birthday for Luigi’s 77th.
HERE’S CHEERS: Some might be daunted when facing glasses that would soon hold nine different wines. But Vancouver International Wine Festival Bacchanalia gala chair Jana Maclagan, husband Bill and some 400 guests met February’s bibulous challenge while raising $280,000 for the Bard on The Beach theatre company.
WIDE-MOUTH WINGDING: Draft beer in Mason jars was the beverage of choice in June when furniture designer-maker Kate Duncan organized the second annual Address show that drew 39 exhibitors from around the Pacific Northwest to Main Street’s artisan-hub Ellis Building.
BRRRR: Global fashion photographer Raphael Mazzucco joined fashion designer turned artist Jason Dussault in November for the latter’s mixed media exhibition titled No Home. Works included Dussault’s photograph of fiancee, model and international arts promoter-manager Diane Stafrace, taken at Shannon Falls. Dussault and Mazzucco added paint and other material to the large image. Its watery wintry locale was familiar territory for Mazzucco, whose early career included photographing in-thebuff singer Sarah McLachlan, who was immersed off Point Atkinson.
BRIGHT YOU ARE: After a drizzly start, the sun shone on the Deighton Cup’s ninth annual June running at Hastings Racecourse. Flamboyantly clad David Bentil helped guests get their own glow on with Piper Heidsieck Brut Champagne, while matching-attired models steered them to a lineup of highend vehicles from his Miles End Motors dealership.
DOWN TROU: One of the year’s livelier charitable events saw men check their trousers at the Vancouver Rowing Club door. September’s Pants Off gala, which reportedly raised $125,000 for Prostate Cancer Canada, also inspired some women present to emulate the chaps, much to their approval.
ALL HEART: Addressing Lions Gate Hospital’s facilities and equipment needs, especially those of cardiology head Dr. John Vyselaar, Catherine Konantz wore a 1968 Emilio Pucci ensemble to chair a May gala at the Capilano Golf & Country Club that reportedly netted $1,132,668.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: UBC researchers promise a happier new year to those who sniff a partner’s shirt — with the partner not in it, that is.