Weekly Update from the Commons - Week #2, Sept. 24th-28th, 2012




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The story of Samantha Walsh

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Samantha Walsh, a 13-year-old, Grade 8 student from Fleur de Lys on the Baie Verte Peninsula, disappeared one Sunday evening when walking home from her Grandmother's house, and I traveled to the community to research her story. The following feature article was published in The Telegram in February 2000. ••• "Sam, who had stripped off her ski pants when she got to her grandmother’s house, didn’t bother to put them on for the three-minute walk to her house. She went home wearing her coat and hat and long johns covered by flannel pajama pants, pink with black and white lambs, bought the day before at Value Village. But Sam never made it home. 'Loves you, Mom,' were her last words to her mother." ••• Samantha’s story By Ryan Cleary, The Telegram FLEUR DE LYS — The voice is that of a child, rising with a soft and sweet delivery from a room of living hell. It’s a haunting sound, the words of  Salt Water Joys , sung by a very talented and pretty littl...
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A survivor’s story

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The above picture of Bernard Dyke, a fisherman from Eastport, Bonavista Bay, was taken about two weeks after the fishing vessel Melina and Keith II sank off Cape Bonavista on Sept. 12, 2005. Dyke, then 17, was one of four crewmen who survived after spending four hours in the North Atlantic waiting to be rescued. Four others —Ivan Dyke, Justin Ralph, Anthony Molloy and Joshua Williams — were lost. Dressed only in T-shirt and underwear, Dyke survived by clinging to an overturned lifeboat. (His story is published below.) The search and rescue response times of the military’s Gander-based Cormorant helicopters are in the news again this week with parliamentary hearings being held in St. John’s. The story of the Melina and Keith II and an investigation into response times was covered in-depth by the now defunct Independent newspaper. The first coast guard vessel to arrive on scene was the Leonard J. Cowley — 9 hours and 45 minutes after it had been confirmed the vessel went down and ...
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Feast of Furey

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The following article was published in an August, 2001 edition of The Telegram. Chuck Furey, left, was a cabinet minister in the government of former Premier Brian Tobin, right.  Out of the limelight Life after politics: Chuck Furey enjoys “every second of every minute of every day” “If you walk along the side of the road and see a starving dog and feed it, it will never bite you. That’s the principle difference between and dog and a man.” — A Mark Twain quote in a letter from John Crosbie to Chuck Furey after Fury’s loss in the federal election of 2000. By Ryan Cleary The Telegram (August, 2001)  Chuck Furey rises from his bed every morning and heads to the bathroom to do his math. He stares into the mirror, settling on the reflection of a man who’s impressed with whom he greets. Nice teeth, thick hair, clear complexion — a politician’s prerequisites. For character, a cleft chin. His is a photograph that could come with the store-bought frame. A host fro...
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