Local student heading to Queen’s Park

Queen’s Park will see a new face from Fort Frances this fall when Annelise Hawrylak starts the Legislative Assembly page program in November.
The Grade 8 student at St. Francis School was selected to serve as a page in Queen’s Park from Nov. 18 to Dec. 13 with fellow pupils from across the province.
“I was happy. I was very hyper. I’m so glad to be able to go and have this experience,” Hawrylak, who will be 13 by the time she goes to Queen’s Park, said Monday.
“I’ll get to meet a lot of new people and experience life in a city.”
The page program is open to students in Grade 7-8. They are excused from school to serve a term of between three to six weeks in Toronto.
During that time, they act as messengers in the Legislature, meet politicians and officials, and gain a firsthand perspective on how laws are drafted.
Hawrylak’s mother actually found out about the program and urged her daughter to apply.
“She said she was sure I would get in,” Hawrylak recalled.
Being chosen for the program was no small task. Since students will miss up to six weeks of school, only those with at least an 80 percent average are even considered.
Students also are expected to keep up with their school work with tutors provided by the program and math exercises prepared by their school.
“She’s definitely going to have to work hard,” St. Francis principal Brendan Hyatt said Monday. “They have them working from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. five days a week and then they have homework on top of that.
“[But] I’m excited for her. It is a great opportunity,” he added.
Before she arrives at Queen’s Park, Hawrylak has to memorize pages of information on the MPPs, and be able to identify the various ministers and know them by sight.
The French Immersion student also will be expected to speak to representatives in both official languages.
“Some of the MPPs are French,” she noted. “For lots of them, French is their first language so it will be good to have someone to speak French with.
“Some of the other pages will speak French, also,” Hawrylak added. “We will be able to keep up our French while we’re at Queen’s Park so we won’t get behind when we get back.”
And Hawrylak said she isn’t intimidated by all the work involved in the page program.
“This will be great for me. It will be good for college,” she remarked. “I’m looking forward to it. I can’t wait until I go to Toronto.”