She's on the right track now

Enlarge Image

Rebecca Begg never got past Grade 10, but now she is a grad of the child and youth care certificate program with a GPA of 3.95. (RUTH.BONNEVILLE@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

LG Awards

Cooking -- on the stove and on the court

FREWEINI Mebrahtu and Joshua Stolar are this year's Lieutenant-Governor Award winners.

Mebrahtu is graduating from the health information management diploma program with a stellar GPA of 4.27.

A refugee from Eritrea and single mother of autistic twin boys, Mebrahtu managed to balance her personal life with her studies and made the honour roll every term of the program.

Mebrahtu helped create a Diversity Cookbook with recipes from immigrant and international students enrolled at Red River College. The cookbook is being sold as a fundraiser for the Diversity Award for Refugees.

Stolar is graduating from the business administration diploma program with a GPA of 4.03.

The honour roll student capped off a three-year Red River College Rebels men's basketball career by winning a Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference championship and a finals MVP while also being selected to the conference All-Star team. Stolar was a verbal leader on the court and led the Rebels in points and rebounds.

 

Honorary diploma

RED River College has awarded an honorary diploma to Polly Craik, president and CEO of FineLine Solutions.

Craik chaired the 2007 Women's World Hockey Championship.

Craik made history in 2005 by becoming the first woman to be named Manitoba Business Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year. Then in 2007, Craik was named one of the most influential women in sport and physical activity by the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity.

 

Distinguished alumni

JOHN Gale is the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award, working in the mineral drilling industry before switching to real estate development.

A native of The Pas, Gale began his career setting up remote telephone systems in northern Manitoba after obtaining a certificate in radio and TV servicing from Keewatin College.

He moved to Winnipeg to pursue a diploma in mechanical engineering technology from Red River College. Gale graduated in 1980 and began working in research and development for Midwest Diamond Drilling, eventually becoming co-owner of Midwest and its successor, Dimatec Inc.

Gale now heads an ambitious plan to transform Kenora into a world-class tourist and business destination.

 

Teaching excellence

Winner of the Teaching Excellence Award is Teresa Menzies, who has been teaching communications, supervisory management, and customer service to students in RRC's civil engineering technology, transportation, and manufacturing programs since 2004.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

 

Related Items

1. Links

   • See the full list of RRC's June 2010 award winners

Enlarge Image

Technical communications grad Sarah Brannan at Red River College's Princess Street campus. 'I didn't even know where (Winnipeg) was.' (WAYNE.GLOWACKI@FREEPRESS.MB.CA )

Rebecca Begg had 167 placements as a child in care by the time she was 17. So, who better, she reckons, to help troubled kids get their lives on track.

The 29-year-old Begg is the first Red River College grad to go through the joint child and youth care certificate program offered by RRC and the Ndinawe community social program and then earn Red River's child and youth care diploma.

She's among 1,502 graduates for the spring convocation being held Wednesday and today, including 818 diploma and advanced diploma grads, and 684 graduates who've earned certificates.

"I went through 167 placements when I was growing up -- foster homes, group homes, emergency shelters. I had no idea of who I was," said Begg, who's already landed a job with New Directions.

"I sold a lot of drugs. I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks," Begg said. "I've lived in the North End of the city my entire life. (Now) I live right around the corner from where everything went south for me."

Begg never got past Grade 10, but Ndinawe prepared her for college, she explained. "I read and write at a university level, so I passed with flying colours," said Begg, who had an overall GPA of 3.95.

She got into Ndinawe through a women's support group at Klinic.

Her husband had died under circumstances still too painful for Begg to discuss, leaving her with two children. But family members stepped in to help, allowing her to go to school.

"I just know I wanted to make a difference in the system, as a product of the system," Begg said. "I did rehab, I had many addiction issues, I had a lot of counselling."

She's happy working at New Directions, and although Begg might check out whether she can transfer her credits towards a social work degree, she's eager to be on the front lines.

"I grew up in care and I came across many workers who didn't have their hearts in the job.

"I wanted to be a worker who related to kids," Begg declared.

* * *

Winnipeg's gain, solar system's loss

A geology grad more interested in Mars than Earth, bus driver, techno wizard able to translate computer into lay English.

And did we mention Sarah Brannan also met her future husband online, a guy who lived in someplace named Winnipeg, of which she'd never heard in far-off Ohio?

"I didn't even know where it was," laughed Brannan, who's graduating from Red River College in technical communication.

"We met (in a chat room) through some mutual friends. We talked almost two years before I moved to Winnipeg (in 2001)," Brannan said.

She's known others who met the same way, but, "Moving to another country, maybe not so much."

Brannan graduated from Kent State University with a geology degree in 1997, hoping for a career in academia specializing in the geology of other planets -- a somewhat limited field, she acknowledged.

"I was out of money and enthusiasm for the whole thing," so Brannan took a call centre job for a while, then enrolled at Red River.

"Technical communication caught my eye," she said. "They write manuals, web copy... the actual manual that gets sent home to customers.

"It's taking the technical information and making it understandable to someone who's not technical," she explained in straightforward, non-technical language.

Now looking for work, Brannan thinks she'd be a natural in the transportation field. "I put myself through university as a bus driver -- I drove transit, tour buses," Kent State's version of handi-transit. "I was a dispatcher, the manager of scheduling," she said.

GOLD MEDAL RECIPIENTS

Shawna Huber -- Aboriginal language specialist

Angie Ann Perkins -- Aboriginal self-government administration

Mark Adam McLaughlin -- Aircraft maintenance engineer

Erica Weselowski -- American Sign Language, English interpretation

Jaimie Theresa Collignon -- Animal health technology

Kyle Andrew Clinton -- Aviation management

Kailee Amanda Cartman -- Business administration

Maura J. Nelson -- Chemical and biosciences technology

Karalee Koop -- Child and youth care

Tanner John Paul Jangula -- Civil technology (municipal)

Colleen J. Hrabi -- Community development/economic development

Patrick Cosyns -- Computer analyst/programmer

Samantha Dumas -- Computer applications for business

Jason James Booth -- Creative communications

Bradford Marshall Gyselman -- Digital multimedia technology

Theressa Dawn Schroeder -- Disability and community support

Marjorie Ellen Niemi -- Early childhood education

Paul Buccini -- Graphic design

Leah Breland -- Greenspace management

Johnson Felix Fernandez -- Health information management

Joshua Benjamin Grand -- Information systems technology (database)

Michael Walter Herbert Ryan -- Network technology (CCNP)

Kyle Robert McDowell -- Power engineering technology

Sarah Kathryn Brannan -- Technical communication

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 3, 2010 B3