Kelowna.com - Kelowna. Right Now!

Biographical information about some of the Okanagan's female murder victims will appear at the memorial on this year's anniversary of the massacre at L'ecole Polytechnique, thanks to a group of UBCO students. (File photo)

By Joe Fries

Even as the number of names on the list approaches 20, a new ode to some of the Okanagan’s female murder victims is still just scratching the surface.

Students in a first-year gender and women’s studies course at UBCO are undertaking the project, which will see them compile visual biographies of the victims. Up to 20 women will be honoured in that way.

“That’s only about a third of the (female murder victims) that are out there over the past few decades. That’s part of the message,” noted Ilya Parkins, an associate professor and co-ordinator of UBCO’s gender and women’s studies program.

The project was actually the brainchild of Micki Smith, co-ordinator of the Kelowna Women’s Resource Centre.

She said the list was chosen partly on the basis of how much information would be available to the students from sources such as newspaper archives. The murder cases, which date back to the early 1990s, needed to be “high-profile enough that (students) could find the information.”

Smith’s organization pays homage to the region’s victims of violence each year at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the massacre at L’ecole Polytechnique. Rather than just read out the names of local women who became victims of violence, she thought it would be better to have framed photos of these women that featured some biographical information and the circumstances leading to their deaths.

“They become numbers at some point, but we don’t want to see them as numbers,” Smith said. “We want to see them as women whose lives matter.”

Parkins, whose students have six weeks to complete the project, said she wanted to bring the issue of violence home to her class’s 44 students, just four of whom are men. With that in mind, she agreed to draw concrete examples ripped right from the region’s headlines.

“I think those are the most effective for teaching,” said Parkins, who added that the students are already discussing the work on a private online bulletin board.

“They’re clearly being touched by it on some level,” she said.

Smith said each of the cases on the list hits close to home, but cited the example of Donna Stone, who, in 1994, was stabbed to death by her husband, Bert Stone. His defence was that he was an automaton at the time of the offence and was therefore not responsible. A jury found him guilty of manslaughter and he was eventually sentenced to four years in jail.

joe@kelowna.com
250-575-4303

• Put some ultra-fair trade coffee under the tree from the Women's Resource Centre
• Lessons from Montreal Massacre still relevant today: Kelowna commemorates event

The project is to include:
Anna Adams and Sherry Adams
Tara Chequis
Jessica Crane
Carolyn Crawford
Jennifer Cusworth
Elsie Friesen
Rajwar Chahal and eight members of her family
Cecelia Grono and Tammy Grono
Ruby Ann Kirkpatrick
Sandy Korba
Danielle Francis Larson
Clara Loski
Carmel McCabe
Tina Louise Parr
Donna Mae Stone
Helena Tomat
Mindy Tran
Hazel White
Crystal Petra Wright

Tags: ilya parkins, kelowna women's resource centre, micki smith, ubco, violence againt women

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 10:23 am and is filed under Campus, Crime, Kelowna, UBC Okanagan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.