***A Few Personal Words From AnnK on the Heritage Awards***


Again, thank you to everyone who came and supported me in the afternoon. As I reflect on winning, I must say I was very nervous sitting up at the front with Leslie Fitch from the Library and occasionally I kept turning around to see if I could catch a glimpse of Sarah and Luke a few rows behind me. Garth made a very lovely speech where he did note about the website and the work between Inkz and myself, but forgot to mention Luke! I would like to take this moment to thank Luke so much for all of his hard work and for being such a good friend of mine.


The Award itself is "TOO MUCH ROCK FOR ONE HAND" (if you know it, throw it up!) and is actually a piece of stone from the old Milton Bruce Street School that was built over a hundred years ago and was demolished in 1970. It weighs in at 20 pounds of Kickin' Frickin' Escarpment stone and has a nice scrawled plaque.



I have never won anything like this before and its an honor to receive this. I remember I was having a conversation with Lauren on Thursday where we talked about all the stuff we would win as kids and how on track day we were always the one’s at E.W. Foster school who got ribbons that read “PARTICPANT” for just coming out. I hated competition as a kid and was ruthlessly teased by my peers for being such a lousy girl at sports. One year, I got into my head that if I signed up for the longest track race I would win some place out of default because no one would be that stupid to sign up for such a ridiculous competition. To my horrors, over 15 other students signed up and all the mean boys from my class came to tease me in my defeat. I just ran and tried to keep my pace and suddenly after a few laps I noticed that half of the girls I was running against just gave up and the boys who had came to tease me started cheering me on. I came 6th place, but I remember the boys were stunned when I crossed the finish line. “We didn’t think you’d even finish, but you did!” At that moment in my life, I didn’t listen to them really, but that thought came back to me when I was sitting up at the front of the Heritage Awards.

It was like a scene from Key the Metal Idol (which is a great anime series if you can find it) where in a moment in my life when everything was loud and confusing. The room just went silent and I noticed I was standing with a crowd around me with faces of people I have known from many aspects of my life cheering me on. It was in that moment I realized that within me I had something I have always longed for with the encouragement of my peers.
I could not have made it here without all of you! Thank you for your support and please keep rooting for me in 2006 and towards the future!

To see the current uploaded photos of the days event, please check out:

http://www.agentorange.digitalinkz.com/gallery/Heritage-Awards-2006

More photos will be uploaded soon! (Thanks to Luke for taking the pictures!)

In addition, if you want to check up on all the stuff I am working on, please stop by my website! www.agentorange.digitalinkz.com

Thank you again!

~AnnK