Recent History – 2001
May 18, 2001
DAWSON CREEK — Flags at area schools were flying at half-mast Thursday following the death of long-time school board trustee Bev Hendricks.
Hendricks passed away Thursday morning in hospital in Vancouver after a battle with cancer. She was 57 years old.
Fellow school board trustee Jim Noble said Hendricks, who was first elected to the school board in the mid-1980s, was a strong advocate for rural schools and special needs children.
“Bev was outstanding to work with because she lived and breathed doing the very best she could for the kids, especially for the special needs kids in the district,” he said. “She was a very, very strong proponent for children everywhere, but especially for special needs kids.
“She was also a very strong proponent for continuing to maintain the rural schools, and made very sure they had access to computers and made sure they had whatever it took to keep the schools going in accordance with the provincial curriculum.”
School board chair Yvonne Elden said Hendricks was a lively addition to the board.
“There was always something of interest, and for me it was an amazing thing to experience her perception,” Elden said. “She could see through to the bottom of a situation that I couldn’t or didn’t.”
In the last few years, Hendricks was clearly suffering.
“She was a lot of fun but as her sickness took over the last three or four years, the fun wasn’t always so evident, but even at the end she could come out with something that was just off the wall to make us all laugh.”
Judy Lee, president of the parents’ advisory council for Tate Creek Elementary School in Tomslake echoed those comments.
“She worked for the rural schools, for the needs of the children, and she had the biggest understanding of what the rural schools faced,” she said.
Husband Juste Hendricks said he’s still dealing with the shock. “It still seems all unreal to me,” he said.
But he was able to offer the following words: “She was definitely one of a kind,” he said. “She had, I think, a pretty good sense of humour, intelligence and wit and provided a conscience for the board.”
Bev Hendricks was born in Vancouver and moved up to the Peace with her first husband in the mid-1960s to help work on the WAC Bennett Dam. She and Juste, her second husband, were married in 1970.
She is also survived by four children and three grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Wednesday, May 23 at South Peace United Church, 3 p.m. start.