Olds high school student earns Beaverbrook Vimy Prize, trip to Europe
Noah Korver is just finishing Grade 10. He’s written all his exams and finished all his school projects for the year, but his break from studying will be very short this summer. Noah was selected as one of only 14 Canadian youth to participate in this year’s Beaverbrook Vimy Prize – and one of only two chosen from Alberta.
The premiere educational program takes a select handful of Canadian youth to Europe for a two-week study ‘of the interwoven First and Second World War history of Canada, Great Britain and France’. They will attend lectures, visit former battlefields, trenches, underground tunnels, monuments and museums – and even meet a few of the remaining Veterans during their stay in Belgium and France. For Noah, the trip’s immersion into history is a continuation of his life-long interest in the two World Wars.
“I’ve always been interested in my uncle’s stories from the Second World War, when he was a little kid in Holland,” said Noah, whose mom Darla is a Family School Wellness Worker at Ross Ford Elementary School in Didsbury. “I also remember my neighbour having a book about the war that I used to look at when I was a little kid myself, and I just wanted to know more and more about it. There are amazing stories of kindness and humanity, along with all the shocking elements of war. And so many of the soldiers were just a few years older than I am now. They were kids.”
The unassuming 16 year-old has devoured everything he could study about this time in history, and he casually shares wartime anecdotes and dates, facts and analysis that make him sound more like a university scholar. It all lent itself well for his multi-step application to the Vimy Foundation, which included an essay, a video-taped personal statement, an online interview and a commitment to several obligations the study trip will entail.