The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1959, Page 33

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
31
cussed almost daily, George says he had
absolutely no interest in a writing
career when he finished high school.
His mother, Laura Goodman Salver-
son, is a well-known Canadian novel-
list of Icelandic ‘background. His
father, of Minnesota Norwegian extrac-
tion, was a CNR dispatcher in Western
Canada for many years. George set out
to be a radio newscaster—first in Flin
Flon, Manitoba, and then in Win-
nipeg. Lie soon found that because he
had a mother who wrote, he was con-
sulted on writing problems, at the
studios, and before he knew what had
happened he was writing commercial
copy, continuity, and finally, plays.
He discovered that he liked the work
he had once thought he would not
touch with a ten-foot pole. He haunt-
ed the CBC studios where Esse Ljungh
was producing network dramas.
Ljungh encouraged him and he was
given a job of preparing a series of
war documentaries for the Canadian
Army. One day he woke up to the fact
that Fate had made him a free-lance
writer in spite of himself. Today he is
a highly successful one.
This article in the CBC Times is a
well-deserved tribute to a hard-work-
ing and talented playwright, and we
would like to add our own wishes
to George Salverson for a long and
continued successful career.
Gustaf Kristjanson
Maria June Magnusson, daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. Agnar Magnusson, of
Winnipeg, won one of the Isbister
scholarships for Winnipeg in the De-
partmental examinations of June 1959,
with an average of 88%. She was a
student of the Daniel McIntyre Col-
legiate. During all the years of her
Junior High and High School, she
won the highest mark in her grade for
the year. In the school examinations,
-her year’s average in Grade X was
96%, and in Grade XI, 94.6%.
Two days before writing for the Is-
bister, she took the Grade X Music Ex-
amination given by the University of
Manitoba. Her average mark for piano
and Theory was 85%. She was awarded
the Jon Sigurdson Chapter I.O.D.E.
Music Scholarship.
Maria June Magnusson
The same year she won the Charter-
ed Accountants’ prize of $25.00 for the
highest mark in English and Math-
ematics for the year. She also won the
Merit Award for Science, given at
graduation by the Collegiate, and the
School Board book prize for the high-
est mark in the Grade XI class.