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Year In Review 2013: B.C.'s Good News Stories

Best B.C. Good News Stories Of 2013
Alasdair McLellan/Facebook/YouTube/SFU

Every year, we're bombarded with so much bad news that sometimes it's difficult to remember the good things that happened along the way.

We love good news here at The Huffington Post B.C., and that's why we've compiled some of the more hopeful, heartwarming and inspiring stories that we encountered in 2013.

Check out our picks for the best good news B.C. stories of 2013. The story continues below the slideshow:

February: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/02/09/fire-splash-sunset-photo-bc-national-geographic_n_2650598.html" role="link" class=" js-entry-link cet-internal-link" data-vars-item-name="Fire Splash Photo In B.C. Goes Viral" data-vars-item-type="text" data-vars-unit-name="5cd73de6e4b0d2ca93056831" data-vars-unit-type="buzz_body" data-vars-target-content-id="/2013/02/09/fire-splash-sunset-photo-bc-national-geographic_n_2650598.html" data-vars-target-content-type="feed" data-vars-type="web_internal_link" data-vars-subunit-name="before_you_go_slideshow" data-vars-subunit-type="component" data-vars-position-in-subunit="35">Fire Splash Photo In B.C. Goes Viral</a>

Best Good News B.C. Stories Of 2013

Teenager Kirill Dudko from Donetsk, Ukraine made waves as a citizen scientist after spotting an elephant seal eat a hagfish on B.C.'s ocean floor, and emailing researchers in Victoria to alert them to this rare sighting.

B.C. photographer Rob Leslie's spectacular "fire splash" picture showed a rock hitting the water and apparently setting the sea aflame. No surprise it was named "National Geographic Photo of the Day."

B.C. RCMP Const. Tad Milmine took his "Bullying Ends Here" campaign to over 15,000 students in Canada and the U.S., teaching schoolkids about how to stand up to harassment.

Cody Green danced up close and personal with Catherine Zeta-Jones at the 2013 Oscars. The Surrey-raised performer was handpicked by awards choreographer Rob Ashford because of his work on Broadway. Green had previously performed in "West Side Story" and "Grease."

Terrace's Bob Erb made last year's good news list when he won a $25 million Lotto Max jackpot. He made this year's list, not by good luck, but through a good deed, when he left a $10,000 tip for the owner of a Saskatchewan diner whose daughter had been recently diagnosed with cancer.

Parksville's Megan Kelly turned the traditional Yearbook quote on its head when she altered a phrase from "Harry Potter" to read, "Master has given Megan a high school diploma. Megan is freeeee!" The quote, which she posted to her Tumblr account, drew over 1.2 million views after it was shared on Imgur and Reddit.

Hobbit-lovers in Vancouver were ready to call on Gandalf to save a Tolkien-like home on King Edward Avenue after it was sold. But developer David Mooney engaged Donald Luxton, a heritage consultant, to see whether the popular home could be incorporated into a new project.

2013 was a great year for models from B.C. Ashley Diana Morris was named the new face of Guess, while Kate Bock was voted Sports Illustrated's "Swimsuit Rookie of the Year". But Vargas Island's Simon Nessman topped them all after being ranked second in the world's male models by models.com.

Quadriplegic SFU student Jessica Kruger sought to prove that "different" is beautiful when she entered a contest to be the new face of Lise Watier's "Something Sweet" perfume. The Coquitlam woman beat out 400 other contestants.

Patricia Celan wasn't content with a tiara. Just after winning Miss Charity BC in the Miss BC pageant, the White Rock woman had her head shaved on stage at Langley's Chief Sepass Theatre. Her message? "You can be beautiful, even with short hair."

Miracles do, apparently happen. Fifty years after she went missing, Lucy Johnson, who was found in the Yukon by her daughter Linda Evans. Johnson disappeared from Surrey in 1961, to be reunited with her daughter in September.

Jenny Stewart had dreamed of meeting a Mountie in Red Serge since she was 10 years old in her native Scotland. Her wish finally came true at the age of 88, when an RCMP officer wearing the force's traditional outfit visited her at a hospice in Port Alberni.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, says the old Klingon proverb. But Kayla Smith served her dish with a smile when she stole back her own bike after it was lifted from Vancouver's Olympic Village and put up for sale on Craigslist. Smith met the seller, tried out the bike, then rode away and never came back.

Victoria whiz kid Ann Makosinski has a bright future after winning the age 15-16 category at the Google Science Fair with her hand-powered flashlight, which turns on simply by holding it. Her prize was a $25,000 scholarship that may allow her to continue her education at a major U.S. school.

If you found the world's oldest message in a bottle, would you open it up and read it? Courtenay's Steve Thurber couldn't bear to after finding a bottle with an envelope dated Sept. 29, 1906 on Schooner's Cove Beach in Tofino. When he looked online, he discovered that the next oldest bottle was just under 98-years-old, a few years short of his 107-year-old discovery.

Who could deny schoolchildren the best-ever story on the subject of turtle stacking? The Prince Rupert School District, apparently. Back in 2012, a teacher in the northern B.C. town was told she could not display a quote from Dr. Seuss' "Yertle the Turtle" that read, "I know up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here on the bottom, we too should have rights," because it was deemed too political. Common sense eventually prevailed, but not until the B.C. Teachers' Federation settled a freedom of expression grievance with the B.C. Public School Employers' Association.

Social media users stepped up in a big way for Richmond's Erica Macklin and her family when her husband Paul died from skin graft surgery complications. Members of the Facebook group Richmond B.C. Bidding Wars, where users normally sell furniture, toys and clothes, raised money and cooked meals for Macklin and her four children, even though many only knew her through the social network.

UBC student Emily Morris won the national Mitacs Award for Outstanding Innovation for her work on a genetic condition known as 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. Patients with the condition are missing chromosomes and suffer problems such as heart defects, immune problems and learning disabilities. They also face higher risks of psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia and psychosis. Morris's research found that geneticists with higher levels of stigma around mental illness were unlikely to discuss the psychiatric risks with patients' families.

Langley's Keian Blundell was diagnosed with leukemia in July 2012. His trips to the hospital in Vancouver would take him past RCMP headquarters, which led to dreams of joining the force. And the Mounties were only too happy to oblige his wish., making him a miniature, personalized red serge uniform and naming him an honourary constable.

Jessie MacIvor, an artist with Down Syndrome from Princeton, saw her colourful drawings go viral after she shared them on Facebook.

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