Cochranite Angellana Patterson celebrated receiving multiple awards at the cadet's 41st Annual Ceremonial Review last weekend as her third year as a cadet draws to a close. During the 2512 King's Own Calgary Regiment annual review ceremony, Patterson was honoured as the Top Gold Star and Top Overall Cadet. As well, she received the Lord Strathcona Trust Fund Medal, awarded to a Canadian cadet in recognition of exemplary performance in physical and military training. The review was held at the Mewata Armoury on June 10. The 16-year-old said she has dedicated "countless hours" to the cadet's program. "One of the most recent things we did - we got to do a high ropes course which is really fun. It was an extracurricular thing, all the cadets loved it," Patterson said. "Field training exercises is probably the best thing we do. It's three times a year and they specialize in different areas of the cadet program so navigation, trekking and things like that. That's probably my favourite thing to do is go out for the weekend and just do all that stuff." Patterson said her troop parades each Tuesday evening as well as participates in various extracurriculars over the weekend. "It's kind of like a small-knit family and it's just so amazing like all the opportunities you get," she said. "You really just learn so much from the program and it's so memorable and extraordinary to be part of this place." "One of my favourite memories is when we went to the marksmanship competition and there were two teams from our corp going to participate, I was one of the captains," Patterson said. "It was so nerve-racking and everything but when we finally got to shoot we found out that we came in sixth (place) and it was just an amazing feeling being able to participate." Patterson is second in command to her troop, behind Lt. Don Richardson. "She's an exceptionally hard worker and reliable. As far as reliability, it's something we try to enforce with all of the cadets and try to get them to learn and she's one of the best for actually picking up on that and making good on what she says she's going to do," Richardson said. "She spends a lot of time in her mentoring role. She actually takes the younger cadets - especially the female cadets – and coaches them and teaches them basically to emulate her which is really what we're hoping for." "I think, as a father of daughters, a strong female role model is probably a great thing to have. The other female cadets seem to be taking her leadership roles and developing from those too ... She is one of those cadets that is an automatic leader, she just takes to those roles and runs with them.
