Tsawwassen First Nation Chief Kim Baird was honoured last Friday as a distinguished alumnus by Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
Baird, who graduated from Kwantlen in 1992 with an arts diploma, received the university's 2012 Distinguished Alumni Award for community and public service.
She said she was "very, very flattered and honoured" by the award.
"I was honoured to be nominated along with three other well-deserving people," she said, adding her whole career path has stemmed from her studies at Kwantlen.
Baird was nominated for the award along with B.C. Liberal Surrey-Panorama MLA, and former Delta resident, Stephanie Cadieux; D.J. Lam, operations manager at Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society; and Elizabeth Johnson, co-founder of the Grace Rwanda Society.
Baird said she was adrift and didn't really know what she wanted to do when she entered her post-secondary education.
She said she took "every -ology and -osophy you can imagine" and many of her essays and papers were based on her community, which laid the groundwork for the path she finds herself on today.
Baird was first elected chief in 1999 and is currently in her sixth term. She has led her community through the province's first urban treaty and into the First Nation's new era of self-governance.
She was the first nonMLA woman in B.C.'s history to address the legislature when the treaty process was initiated in 2007.
Baird adds the Distinguished Alumni Award to a long list of other accolades, including Canada's Top 40 Under 40 Award, the National Aboriginal Women in Leadership Distinction Award, Vancouver Magazine's Power 50 Award and Canada's Most Powerful Women Top 100 Award.
jkerr@delta-optimist.com
