LOOKBACK: Cheese plant closure hurt Town of Bashaw
ONE YEAR AGO
• Red Deer MLAs were taken back by Premier Ed Stelmach’s announcement that he would resign before the next election. Mary Anne Jablonski, MLA for Red Deer North and minister of Seniors and Community Supports, said she was surprised the premier made this kind of announcement at this time. But Stelmach was determined to take responsibility for the slip in the Alberta Progressive Conservative’s popularity, she said. “He could see in the polls that the party was not in the best favour with Albertans,” said Jablonski. “He did put his party and his province first.”
• Local school divisions supported a $2-million meningitis immunization program being launched by the province. Alberta Health Services started rolling out the provincewide program to protect adolescents from meningococcal disease. “We’re always pleased to see the government pursuing programs that ensure and support the health of the students that go to our schools,” said Allan Tarnoczi, associate superintendent, Chinook’s Edge School Division.
FIVE YEARS AGO
• A Rimbey native working at a NATO base was murdered in his Sarajevo apartment. Thomas Jordi, 26, had been stabbed to death on Dec. 30. Newspapers reported that neighbours heard noises and a loud dispute before the death.
• City council pulled a rabbit out of a hat, achieving a lower than expected 9.76 per cent municipal tax increase while approving a total budget of about $142 million. The tax hike was significantly less than the 13.5 per cent proposed at the start of the budget process.
10 YEARS AGO
• The City of Red Deer braced its citizens for a 3.65 per cent tax increase, the largest since 1991, to pay for expanding services to meet the needs of a growing city.
• Bashaw, billed as the Cheese Capital of Western Canada, was hit hard by the announcement its local cheese plant was closing. It was the largest employer in town, providing 88 jobs in the town of 775.
25 YEARS AGO
• The public school board will revamp it’s outdated sex education policy ad seek more criminal charges for drug offences because of a controversial student survey. Superintendent Ken Jesse told trustees in his report a wide-ranging survey of 300 Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School students helped draw attention to teen problems with drugs and sex.
• Red Deer’s four community schools are throwing their efforts behind a campaign to stop provincial government cutbacks. The Pines, Eastview, G.H. Dawe and St. Patrick’s Community Schools want the government to reverse its decision to cut half the money budgeted for Alberta’s community schools. The government has slashed $2.2 million from the $4.5 million community school program as of Sept. 1 to help trim an expected deficit of $3 billion.
50 YEARS AGO
• Increasing numbers of Central Alberta farmers are now exploring the possibilities of reducing their feed costs by importing corn from the United states. “The idea of trying to lower feeding costs by bringing in corn from the united states has become red hot with a lot of our farmers,” the Advocate was told by local grain elevator agents.
• People connected with recreation in Red Deer enthusiastically welcome the city council decision to go ahead with building a recreation centre.
City Council approved the construction of a $247,051 centre to be completed by the end of June.
90 YEARS AGO
• The adjourned meeting of the Red Deer Public School Board was held at the Central School. The new members expressed some of their lines of policy, the older members supplemented this information from their own knowledge and experience, while Principal Locke reviewed some of the internal economy of the school, as to grading, attendance, outside pupils, etc.
