ONE YEAR AGO
• A Kamloops man has received 20 months of house arrest and will pay $158,000 in restitution after scamming booth exhibitors out of thousands of dollars from phony trade shows he set up within Red Deer and Calgary. Paul Raymond Pearson, 58, pleaded guilty in Red Deer provincial court on Friday to one charge of fraud over $5,000, 16 charges of fraud under $5,000, and one count of attempted fraud. Another 67 fraud-related charges were withdrawn. The court also withdrew fraud-related charges against Pearson’s 60-year-old wife, Gloria.
• G.H. Dawe Community School students attended a school that had undergone a substantial facelift. The two-year project, worth more than $9-million, meant the school was gutted and built up again, while students and teachers continued to work in the building. The finishing touches were being put on the school for the first day of class on Sept. 1.
FIVE YEARS AGO
• City manager Norbert Van Wyk, 59, said he would retire at the end of the year. Hired late in 1997, Van Wyk said he had committed then to stay on for at least five years and for a maximum of 10. Red Deer Mayor Morris Flewwelling said Van Wyk had served with integrity and dedication.
• RCMP confirmed a man who had been in a coma since a violent arrest had died. Police shocked Jason Doan, 28, three times with a Taser to subdue him after responding to reports that a man was using a pitchfork to smash vehicles in Oriole Park.
10 YEARS AGO
• An occasional golfer potted his second hole-in-one in two years at the Canadian Paraplegic Association fundraising tournament. Peter Kocher won $4,000 for his second ace; he had received a Dodge minivan the previous year.
• Rail traffic through Lacombe was halted for more than a day when 10 train cars derailed on the CPR tracks. The cars, five of which tipped over, spilled grain and polyethylene pellets. Eleven cars containing anhydrous ammonia were only one car away from the last one to derail.
25 YEARS AGO
• Living under a sod roof wasn’t all bad. In fact, it could be downright cozy, said Laft Hus master builder Jan Setre.
The traditional Norwegian farm house beside the Recreation Centre was crowned with two layers of sod and one layer of black dirt. The layered chunks of sod would grow together through the dirt and, hopefully, the roof would become so root-bound that it would last for centuries, Mr. Setre said. Mr. Setre’s hope was well-founded. The Laft Hus was identical to one built in 1770 which still stood near Oslo, Norway. The Red Deer version was being built by the Aspelund Laft Hus Society, using the old Norwegian methods.
• Red Deer public library patrons would become the first in the province to enter the computer age. Terminals were to be set up in the library for hands-on-use so patrons could find and reserve books, said technical services librarian Ron Gillies. “It’s a nice feeling — everything’s coming together,” said Mr. Gillies who had been working on library automation for four years. “It’s been like a four-year pregnancy,” said Hazel Flewwelling, library board chairman.
50 YEARS AGO
• The seventh annual Alberta Horticultural Show and the 4th annual Lacombe and District Flower Show, held in the auditorium and banquet room of the Lacombe Memorial Centre, was a scene of outstanding beauty. There were 960 exhibits in the ten sections of the show. These were divided into 78 classes.
• One of the most important retail openings in the city’s history was held under sunny skies and flying flags as hundreds of city and district shoppers converged on 49th Street and 49th Avenue. For the opening of the beautiful new Hudson’s Bay Company store. Catching the fancy of residents of a wide area in Central Alberta, the store opening drew visitors from many miles around Red Deer. These were joined by downtown business people.
90 YEARS AGO
• Saturday, August 27, will be bouquet day at the Hospital for Returned Soldiers. The gardens are a wonderful sight, there being some 115 varieties of bloom and more than 1,000 combinations of colours. The staff extend a cordial invitation to everyone to visit the grounds tomorrow. A bouquet will be presented to one member of each home and institution.
• John Gunard Larsen, dangerous criminal and escaped lifer from the Ponoka asylum, who fled from that institution early Wednesday morning, was recaptured by the Alberta Provincial Police at 7o’clock Wednesday night. The escaped convict was taken in the police net at Morningside, a small station six miles south of the town of Ponoka, on the C.P.R. He had travelled about fifteen miles during the day before he was apprehended by the officers. Meagre details of the capture reached Edmonton Wednesday night and it is not know whether the much wanted man made any resistance or not.
100 YEARS AGO
• Support was unanimous for Dr. Clark in his bid to represent the Liberals in the Red Deer riding during the next federal election.
• Local Ayrshire breeder J.J. Richards did well at the purebred stock show in Edmonton. His cattle earned him awards for champion bull and champion cow.