ONE YEAR AGO
• A prominent Ponoka businessman died following an industrial accident early Thursday morning. RCMP said Don Laing, 61, was found pinned beneath the rear wheel of a telescoping forklift at Don Laing Trailers west of Hwy 2 near Ponoka.
• A giant set of legs and shoes designed by two Red Deer ceramic artists for the bus stop and LRT station at Edmonton’s Southgate Mall were nearly complete. The finishing touches on the six-metre-high sculpture made out of around 7,600 bricks should be done by Monday. One of the last things to do on the piece, known as Immense Mode, was to add the glass mosaic of flowers onto the shoes.
FIVE YEARS AGO
• Red Deer RCMP and an Edmonton police gang unit joined forces to crack a drug ring, netting five suspects and seizing $140,000 worth of marijuana and cocaine. The RCMP said the nine-month operation was an example of the co-ordinated operation police forces must undertake to tackle modern drug crime.
• Record-high oil prices pushed the Canadian average price for regular gasoline above $1 per litre for the first time. Several service stations in and around Red Deer had gasoline at 98.9 cents. The price peaked at $1.14 before slowly declining.
10 YEARS AGO
• Poverty was centred on the downtown area of Red Deer, according to a new city profile. Based on 1996 information from Statistics Canada, the poorest area of the city was Riverside Meadows, with 45 per cent of the residents living below the poverty line, followed by the South Hill (around the hospital) and the combined neighbourhoods of Parkvale, Waskasoo and Woodlea. Overall 19.8 per cent of city residents were below the poverty line.
• Red Deer Emergency Services hired its first female firefighter/paramedic. Clare Guse was scheduled to start work in about three weeks.
25 YEARS AGO
• White shadows were painted on city sidewalks early in the morning to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Hiroshima — ghostly reminders of an atomic blast which instantly vaporized human bodies. Red Deer was one of about 35 Canadian towns and cities which were targeted by the International Shadow Project. Bill Pegg, local member of the project said 18 people participated in the project here — using life-sized cutouts of human forms and painting the outlines.
• A 45-minute hail and thunderstorm killed a Calgary man, caused severe damage to a red Deer greenhouse and cut yields in surrounding fields. Urs Klucker, 33, was dismantling a garage at Buffalo Lake at 7:30 p.m. When he was struck by lightning and fell to the ground. Mr. Klucker was a journeyman electrician and a native of Switzerland. Buffalo Lake is northeast of Stettler. Earlier in the day, Dentoom’s Greenhouse in Glendale sustained about $30,000 damage as the glass in its entire west side was shattered by golf-ball sized hail, Harry Dentoom said. “Our insurance people figure we lost 8,000 square feet of glass.”
50 YEARS AGO
• Thirty thousand persons attended the two-day Sylvan Lake regatta, voted an outstanding success by the regatta board. The official opening ceremony was carried out by Ho. A. J. Hooke, accompanied by Mrs. Hooke, and present were Mayor J.M. McAfee and Mrs. McAfee, Mr. and Mrs. William Ure, Mr. and Mrs. K. Wilkinson of Sylvan Lake, Jr. R. Wocks, president of the regatta board and other officials of the board.
• That Highway 2 through Red Deer was rightly called the “Corridor to Alaska” was obvious from records kept by the Tourist Information Bureau on Gaetz Ave. Since the bureau opened, June 21, a total of about 760 persons registered, of which about one-third were Americans passing through en route to Alaska. Twenty-five states were represented in the number from as far south as Florida, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.
90 YEARS AGO
• The 1920 Chautauqua closed with an enjoyable entertainment by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The public had been well satisfied with the results. The committee would come out on the safe side. The Chautauqua had been splendidly attended every day and the lectures, music and dramatic side of the course had been particularly good. Some complained over the Chautauqua contract, but it was the only way that Red Deer could enjoy the high class entertainment. The committee who were backing the Red Deer Chautauqua deserve the thanks of the citizens.
100 YEARS AGO
• Town council voted 4-2 to reject a proposal to submit a bylaw to ratepayers for the purchase of the Exhibition Association grounds at a cost of $10,000. Opponents pointed to the high cost of the land and the CNR route through it as drawbacks to the proposal.
• Donations to the Red Deer hospital during the month of July included two mattresses, three bath mats, one dressing gown and six pairs of slippers from the Ladies’ Aid, and a rocker and two chairs from the Balmoral Ladies Aid.