ONE YEAR AGO
• Amanda Lindhout, a 27-year-old Red Deer area freelance reporter, and an Australian colleague were abducted at gunpoint in Somalia. It’s believed they were captured after interviewing people displaced by extreme violence in the capital of Mogadishu. Family in Red Deer and Sylvan Lake were waiting anxiously to hear word on their loved one’s safety.
• The David Thompson Health Region was investigating whether three Central Alberta cases of listeriosis were caused by the same strain of bacteria associated with 12 deaths nationwide. The region was not releasing any details on when or where the cases took place.
FIVE YEARS AGO
• Dorothy Corney unveiled a plaque outside Red Deer City Hall reaffirming the city’s status as a nuclear weapons free zone. The plaque replaced two signs located on the city’s outskirts. Corney launched a petition in 1989 that resulted in a bylaw that made the declaration.
• About 40 former students and their families gathered to mark the 100th anniversary of Hekla School. The one-room school near Spruce View was founded in 1904. It was named after a volcanic mountain in Iceland. It’s now a private residence.
10 YEARS AGO
• Two weeks before it officially opened, Red Deer’s first public skateboard facility was already getting crowded, as boarders and in-line skaters flocked to the set of curvy concrete structures.
• City council voted unanimously to require residents to clear their sidewalks within 48 hours of a snowfall.
25 YEARS AGO
• Library patrons would soon be able to use their home computers to learn what books were available from the Red Deer Public Library. At its monthly meeting Thursday, the library board approved calling for cost estimates to automate all the manual services offered. Public access into the computer was just one possibility.
• An escort service needed to open later than 2 a.m., even if Red Deer night spots were closed by then, escort manager Allan Morse said. “Just because places are closed doesn’t mean you go home,” Mr. Morse told city council in an appeal for changes in governing his Touch of Class agency. Council tabled the matter along with other suggestions for revisions to the proposed city licensing bylaw. All proposals were referred back to the licensing review committee.
50 YEARS AGO
• Increased awareness of the dangers of poliomyelitis due to the outbreak in Montreal had caused a surge in the demand for “shots” from the Red Deer Health Unit, it was reported following the regular clinic in the Armories. D. C. G. More, medical officer of health, said that Health Unit nurses dealt with 279 clinic patients in the morning and afternoon sessions — 167 adults, 71 pre-school children and 41 infants. Of these, 203 received Salk vaccine for polio and another 31 children received the combination DPTS vaccination, which contained Salk. More of the adults were given their first shot in the Salk series.
• Solemn ceremonies marked the official opening of the splendid new Sacred heart Church on 55 St. as the edifice was blessed by Most Reverend Anthony Jordan, coadjutor-archbishop of Edmonton. Between 150 and 200 members of the congregation attended the brief outdoor ceremony which was followed by High Mass.
90 YEARS AGO
• A special meeting of the Board of Trade Council was held on Tuesday morning to meet Messrs. Mitchell and Johnson, representatives of the Canadian National Railways to discuss the plans for the building of the line into Red Deer this fall. It is the intention of the company to build as fare as Ross Street this year so that coal can be brought in.
• Sylvan Lake, owning to its safe beach, has been free of boating and bathing accidents within the memory of the present generation, but this record was unhappily broken on Wednesday evening when Frank Fagan, a young C.P.R. brakeman from Red Deer, was upset out of a canoe and sank to his death before help reached him.
100 YEARS AGO
• Postal authorities said they were considering a direct mail service between Red Deer and Leslieville via Sylvan Lake and Eckville, instead of via Evarts and Eckville.
• Red Deer schools were scheduled to start a new school year on Aug. 27.