Skip to content

LOOKBACK: Land purchased for bunker, in case of nuclear war

Red Deer City Councillor Lorna Watkinson-Zimmer was in an English village on Monday anxiously awaiting word of when she can come home.
Default-LOOKBACK-CHEETAH
Dwayne Shirley of Red Deer was delighted to be able to have a close encounter of the friendly type with a cheetah. Zoologist Al Oeming visited the Parkland Mall with one of his feline friends

ONE YEAR AGO

• Red Deer City Councillor Lorna Watkinson-Zimmer was in an English village on Monday anxiously awaiting word of when she can come home. Watkinson-Zimmer was among hundreds of thousands of travellers stranded around the world when a massive cloud of ash thrown up by an erupting Icelandic volcano hovered over Europe, forcing airlines to cancel nearly all flights.

• What began as a high-speed chase near Sundre early Tuesday morning ended in a man’s death when the fleeing pickup truck hit the ditch, then smashed into a fence and some trees. RCMP say the force of the impact ejected two men from the pickup, one of whom died from his injuries.

FIVE YEARS AGO

• Operators of Jackpot Casino Ltd. learned the province had approved its expansion plans, providing they could come up with more parking. The casino’s marketing manager was optimistic the casino could lease more parking, but opponents believed the parking issue was a roadblock in Jackpot’s plans.

• Red Deer College’s board of governors agreed to move ahead with expansion plans. The $50-million proposal include space for trades and technology classes and labs, an applied research centre for manufacturing, a business enterprise centre focussing on small business, and a visual arts area.

10 YEARS AGO

• More than 100 mourners filled the chapel at the Red Deer Funeral Home to pay tribute to Doreen Befus, well known as a tireless advocate for those with disabilities. In the 1930s, the Alberta Eugenics Board sterilized Befus because they thought she was mentally handicapped. She had a foot deformity.

• Central Alberta MPs were divided about how to handle Stockwell Day’s leadership woes. Red Deer MP Bob Mills said the beleaguered Canadian Alliance leader should call a leadership review to prove he had grassroots support as resignations mounted. Wild Rose MP Myron Thompson said it was time to get behind Day and get moving.

25 YEARS AGO

• Liver transplant baby Kristy Rae Bouchard, who celebrated her first birthday, was off the critical list and was breathing on her own just 24 hours after surgery. The Red Deer baby was “stable and doing well,” her father Peter Bouchard said. The Red Deer baby was in the pediatric intensive care unit at the University of Minnesota hospital in Minneapolis following a nine-hour liver transplant.

• April 25 execution of convicted killer Ronald Smith, formerly of Red Deer, was delayed. The request had been filed by New York lawyer Jill Lesser, who had been representing Mr. Smith without fee in his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Smith had pleaded guilty to the 1982 execution-style slayings of two men outside the southern border of Glacier National Park near Summit.

50 YEARS AGO

• From an open letter from J.M. McAfee, Mayor: “On behalf of all the citizens of Red Deer I extend congratulations to Hon. R. Reierson, Minister and Alberta Government Telephones, on the inauguration of their Direct Distance Dialing Service. I am sure all our citizens will feel very gratified that the City of Red Deer and Central Alberta had been chosen as the starting point for a new milestone in telephone service.

• Land had been purchased near Penhold, 10 miles south of Red Deer, for construction of emergency government headquarters to be used in the event of atomic war emergency. Tenders for construction of the headquarters were to be called soon by the Crown Corporation Defence Construction Ltd. The Ottawa announcement said the site would provide an operation headquarters for a small group of federal, provincial and army personnel who would direct emergency measures within the province.

90 YEARS AGO

• Rev. Dr. Crummy, of Moose Jaw, has accepted the invitation of the Red Deer Methodist church to become its pastor in June, 1921, subject to the action of the Transfer and Stationing Committees of the Methodist church. Rev. Dr. Crummy is one of the most eloquent and outstanding preachers of the Methodist church in Canada, having held pastorates in a number of the large cities, and he and Mrs. Crummy hope to come to Red Deer in order to be near their sons who are established in this district.

• The preliminary trial of the charge of subornation of perjury against A.H. Russell, K.C. in connection with the Shearer horse-stealing cases, began at the Council Chamber at the City Hall in Red Deer, on Wednesday afternoon before Police Magistrate G. B. McLeod, Edmonton.