ONE YEAR AGO
• The transfer of nursing home residents into Michener Village Extendicare has been halted due to a lack of staff. Paulette Bearer, whose mother Helene Leger, 97, was suppose to move into Extendicare on Monday, said there were only two staff in her mother’s unit, which would hold 12 residents.
• School district officials, Lacombe Fire Department officers and insurance adjustors were expected to enter the fire ravaged Lacombe Composite High School this morning to survey damage and possibly determine when classes could resume. A fire erupted on the roof shortly before 1 p.m., just after 800 students had returned to classes at the school that was in the final stages of a more than $20-million, three-year refurbishing project.
FIVE YEARS AGO
• A relic from the Cold War brought the bomb squad to Red Deer County. A county resident who had been harbouring a bomb or torpedo for 40 years decided to turn it in. The man contacted the Red Deer rural detachment, which called in the explosive ordinance disposal unit at CFB Edmonton.
• Construction workers installed a guard rail along Hwy 11’s new eastbound lanes. Other last-minute work before the lanes opened included paving turning lanes and crossovers, painting of lines and installation of new traffic lights at the nearby Hwy 20.
10 YEARS AGO
• Red Deer council considered the results of a $120,000 traffic study, which proposed $3 million worth of road changes. It included converting some one-way streets downtown (53rd and 54th streets and Gaetz Avenue) to two-way traffic, eliminating the truck route status of Kerry Wood Drive, installing raised crosswalks and traffic bulbs (wider sidewalks at intersections) downtown, and other projects.
• The Red Deer public school board decided not to give in to terrorism and allowed planned field trips that involved air travel.
25 YEARS AGO
• City council unanimously agreed to submit a survey report to the province which concluded 50 per cent of city residents would use a high-speed rail service if provided. The report would be submitted to the high-speed rail task force and the Minister of Economic Development. Both were examining the possibility of a high-speed rail link between Edmonton and Calgary. The $2000 survey was commissioned by the city and conducted by a Red Deer College statistic group headed by instructor Manny Estabrooks.
90 YEARS AGO
• Mr. and Mrs. W.M. Jarvis, in their car, coming home from Sylvan Lake on Sunday evening, and the Warner family of North Red Deer, going to the Lake had a narrow escape from serious accident when they met. Blinded somewhat by the lights in passing, Mr. Aubrey Bickford, who was driving the car went over the end of the culvert on one side and Mr. Jarvis just escaped going over on the other. Miss May Warner, who had Mrs. Fred Warner’s baby, was thrown through the windshield in trying to protect the baby, and had her nose so seriously cut that it was just short of being completely cut off. The baby was unhurt, but the blood over the sleeping infant looked so serious that Mrs. Warner Sr. fainted as for a moment or so they all thought that the baby had been seriously injured. None of the others except Miss Warner were injured to any extent, and the car was not much damaged.
• At the initial meeting of the Red Deer Male Voice Choir for the 1921-22 season, held in the Assembly Hall of the Central School on Wednesday evening, a communication from the secretary of the Choral Society was read, advising the Male Choir that the names of forty-three ladies had been submitted as being willing to give their services toward the successful operation of the Choral Society, and asking the Male organization to join with them.
100 YEARS AGO
• North Red Deer residents wanted their own public school.
• Federal Liberal Dr. Clark was elected in Red Deer by a margin of eight votes.