ONE YEAR AGO
• A sewer line in Red Deer with a nose-crinkling reputation expected to receive a little chemical cleanup. Waskasoo Regional Services Board had zeroed in on a $75,000-per-year chemical treatment that was expected to fix a persistent stink on a sewer line running from Penhold and along Red Deer’s 30th Avenue to the city’s treatment plant near Riverside Drive.
• RCMP officers raced with guns drawn to arrest a woman driver who rammed a police cruiser. The confrontation ended a 20-hour situation that started as a dangerous domestic dispute involving a pointed rifle. The risky takedown followed a pursuit on Hwy 2A between Red Deer and Penhold that reached speeds of 140 km/h.
FIVE YEARS AGO
• Blackfalds residents celebrated the town’s 100th birthday with fireworks and entertainment. The community became a village on June 17, 1904. It began as small residential subdivisions located on either side of the Canadian Pacific Railway station grounds in 1902.
• Two construction workers escaped serious injury when their lift toppled into a Davenport house. The men were in the basket of a lift rising to finish work on a cornice on a neighbouring four-storey seniors complex when the accident occurred.
10 YEARS AGO
• A swarm of carpenter ants appeared in the city, looking for places to nest. The winged ants, which breed in the air, apparently blew into town during several days of strong winds.
• The John Howard Society proposed turning a former flophouse into a halfway house. After failing to win approval to set up a halfway house in another vacated downtown building, the society looked to the old Phelan Block as a site, but was later rejected.
25 YEARS AGO
• Video games and the media may be partly to blame for an overwhelming response from Central Alberta students who believed there would be a nuclear holocaust. They said that the Third World War would take place within the next 16 years and it would be started by the Soviet Union. Some of the 690 students who responded to the Red Deer College questionnaire thought the Americans or the Russians would win.
• The Edmonton Oilers would never know if they got a helping hand from above in capturing their first Stanley Cup, but Father Pat O’Neill says his prayers have been answered. The hockey-mad priest, minister to the Bentley and Sylvan Lake Catholic churches, is an unabashed Oiler fan who urged his parishioners to take up the Edmonton cause during the playoffs.
50 YEARS AGO
• F.P.Galbraith, editor and publisher of The Advocate, received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, at the convocation of the University of Alberta, held in the Jubilee Auditorium, Edmonton on May 20, 1959.
• An enthusiastic group of Red Deer men, members of Red Deer’s newest organization, received their charter at a banquet in the Buffalo Hotel. The Parkland Toastmasters Club became No. 1818 in the 3,000 clubs and 100,000 members that make up Toastmasters International. President Steve Bond of Red Deer received the charter from area governor Swend Hanson of Calgary. Mayor J. M.. McAfee, who spoke briefly, presented a copy of Kerry Wood’s book, The Great Chief, to Mr. Hanson.
90 YEARS AGO
• There was to be a patriotic celebration at the Red Deer schools under the auspices of the I.O.D.E. Programme: Song, O, Canada, by the school children, accompanied by the Veterans’ and Citizens’ Band; opening remarks by chairman, Principal Locke; speech by the Mayor; address by Capt. A.R. Gibson; selection by the Band; address by Mr. J.J. Gaetz, M.P.P.; presentation of medals by the Regent of the I.O.D.E., Mrs. Broughton; God Save the King by the school children and Band.
• To the Editor, Red Deer Advocate, Dear Sir, — It has come to my knowledge that boys have been destroying birds’ nests around town, and in view of the fact that so many of our birds were killed by the late snow storm, it is all the more regrettable. I know the teachers are doing all they can to prevent this, but the home teaching and influence is really what counts, and I earnestly hope the parents will co-operate with the teachers and others who are doing all they possibly can to protect their feathered friends. Perhaps some of the parents may not be aware that the taking of eggs or destroying small birds is an offence punishable by law. Yours faithfully, Elsie Cassels
100 YEARS AGO
• Medals were presented to students who scored well on the 1908 departmental exams. “The attendance of grownups was not very large,” the Advocate reported.
• Dr. Rowntree, a local medical doctor, spoke out to deny rumours he had plans to leave Red Deer. He said the community had always been good to him and he intended to stay here.