ONE YEAR AGO
• Red Deer RCMP cracked down on prostitutes and the men who solicit them during a three-month sting operation on the burgeoning sex trade industry. Police laid 69 charges against a total of 31 people after an intensive investigation into prostitution and illegal drug trade from June through August.
• Alberta Health Services was looking for 50,000 healthy Albertans for a 50-year cancer prevention study.
Count Me In 4 Tomorrow would help researchers, policy makers and health-care professionals understand how genetics, environment, lifestyle and behaviour contributed to cancer and other chronic diseases and how to prevent them in the future.
FIVE YEARS AGO
• Despite a written warning from city manager Norbert Van Wyk, Red Deer County council gave first reading to three bylaws that would exclude the city from decisions affecting Gasoline Alley West. The county hoped removing the area from the South Hills Area Structure Plan would reduce disputes between the two municipalities.
• AltaLink submitted an application to construct, license and operate a contentious 500-kV power line, even though the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board was still deciding where the $495-million power line would cut through Central Alberta.
10 YEARS AGO
• Red Deer RCMP announced the hiring of Insp. Jim Steele as the city’s first superintendent. Steele, head of the Calgary commercial crime unit, was expected to take over his new job in three months.
• Central Alberta’s bus traffic increased and teachers throughout the region were setting aside regular class materials to talk about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre.
• Red Deer council voted unanimously in favour of a controversial smoking ban in public facilities.
The bylaw, which prohibited smoking in indoor public places open to those under the age of 18, was to go into effect in a year.
25 YEARS AGO
• Culture-craving theatre-goers were scrambling for tickets to the arts centre opening festival two hours before sales opened.
About 150 people had lined up outside the ticket office by 10 a.m. to get the best seats for Alberta’s largest arts festival and gala opening of the $15.2 million Red Deer College Arts Centre.
“They started lining up at 8 o’clock and the phone started ringing before eight,” said Florence Stephan, arts centre operations manager.
• Ten years after Roland Michener Recreation centre opened its doors, its athletic namesake had returned to mark a special premiere event for Alberta. Over 300 senior athletes from throughout the province joined former governor general Roland Michener in competing in the first-ever Alberta Invitational Masters Games. The games were a non-profit joint effort of six city athletic organizations and were patterned after the world Masters Games held in Toronto. Competitions in badminton, volleyball, wheelchair basketball, soccer, swimming and a 10-km road race were held throughout at the centre, Great Chief Park and Lindsay Thurber High School.
50 YEARS AGO
• “I threw away the best Indian tomahawk I have ever seen because I didn’t know what it was,” said Dell Harrison, president of the newly formed Red Deer Rock and Gem Club. Interested in rocks, Harrison interested some friends in forming a club. Main object of the club was to pool information on finding rock hunting areas and a general pooling of knowledge in order that objects could be identified. The 31 members discussed the geological aspects and the hunting localities of the rocks and traded them at their meetings held each month in the Federal Building.
• Detailed plans for the development of almost 200 acres on the north side of the river for residential sub-divisions and a public golf course for Red Deer were ordered by city council after city fathers had given approval in principle to preliminary plans outlined for the vast project by Planning Director Denis Cole. The area embraced by the project was generally that between the river and the arc formed by the CPR’s Red Deer-Edmonton line and extending southwest to the Red Deer Golf and Country Club.
90 YEARS AGO
• The Saunders, Alberta Collieries directorate was re-organized at Red Deer on Saturday when Dr. Dorsey was elected President; Dr. Sanders, Vice-President; Mr. A. H. Moyes, Secretary-Treasurer; and Drs. DeLong and Collison, directors. The Company are getting in new machinery which greatly cheapens the cost of carriage at the mine, and expect to be shipping very shortly. Mr. Stephenson will still be mechanical superintendent, while Major Fisher will have charge of the store.
• The Rocky Mountain House Fair comes off a week from next Monday and Tuesday — on September 19 and 20. The Rocky Mountain House Fair is one of the best in this district, and an energetic body of directors, backed by a big bunch of loyal local exhibitors, put on a good show and a strong programme. The roads are better this year, and there should be a large crowd on the main day — Tuesday.
100 YEARS AGO
• Two young local boys died of infantile paralysis, a disease that had caused many deaths in larger Canadian cities a year earlier.
• Police chief George Bell resumed his duties after having been shot in June