ONE YEAR AGO
• A curfew for youths to put a lid on gang activity at Hobbema was working, says a Hobbema RCMP officer. “With regard to serious incidents, it has reduced significantly,” Cpl. Darrel Bruno said. “A lot of people have been keeping off the streets for the most part, and the ones that aren’t have good excuses for being on the street.” Youths, ages 12 to 17, who break the curfew face fines or jail time. It applied to residents and non-residents.
• Councillors and staff from seven local municipalities who toured Plasco Energy’s demonstration plant in southwest Ottawa came away feeling much more confident in the technical aspects of the company’s process. Plasco was among a small number of companies worldwide to have developed a process for using fuel made from household waste to generate electricity.
FIVE YEARS AGO
• Sustainable Resources Minister Mike Cardinal promised to personally inspect the Guzoo animal farm in Three Hills to address a flurry of complaints about animal neglect. The visit never took place.
• Alberta Health and Wellness provided $1.4 million to pay for Rituximab, a cancer drug. Darlene Cormier, a 41-year-old Ponoka woman, had filed a human rights complaint against the ministry and the Alberta Cancer Board after they refused to pay for her treatments.
10 YEARS AGO
• Brent Sutter liked the product so much he bought the company. The former WHL and NHL player and his wife bought the Red Deer Rebels from Wayne and Terry Simpson. Sutter then appointed himself head coach.
• Even though Star Wars — The Phantom Menace wouldn’t play for another week, more than 100 fans waited in line outside the Uptown Theatre to buy tickets for the first showing. At 6 p.m. of the first day of sales, staff said there were still about 200 tickets for sale, however.
25 YEARS AGO
• The city economic development committee feared Red Deer would miss its chance for scheduled passenger air service if business and individuals didn’t support the plan. “More positive input is required from the public and business community if air service is to become a reality” said committee Chairman Tim Guibault. “If it doesn’t materialize due to lack of support we will only have ourselves to blame,” he said.
• The Red Deer Health Unit considered it a coup to have hired a local woman with 36 years of nursing experience as assistant director of home care. Gerry Seymour, former director of nursing at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre took up her new duties.
50 YEARS AGO
• Red Deer was considered “very favorably” as a possible site for a proposed Provincial Training Centre for recreational instructors. If established, the centre was estimated to cost about $1,000,000. T.E.. Mcpherson, Red Deer, a member of Red Deer Recreation Commission, said that a centrally-located instructors’ training school, operationally comparable to the Banff School of Fine arts of the Cultural Activities Branch, was seen as one of the “major aims at an Alberta Community Recreation Bureau meeting.
• Membership registration jumped to 22 at the second meeting of the newly-organized Red Deer Sports Car Club. Only 12 registered at the initial meeting. Six of the membership were associate members from the Calgary Sports Car Club. The club organizers, Pat Stewart and Jan Vanderwoerden, anticipated the membership would reach about fifty.
90 YEARS AGO
• A well-attended meeting of citizens and members of the G.W.V.A. was held in the Armories to consider the Y. M. C. A campaign to be opened in the city and district and to ask for the endorsation of the G.W.V.A. to the movement. Mr. R. Doran, president of the Red Deer G.W.V.A. presided.
• In connection with its Thrift Stamps word-making contest, the Advocate offered six prizes of 50 cents in stamps each, in addition for best definitions, outside of the word prize winners of Thrift Stamps. The winners were judged as follows: Norman Forham, Harold Huget, Leslie Oulton, Eileen Hepworth, Nellie Scott, Basil Leonard.
100 YEARS AGO
• An Advocate editorial expressed concern about farmers not doing enough to preserve the quality of their soil. It noted farmland in Montana, an area settled long before most of Alberta, was already producing yields as small as 50 per cent of what it had just 10 years before.
• Baseball fans announced plans to try to interest Calgary and Edmonton teams in playing a league game in Red Deer early in the season