ONE YEAR AGO
• Red Deer College and the Westerner Exposition Association are taking issue with a proposed bylaw amendment that would restrict their use of reader board signs. Michael Donlevy, Red Deer College’s associate vice-president of community relations, said that would be a blow to the college’s fundraising efforts.
• Hobbema RCMP are investigating a suspicious death after a man’s body was discovered in the Samson Townsite Saturday morning. Police and an ambulance were called at 9:20 a.m. where they discovered 21-year-old Dale Deschamps, of Hobbema, unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Const. Perry Cardinal with the Hobbema RCMP said police are interviewing a number of people in connection with the death.
FIVE YEARS AGO
• A teenager charged with the stabbing death of a classmate at a Red Deer bus stop pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Darcy McWade, the father of the 16-year-old victim, said the plea was a relief because the family would avoid reliving the details of their son’s death.
• Larry Reese, founder of the motion picture arts program at Red Deer College, landed a role as a minister in a movie directed by the legendary Ang Lee. He spent two days on the set of 30, a film about a gay relationship between a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy.
10 YEARS AGO
• The final tally came in and showed Red Deer had experienced the wettest July on record. With 284.4 mm of precipitation, July 1999 topped the total for July 1954, when 281.4 mm fell.
• The cool spring and wet summer had farmers praying for sun to help their crops mature. After one of the earliest harvests on record the previous year, crops were about two weeks behind normal schedules.
25 YEARS AGO
• Trainable mentally handicapped students would enter the Red Deer public school system this fall, superintendent Ken Jesse said. He expected about six or seven students would take part in a program, which began at North Elementary school. The program was geared to children aged six to 13.
• To most people, a greyhound has four wheels and smells like diesel fuel . . . But the greyhounds racing on a new track west of the city had four legs and smelled like dogs. The animals were racing since June and were scheduled to race again at the fledgling Calida Track 10 km west of here, north of the Burnt Lake Cemetery. Betting was not allowed. Admission to the track, owned by Klara and Gus Lindstrom, was free.
50 YEARS AGO
• Acclaimed as a well-balanced, entertaining show with appeal for everybody, this year’s grandstand performance was sent by an estimated 20,000 people at the Red Deer Fair. Handled by Mistress of Ceremonies Hazel Randal, the presentation of Broadway On Parade, was a nice mixture of skilled platform acts in a fast-moving platform that did not “drag” or include any poor turns.
• Thirty-two commercial exhibitors set up display booths at the Red Deer Fair this year, drawing a steady stream of fairgoers to the arena throughout the three-day event. Although the number of displays was slightly less than last year, many ingenious, workman-like models were featured among the exhibits, indicating exhibitors were putting more planning and effort into their fair exhibits.
90 YEARS AGO
• The Jubilee camp meeting was a matter of history but would not be forgotten. It included the largest representative camp ever held by the Association. Religious people from all over the province and from different denominations gathered in, some motoring in 300 miles. The sleeping apartments on the grounds were over crowded and the cooks had their hands full in feeding the multitudes; there were about 1,800 meals served in the dining tent.
• The Spruce trees in Red Deer are in many cases badly affected by the spruce mite, which give the trees the brown, unhealthy appearance so noticeable in the gardens and on the boulevards and which may also be observed in the case of the large, native spruce in the parks.
A dry year such as this was particularly favourable to insect pests and was undoubtedly the explanation for the spruce mites getting out of hand this year.
100 YEARS AGO
• Federal Agriculture Minister Sidney Fisher was scheduled to visit Red Deer. He was expected to address the general public during a meeting to be held outdoors.
• A son of Icelandic poet Stephan Stephansson, Gestur Cecil Stephansson, was killed by lightning near Markerville. Just 16 years old, he had grabbed a barbed wire fence just before it was struck by lightning.