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LOOKBACK: Highway chaos after wild spring squall

There were so many crashes on Hwy 2 during a wild spring squall, RCMP still hadn’t got them all counted Friday. “Mother of God. Is that a number?

ONE YEAR AGO

• There were so many crashes on Hwy 2 during a wild spring squall, RCMP still hadn’t got them all counted Friday. “Mother of God. Is that a number? We still don’t know,” Cpl. Doug Wasylenki of Innisfail RCMP Integrated Traffic Services responded when asked how many collisions there were on the Central Alberta section of Hwy 2. He estimated Friday there were well in excess of 100 vehicles involved in accidents in the Red Deer to Calgary stretch of the highway.

• Red Deer City RCMP investigated the first-ever case of food tampering at the Red Deer Food Bank after a pin and a toothpick were found inside the same apple. The unthinkable happened for executive director Fred Scaife when a food bank client phoned to say he’d found the push pin and a round wooden toothpick stuck inside an apple he’d received from a food hamper. “Thank God no one was injured,” said Scaife, “but how unconscionable could you possibly be?”

FIVE YEARS AGO

• Bashaw school vacated its elementary wing due to an intermittent — but persistent — sewer gas smell that caused numerous concerned parents to pull their children from classes. Grades 1 to 6 classes were relocated to the gymnasium.

• Central Alberta municipalities were eager to build a $395-million regional waste water system that would treat sewage from Ponoka to Crossfield. Innisfail, Olds, Bowden, Penhold and Red Deer County had indicated support for the proposal.

10 YEARS AGO

• Stockwell Day’s home in Rosedale sold for $196,000, less than the Alliance leader had hoped. The asking price had been reduced to $199,900 from $204,900 after few buyers expressed serious interest. Day had taken out a $60,000 mortgage-against the home a month early to help pay his legal bills.

• Red Deer motorists faced the first major traffic tangle of the season with the twinning of the 67th Street overpass at Hwy 2. The construction was the first phase of a project to turn Hwy 11 between Red Deer and Sylvan Lake into four lanes.

50 YEARS AGO

• Every effort was being made by both the provincial government and petroleum industry to reduce air pollution caused by oil and gas wells and sulphur plants, according to assurances given at an open meeting of farmers in Innisfail, by three officials association with the situation. “The government and industry are fully aware of the situation and everything is being done to prevent hazards,” the gathering of about 20 farm men and women from the surrounding district were told by Dr. J. O’Donohue of Edmonton, extension veterinarian for the provincial department of agriculture.

• The City of Red Deer joined the ever-increasing number of Canadian centres to be connected with the Telex network. The Canadian National — Canadian Pacific Communications, which operate the network in Canada, announced that the new connection would make the central Alberta city part of an expanding network which already included most of Canada, many United States cities and 55 overseas countries. The Telex machines, installed and maintained by CN-CP provided instant teletype conversation with other subscribers.

90 YEARS AGO

• Reeve Fiske, Councillors Reay and McKinnon, and the Secretary-Treasurer Trueman, from M.D. Pine Lake, and Reeve Gibson, Councillors Maddox and Crooker of the M.D. Of Crown, unanimously decided on Friday to recommend to the Public Works Department of the Provincial government that the new bridge over the Red Deer River east of Red Deer should be built on section 13, know as the Kaiser crossing. This is eight miles due east of Red Deer out past the cemetery and Mr. Bickford’s.

• Mr. Fred Lund put on at the Ford Garage and the Lyric last Thursday and Friday courses for farmers, car owners, and tractor owners, which were most beneficial to all who attended, quite a number from a long distance. Prof. Blackstock, of the Provincial School of Agriculture, Vermilion, pointed out the many advantages of tractor power in supplementing the horse power in rush seasons, etc., and in carrying the heavy end of the regular work. The preparation of the seed bed was also an informing lecture. Both were illustrated by motion pictures. Mr. Tom McGinnis, tractor expert from Calgary, along with Mr. Choate, Mr. Lund’s expert, demonstrated the use of Mr. Lund’s new equipment for repair service, and dismounted and mounted the Fordson tractor.

100 YEARS AGO

• R.C. Brumpton, who had been in the general store business in Red Deer for nearly 20 years, sold out to McLean Bros. Brumpton was “active in a number of public enterprises’’ but had not decided what he was going to do.

• The Sons of England held a smoking concert following their regular meeting to commemorate the first anniversary of the inauguration of the local lodge. Among those present was the mayor, who “spoke in the most enthusiastic terms of the liberty enjoyed in thought and speech under the British flag.’’