50 YEARS AGO:
Birch Island Women’s Institute hosted the 20th annual rally of North Thompson Women’s Institutes.
Voters in six Interior school districts overwhelmingly approved the establishment of a regional college to serve the Mainline-Cariboo area.
Clearwater Secondary School students received details about their foster child — Nguyen Thi Re. When able to find work, her father earned $1.71 per day cleaning up debris in the Hue area left behind after the Tet offensive of the Vietnam War.
45 YEARS AGO:
Clearwater’s May Queen was Grace Haynes. Her princesses were Lorna Madden and Suze Krauseneck.
School District 26 was seeking to have a full-time superintendent after having had five different part-time inspectors over the previous four years.
40 YEARS AGO:
Yellowhead Ecological Association secretary Colleen Foster encouraged the public to attend a hearing of the Royal Commission on Uranium Mining in B.C., scheduled to be held in Clearwater.
The Sportsplex was closed until further notice following the narrow defeat of a referendum to provide more funding.
Margaret Nott retired as secretary of the Sunshine Valley Improvement District, a position she had held for 15 years.
35 YEARS AGO:
The “great annual debate” about how to pay for the Clearwater tourist booth was repeated again at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. Chamber president Albert Lahaie hoped to get an operating grant from the province for the following year, but needed $3,000 from area businesses to keep the booth open for 90 days to qualify.
Clearwater Carlings won the annual May Day softball tournament. Darrin Yurkiw was most valuable player.
30 YEARS AGO:
Local pioneer Frank Capostinsky was on hand when Clearwater’s ball field was formally dedicated to him and his wife, Verla.
Grizzly Anglers discovered a large magnet in the spawning channel at Dutch Lake. Club members had suspected for a period of time that coins had been disappearing from the wishing well.
There were nearly 40 black powder shooters in the sixth annual Victoria Day Rendezvous at the Rod and Gun Club’s range in Sunshine Valley.
25 YEARS AGO:
Collapse of a major culvert structure made the Clearwater River Road impassable past 21 km. Repairs, estimated to cost about $60,000, were not to take place until July 15 to protect the salmon fishery. In the meantime, river rafters would limit themselves to half-day trips, said Robert Beaudry, owner-operator of Clearwater Expeditions.
Everyone was invited to help plant the former Camp Two yard. For every tree planted, Slocan Vavenby would give a donation to the highway rescue van fund.
20 YEARS AGO:
The high school program at Blue River was temporarily being put on hold, said school trustee Hazel Wadlegger. The program was in its second year, and made use of the Pathfinders computerized learning system. Only nine students had signed up.
There was a 50/50 chance flood waters could reach 1972 heights, said Provincial Emergency Program regional manager Rod Salem. “The bottom line is there is a heck of a lot of snow up there, and it’s going to come down sooner or later,” he said.
15 YEARS AGO:
The RCMP emergency response team assisted in the arrest of a Blue River man. The 43-year-old was wanted in the USA and had been living in Canada under an assumed name.
Interact began construction of a laminated beam facility at the former Weyerhaeuser mill-site near Vavenby. The company was employing 15 people from the area, most of them working at its operation in Golden. Interact expected initially to hire 50 employees at the new facility, with the number to increase to over 100 once it became fully operational, reported spokesperson Tina cable.
10 YEARS AGO:
Liberal Terry Lake would be the Kamloops-North Thompson representative in the Victoria legislature for the next four years.
Lake defeated New Democrat candidate Doug Brown in a tight race for the MLA’s job in the May 12 provincial election. Kevin Krueger, who made the decision to step back from the North Thompson, and run in the Kamloops-South Thompson riding (where he resides), was also elected for his fourth term in the legislature.
Kevin Krueger bid farewell to North Thompson Valley residents after being their MLA for the previous three terms and 13 years. Krueger said he treasures very fond memories of the people and communities of this beautiful valley.
Thompson-Nicola Regional District’s emergency management and protective services committee allotted $71,000 to Wells Gray Search and Rescue. The money would be used to purchase a primary response vehicle, rescue gear, base camp and patient care equipment as well as wilderness first aid training.
Mike Wiegele of Mike Wiegele Helicopter and Ski operations in Blue River wanted the government to ban all snowmobiling on Crown Land until provincial policy and guidelines are established for mechanized mountain travel for all areas proposed for snowmobile use. “I’m getting tired of digging bodies out of the snow,” he said. “We had four rescues this winter that involved our entire operation; we had to stop everything, stranding some of our skiers in the mountains to save snowmobilers from themselves.”
5 YEARS AGO:
Despite short notice, more than a dozen people attended an event held at Clearwater Legion as part of the National Day of Honor for Afghanistan veterans. “This was a noble cause war,” said Mayor John Harwood.
Local politicians, members of the Blackpool Hall committee, and representatives of Kinder Morgan gathered to officially turn the sod to mark the start of construction of a park next to the hall.
Wells Gray Country TNRD director Tim Pennell proposed a fire protection service for Birch Island. “It’s definitely the same, only different,” was how he compared the proposal with one that had been rejected by taxpayers the previous year.
1 YEAR AGO:
Kinder Morgan had stepped up security along its Trans Mountain pipeline in the Blue River to Clearwater area. Simpcw First Nation was providing at least some of that security through its business arm, Simpcw Resource Group.
Simpcw First Nation is one of 33 B.C. Aboriginal groups that had signed mutual benefit agreements with Kinder Morgan in regards to the pipeline expansion project.
Construction of a new affordable housing apartment got underway.
According to its initial plans, the 26-unit building was to have three studio apartments, seven one-bedroom units, 10 two-bedroom, and six three-bedroom units.
District of Clearwater issued a mandatory order to users of the municipal water system to stop all irrigation, due to extreme heat conditions.
“The reservoir is having trouble keeping up to the watering demand as we only have one water source (Well#2) online,” said chief administrative officer Leslie Groulx.
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