Today’s top stories
Brandon fire crews were kept busy over the weekend responding to two separate structure fires. READ MORE
International students studying in Brandon say financial pressures, housing shortages and limited work opportunities continue to shape their academic experience, even as universities, colleges and student organizations work to provide support. READ MORE
Kelsey Calvert of Carberry and Team Peterson have won the RME Women of the Rings. READ MORE
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Weather
MONDAY: Cloudy with a 30 per cent chance of light snow and risk of freezing drizzle. Fog patches dissipating near noon. Wind up to 15 km/h. High -4 C. Wind chill -17 C in the morning. Low -14 C. Wind chill -22 C overnight.
TUESDAY: Sunny. High -10 C. Low -9 C.
WEDNESDAY: Sunny. High -1 C. Low -10 C.
THURSDAY: Sunny. High -4 C. Low -12 C.
Looking Back
SIXTY YEARS AGO
Very Rev. Maurice Cooney has been named chaplain of the Brandon fire department.
Holiday travellers going north on Highway 10 to Riding Mountain National Park may soon be able to avoid travelling through Minnedosa if the provincial government follows up surveys presently underway in the Minnedosa Valley.
FIFTY YEARS AGO
During the last year, packages have been appearing on supermarket shelves with blocks of little black bars and numbers. This Canadian Grocery Product Code is to improve efficiency by presenting basic information about the product.
The Queen expressed her special gratitude to veteran Canadian politician John Diefenbaker by appointing the former prime minister as a Companion of Honour, an exclusive order limited to the sovereign and 65 members.
FORTY YEARS AGO
Three southwestern Manitoba school divisions, Pelly Trail, Rolling River and Antler River, have followed the provincial trend by raising teachers’ wages for 1986 by three per cent.
Keith Morrison will leave the CBC- TV current affairs program “The Journal” this month for a job reading the 6 p.m. news in Los Angeles.
Stuart Hampton, medical director at Brandon General Hospital since 1977, has resigned to pursue his regional geriatric consulting practice.
THIRTY YEARS AGO
The Royal Manitoba Winter Fair got a huge shot in the arm today when Provincial Exhibition president Gord Hansen announced that The Brandon Sun would assume sponsorship of the Saturday Evening Grand Prix. The Sun and the Winter Fair have had a long, enjoyable and close relationship dating back to the first year of the fair.
The number of impaired drivers nabbed by Brandon police during its annual spot check program dropped significantly this past festive season compared to last. Police laid a total of 36 impaired driving charges this season, down from 54 a year ago.
TWENTY YEARS AGO
Manitoba is losing people to other provinces in greater numbers than at anytime since 1997, a fact that the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce call “alarming.” In the first nine months of 2005, 17,867 Manitobans packed their bags for other parts of Canada, while 11,656 came here from other provinces, according to Statistics Canada. The net loss was 6,211 people — mainly to Alberta and British Columbia, whose economies are red hot.
With a whine from its engines, a blue and white jet made aviation history as it rolled up to the Brandon Municipal Airport yesterday. The WestJet aircraft was the first regularly scheduled passenger jet flight in four years to touch down at the airport. Yesterday’s flight was the first in a series of weekly flights for Transat Holidays between Brandon and Cancun, Mexico. The company leases planes from WestJet for its service.
TEN YEARS AGO
Manitoba Health Minister Sharon Blady is working on a plan to improve health-care access in rural Westman —but it’s not clear when details of that strategy will be announced. “There is a strategic plan that is being developed because I want to make … forward-thinking investments that support hard-working families when they need medical care,” Blady told the Sun in a recent interview. “I wish I could say more — I’m bursting at the seams.”
Brandon’s medical community is reeling following the sudden passing Dec. 27 of Dr. Robert Tang-Wai, Manitoba’s first neurologist to practise outside of Winnipeg. He was 75. At a memorial service held in Brandon on Saturday, Tang-Wai was remembered as an “eccentric” who was a brilliant clinician and staunch advocate for medical excellence in the Wheat City.
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