SIXTY YEARS AGO

A controversial figure of Manitoba’s history will stride onto the stage at Harrison High School this week when students present the first public production in Manitoba of John Coulter’s play “Riel.”

What is believed to be the first apparently successful transplant of a human liver, perhaps the body’s most complex organ, has been disclosed by surgeons in Denver.

FIFTY YEARS AGO

Mayor W.K. Wilton cut the ribbon to officially open Brandon’s newest tourist facility, the Midway Motel, located on First Street North.

Former White House counsel John Dean III has challenged U.S. President Richard Nixon’s version of the Watergate affair by saying that he never made any report orally or in writing, exonerating White House officials from a coverup.

FORTY YEARS AGO

The highlight of this year’s 72nd annual spring convocation at Brandon University is to be the presentation of the Distinguished Service Award to graduate Norman W. MacLeod.

A Souris man, Jim McKinnon, went for an unexpected dip into the Souris River yesterday to rescue Wayne McCullock, who lost control of his truck during an ice storm, crashed through the guard rail and into the river.

THIRTY YEARS AGO

Four western Manitobans — Robert Mummery of Minnedosa, Jeff Harwood of Brandon, Lyle Beattie of Souris and Ken Hyndman of Rapid City — were appointed to the province’s Heritage Grants Advisory council.

People’s Jewellers has become the latest jewelry store in the Brandon Shoppers Mall to have a significant amount of merchandise stolen from its premises. Staff noticed yesterday that 10 diamond rings were missing from the store. Last month, two watches, worth more than $8,000, were stolen from Reesor’s Jewellery in the mall.

TWENTY YEARS AGO

A group of 50-plus Brandon women is planning to spend one day a month dressing up in bright red and purple and just being silly. Elspeth Denbow and Vivian Golletz, both Brandon women, are organizing a Brandon chapter of the Red Hat Society, a movement that has exploded across North America.

Anyone entering Brandon knows the first stretches of First Street are north of the rest of Brandon but soon the North moniker will be official. City council read for the first time a bylaw that would make First Street between Pacific Avenue and the Trans-Canada Highway officially referred to as First Street North. It also will make Patricia Avenue extend east of First Street and will call 21st Street south of Ottawa Avenue Veterans Street because the land was issued under the Veterans Land Act.

TEN YEARS AGO

Lakefront residents of Ochre Beach were taking solace on Sunday that the massive ice floes did their destruction during the day and not at night. The bedrooms of several homes on Dauphin Lake were heavily damaged on Friday by the fast-moving ice, which was pushed up on the shore by winds hitting 90 km/h, leading some in the community to thank their lucky stars even in the face of millions of dollars of damage.

A soccer pitch that celebrated a groundbreaking exactly a year ago missed the goal of being open this season. Located beside the Christian Heritage School, the soccer pitch for the city’s adult soccer teams was tripped up after a very dry season to grow grass, sprinkler issues and burrowing gophers. The partnership between the Christian Heritage School and the Brandon Senior Men’s Soccer League aims to have a pitch for the close to 30 adult teams in the city that have few places in the city to play.