Looking Back — Jan. 13, 2024

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/01/2024 (685 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SIXTY YEARS AGO

Disbandment of the RCAF’s two Voodoo jet interceptor squadrons at Ottawa and North Bay, Ont., reducing the number of Canada’s home defence squadrons to three, was announced yesterday.

Birtle and district residents will be dialing their own local telephone class after 9 p.m. tomorrow when the new Birtle Dial Office is placed in operation by the Manitoba Telephone System.

Mrs. R.E. Pettit was elected president of the ladies’ auxiliary to the Navy League of Canada, Brandon branch, at a recent meeting held in the Prince Edward Hotel.

FIFTY YEARS AGO

RCMP report the Queen’s Hotel in Russell was destroyed by fire yesterday morning. Town residents estimate the age of the three-storey building to be 73 years old or more.

A plan for renovating and expanding the J.R.C. Evans Lecture Theatre on the Brandon University campus has been presented to the university’s board of governors. The plans, drawn up by director of drama Cedric Vendyback, call for extending the roof around the circular building to an already elevated square base, with the addition of dressing rooms at the back and possibly a plaza on the east side of the building.

Two purebred Simmental calves consigned by Keith Macpherson of Homecrest Farms, Brandon, sold for a total of $64,500 at the Denver, Colo., International Livestock Show.

FORTY YEARS AGO

After almost three months, Frank Sitko finally pulled off a victory in an election to decide the Ward 3 councillor in the Local Government District of Park.

A new FM antenna on a 411-metre tower should allow listeners 160 kilometres from Brandon to tune into KX-96, said Stuart Craig, the president of Western Manitoba Broadcasters Ltd. The new antenna was switched on yesterday.

THIRTY YEARS AGO

Former councillor Darcy Cockbill easily won a four-way race to become Virden’s new mayor. He is successor to Glen McKinnon, who quit as mayor last fall after being elected member of Parliament for Brandon-Souris.

Evelyn Arnold (Harvey), of Deloraine, one of the region’s oldest resident, died yesterday. She was 106 years of age.

TWENTY YEARS AGO

Manitoba’s francophone public school division is planning to open its first school in the Brandon area this September. The school would be leased in a portion of the kindergarten to Grade 8 O’Kelly School at CFB Shilo. O’Kelly School is being renovated to prepare for many of the 291 children whose parents in the 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry are being transferred from Kapyong Barracks in Winnipeg over the next two years.

TEN YEARS AGO

After a long, fierce and exhausting debate over the 2014 city budget, council approved a proposed 1.42 per cent tax increase on Sunday. The number was finally pushed through after council failed to pass the budget document late Saturday night and was forced yesterday to revisit two contentious budget changes: across-the-board staffing cuts and a reduction to the city’s reserve contributions.

Mired in a five-game nosedive that has twice seen them booed off home ice this week, the Winnipeg Jets fired head coach Claude Noel and assistant Perry Pearn Sunday morning and handed the gig to 46-year-old Paul Maurice, a coaching veteran who compiled a 460-457-167 record in stints behind the benches of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Carolina Hurricanes and Hartford Whalers.