Looking back — Oct. 19, 2023

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/10/2023 (1077 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SIXTY YEARS AGO

Two new southwestern Manitoba schools were opened yesterday by Education Minister Stewart McLean, who told residents of Pierson and Melita the test of the new schools will be in the use made of them. Walter E. Wightman was re-elected president of the Brandon Festival of Music and Speech Art at a recent meeting.

Lloyd Hatch has won the coveted John Connor Memorial Trophy for the best flock of sheep at the Manitoba Winter Fair’s fall show and sale. Hatch animals topped Suffolk and Cheviot classes.

FIFTY YEARS AGO

Radio station CJRB Boissevain went on the air today at 3 p.m. John Dean, former White House counsel, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to obstruct the investigation into the Watergate political espionage scandal.

Charlie Rich was named Country Music Association’s male vocalist of 1973 with the song “Behind Closed Doors,” which also gave him best-single and best album honours.

FORTY YEARS AGO

Two men are in satisfactory condition in Brandon General Hospital this morning after they were overcome by fumes while cleaning a fuel tank at a Brandon service station.

The annual inflation rate dropped to five per cent last month, the smallest year-over-year increase recorded in consumer prices in more than 10 years.

THIRTY YEARS AGO

Versatile entertainers The Irish Rovers packed the Centennial Auditorium with a sellout concert of 867.

Chuck Scherza is one of 11 former NHL players who will be inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Wall of Fame on Oct. 30 in Winnipeg. Scherza, born and raised in Brandon, was just 18 when he cracked the Boston Bruins lineup in 1943 — a remarkable feat in the days of the Original Six clubs.

TWENTY YEARS AGO

Canadian Alliance MPs were humming from the same hymn book last night as leader Stephen Harper sought sanction for what he jokingly called a “civil union” with the Progressive Conservatives. A caucus vote overwhelmingly endorsed the merger plan announced by Harper and Tory Leader Peter MacKay last Thursday following weeks of sometimes acrimonious negotiations over uniting the right.

Brandon has a tentative hold on the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame and Museum that could be firmed up as early as next spring. A delegation hoping to put the national museum in the former Display Building at the Keystone Centre returned from Ottawa Sunday with a tentative OK from the Canadian Curling Association to build the hall of fame here in Brandon.

TEN YEARS AGO

The second-largest city in Manitoba has once again been shut out of a ministerial position in the NDP provincial cabinet. Premier Greg Selinger shook up his inner circle at the legislature in Winnipeg yesterday, adding three new faces at the expense of three of the longest-tenured ministers. Not on the list is Brandon East MLA Drew Caldwell, extending the Wheat City’s cabinet snub to six years.

The Daly Overpass marked its 50th anniversary this week, but instead of celebrating, many motorists were likely grumbling in their cars as they dealt with ongoing traffic snarls. Mayor Shari Decter Hirst compared the situation on 18th Street to a heart attack. “It’s four lane from one end of the city to the other except through this constriction, this narrowing on the bridge,” she said. “It causes heart attacks when blood doesn’t flow and arteries narrow, and that’s the kind of analogy to what’s happening in the city.”