Looking Back — Feb. 3, 2024

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/02/2024 (692 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SIXTY YEARS AGO

The Winter Carnival ice event show on the North Hill attracted an estimated 4,000 people. Events for young and old featured an afternoon of entertainment on the Assiniboine River near the Brandon and District Boating Club clubhouse.

Don Ditchfield won the cross-country motorized toboggan race, finishing well ahead of his nearest competitors in the race viewed by an estimated 2,000 people yesterday at the Brandon Boating Club location for the Winter Carnival ice events.

FIFTY YEARS AGO

Four murals, painted in the early part of this century and which adorned the walls of the Royal Alexandra Hotel in Winnipeg for more than half a century are currently on display at the Brandon City Hall.

Maurice Strong, a native of Oak Lake and former director general of Canada’s foreign aid program, is among three recipients of Tyler Awards for work in conservation and ecology protection. Strong is the executive director of the United Nations environmental program with headquarters at Nairobi, Kenya.

FORTY YEARS AGO

After an eight-month delay, the RM of Cornwallis moved into its energy-efficient building on Highway 457 east of Brandon earlier this month.

Earl J. Tyler, 70, was appointed interim president by the Brandon University board of governors at a special meeting last night.

THIRTY YEARS AGO

More than 200 guests, including MPs, MLAs, senators, former staff and a multitude of friends, were on hand last night at the Souris Community Hall to thank former member of Parliament Lee Clark for his 10 and a half years of service to the constituents of Brandon-Souris and Canada and to help bring his political career to an official end.

TWENTY YEARS AGO

Eleven people were thrown into the frigid dark after a devastating fire early yesterday reduced Neepawa’s historic 100-year-old Hamilton Hotel to ice-encrusted rubble. “I have never been so close to death in my life,” said Rochelle Rosensteel, who escaped the hotel just minutes before it was rocked by an explosive fireball. No one is believed to have died in the fire, which started about 2 a.m. Firefighters rescued one male tenant who was found standing on the ledge of his second-storey room.

TEN YEARS AGO

Brandon East NDP MLA Drew Caldwell isn’t surprised to see plummeting support for his party as a recent poll indicated. And in the two years leading up to a provincial election, it won’t be surprising to see the party put its public relations machine in overdrive to remind voters where the PST money is going.

A man who claimed his alarm clock didn’t go off failed to show up in jail to serve a weekend sentence. City police said the 32-year-old man was supposed to begin his weekend jail time at 7 a.m. Saturday at the Brandon Correctional Centre. However, police were told at 10:45 a.m. that the man still hadn’t shown up at jail. Officers went to his home, where he was arrested without incident and taken to BCC.