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Congratulations to the Brandon Sun on marking its 135th anniversary.

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Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/01/2017 (3364 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Congratulations to the Brandon Sun on marking its 135th anniversary.

I have fond memories of my time working as a reporter at the Sun in 1988-89 — an eventful time in agriculture and provincial politics, both of which I covered for the newspaper. Back then, just as it does today, the Sun strove to interpret local, national and international events for Brandon and Westman readers.

In 1988, there were both provincial and federal elections, and Prairie farmers witnessed the most severe drought in more than a generation. As well, in early 1988, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was signed, and the country was abuzz on its implications. It was an exciting time to be a reporter.

File
Former Brandon Sun reporter Larry Kusch sits beside a stack of 100 trade books delivered to The Brandon Sun that morning in March 1988. Each was a copy of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement sent to him by the federal government, amounting to about 235 pounds of mail. He had called a toll-free number to ask for one copy of the agreement, and the feds answered in spectacular fashion.
File Former Brandon Sun reporter Larry Kusch sits beside a stack of 100 trade books delivered to The Brandon Sun that morning in March 1988. Each was a copy of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement sent to him by the federal government, amounting to about 235 pounds of mail. He had called a toll-free number to ask for one copy of the agreement, and the feds answered in spectacular fashion.

As an agriculture reporter with the Sun, I wanted to read the fine print of the trade deal to learn more about how local farmers might be affected. That led to a rather humorous incident that brought me some unexpected notoriety. I phoned Ottawa to obtain a copy of the agreement, and the feds over-delivered in spectacular fashion: I received boxes and boxes of copies — so many containers that they littered the floor around my desk in the Sun newsroom. A Sun photo of myself sitting beside a stack of FTA documents stacked to the ceiling was carried by major newspapers across the country. (We sent the extra copies back.)

Here’s to another 135 years of publication for Westman’s most important news organ!

Larry Kusch, reporter

Winnipeg Free Press

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