All posts by Tara de Ryk

Obituary

obit stephens

Stephens
Brian Charles
Brian Stephens, aged 86 years, passed away peacefully at Regina General Hospital on Monday, February 11, 2013.
Brian was born January 10, 1927 to Reginald and Blanche Stephens on the family farm in Norbury, Sask. He was the fourth of five children: Roy, Ed, Mary, Brian and Miles. He met the love of his life, Doris, and after two years of courtship they were married (1954) followed by the birth of their three sons Don, Dan and Rob. Brian farmed until entering the business world as a grain buyer (1965) beginning in Bapaume, Sask. Brian and Doris then transferred to Imperial in 1969 with three energetic boys and a big, white dog. He and Doris raised their children in Imperial until his death, where Doris still resides. He pursued his profession with passion and gusto until retirement in 1991. Through Brian’s life he was known as the local farmers’ “veterinarian service” and nurtured back to health many a horse and livestock. This became his natural calling. After retirement Brian became involved in raising registered American Quarter Horses; the herd grew to as many as 30. He became the supervisor of the Davidson Beef producers from 1992 to 2009. His passion was “Dori”, his family, horses, livestock sales and rodeos. Brian was known for his quiet strength and sharp wit; he always loved a good laugh and he was wise and a man of great integrity. Dori has always said, “Brian was always a farmer and a country boy”. His final hours were spent surrounded by his family, his unwavering wit ever present for story telling and laughs, until he slipped away.
Brian is survived by his wife of 58 years, Doris and three sons Don (Christine), Dan (Rosanne), Rob (Catherine); eight grandchildren Chad (Jenn), Rachelle (Connor), Chris (Erin), Jennifer (Chad), Chelce (Pat), Landon (Saila), Joel (Araby), Tanner (Carly); four great-grandchildren Morgan, Dalton, Anna, Emma; sister Mary and brother Miles (Jean) and numerous nieces and nephews.
He was predeceased by his parents Reginald and Blanche and brothers Roy and Ed.
A memorial tea was held at Imperial Community Centre on February 15 conducted by Rev. Jack Robson.
Honourary pallbearers were all his family and friends. John and Deanna Hignett were register attendants. Ushers we David Hill and Vivian Hill. Jenn McCrae and Wendy Remoue gave the eulogy.
Brian’s ashes were laid to rest in the Imperial Cemetery during a private family graveside service held earlier in the day.
To leave on-line condolences, tributes or to make a donation, please visit www.fotheringham-mcdougall.com

Davidson, featured

Businesses welcome penny’s demise

Businesses in Davidson don’t seem too worried about the demise of the penny in Canadian currency.
Starting today, businesses will be rounding cash transactions up or down to the nearest five-cent increment according to a guideline provided by the Government of Canada. According to the guideline, only the final amount, after taxes have been added, are subject to rounding.
For example, if a final amount owing is $1.01 to $1.02 the figure will be rounded down to $1, while if the amount is $1.03 or $1.04 the figure will be rounded up to $1.05.
“We’re almost there,” said Natasha Larsh, co-manager of Gunner’s Gas and Convenience, on whether they’re prepared for the change. “When we first opened we were rounding everything off anyways. There are just a few products we need to change.”
Pennies can still be used in cash transactions indefinitely and the rounding off policy does not apply to cheques or electronic payments such as debit, credit or payment cards.
Kamal Saini, supervisor at Davidson’s A&W restaurant, said the tills have already been configured to take the rounding policy on cash transactions into account and there have been signs posted on the tills leading up to the change to inform customers. He said the prices of food would not actually change.
“The tills are going to change, but not the prices on the menu boards,” said Saini.
By phasing out the penny as a Canadian coin, the government states it will save taxpayers $11 million a year. This savings comes from the rising cost of production of the one-cent coin compared to it’s worth, the amount of pennies that are lying around Canadian households right now and the handling costs imposed on retailers with the penny.
Judi Packet, co-owner of Packet’s Foods, said the phasing out of the penny is not going to affect them in any way as they’ve already been rounding off transactions for about the past four years.
“We’re a coffee shop,” said Packet. “We didn’t want to deal with pennies in the first place.”

Davidson

Student teacher face-to-face time goes up

Instructional time for the 2013-2014 school year in Saskatchewan is being set to last a minimum of 950 hours, forcing school divisions in this area to readjust their calendar.
The Sask. Party government proclaimed legislative and regulatory amendments on Jan. 1 choosing the 950-hour minimum face-to-face teacher-student time that will apply to the next school year. Saskatchewan school divisions did not offer a minimum amount of instructional time before these amendments were introduced and the changes are an attempt to create a standard consistent with other western Canadian provinces.
Instructional time does not include teacher in-service days or teacher preparation.
Larry Pavloff, chair of the Prairie Spirit School Division board of education, which represents schools in Dundurn and Hanley, said they did not know the changes were “coming down,” but they did hear it was a possibility. He said the new legislation may or may not be a positive thing for students and teachers, but that depends on the quality of education provided.
“Just the fact that we add more time to the calendar year does not mean that student achievement is going to improve,” said Pavloff. “If we add the same quality of time that we know our teachers are presently providing, I don’t know how it can’t help but improve student achievement.”
Pavloff said the Prairie Spirit School Division will have to add 30 hours of instructional time in the coming year to meet the legislative requirements, but how that will happen will not be known until the division board of education calendar committee, which sets out the schedule of the school year, comes to a conclusion of what options they will decide to implement.
He said the committee will meet “very shortly” to work out these details and will then submit their proposals to the school board before April 1.
“Then the board has until May 1 to get their choice of calendar or present their calendar to the ministry,” he said. “The board has to have the decision made by May 1 as to what our school calendar is going to look like.”
Darby Briggs, communications coordinator with the Prairie South School Division, which represents Craik School, said the division is currently putting together a package of options to get up to the 950-hour minimum. She said they would then present that package to the board Feb. 12 in an effort to decide what they’re going to do come September 2013.
“We currently don’t have the 950 (instructional hours minimum), so we’re definitely going to have to take a look at things,” said Briggs. “We’ve got a lot to look at and definitely a lot of options to examine in making sure that what we decide is best both for the kids and the teachers, but also meets the ministry’s requirements.”
To read more please see the Feb. 4 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson

Snow planes a “sweetheart” at local rally

“Snow plane nuts” from across Saskatchewan came to Davidson Jan. 27 to compare the fruits of their labours and offer free “at your own risk” rides for anyone brave enough to hop into a cockpit.
“It was a pretty good turnout,” said Charles Deaver, a local snow plane enthusiast and organizer of the rally. “Something I didn’t do is advertise it a lot because I didn’t want a lot of people to come out, especially younger kids. I didn’t have things set up right for that. If this happens again, I’ll know how to plan it better.”
Deaver owns two out of the six planes at the rally held at C&M Motors, a larger one he rebuilt four years ago and a smaller one “built right from the bottom up.” He said it takes him about four months to build a snow plane working on it part-time, when he’s not busy playing guitar for his old-time country and dance band, 3 For The Show.
A snow plane doesn’t actually fly, but can zip around a snowy field at close to 65 kilometres an hour. They’re kind of like a hovercraft, except made for Saskatchewan winters instead of Florida swamps.
Watrous’ Jack Isabelle came out to the rally to show off his homemade, other than the propeller and 290-Lycoming aircraft engine, snow plane. He said the whole body of the plane is made out of wood and there were no blueprints to fall back on when he was building it.
“You just look at other things and decide what you’ll put into it,” said Isabelle. “When it runs good, it’s a sweetheart. When it doesn’t, it’s a pain in the ass.”
Isabelle said he has been building snow planes for about 20 years. He said he first saw a picture of one and was intrigued and when one of his buddies built one, he had to have one too.
“Anybody can buy a skidoo, but these you have to build,” he said.
Lorne Winslow, who travelled from Wadena for the rally, brought along his “Snow Dragon” plane. He said the plane is equipped with a 235-horsepower Continental aircraft engine and six-foot propeller, plus a propane furnace inside the cockpit “so it stays nice and warm.
“I had a ride in one when I was six years old and I said I had to have one,” said Winslow. “They are a fun machine.”
To read more please see the Feb. 4 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, Sports

Raiders girls win home tournament

The Davidson Raiders junior girls basketball team took their competition to school at the Davidson gym Jan. 25 and 26 winning all three games they played in their home tournament on route to taking the first place honours.
Sandra Baldwin, coach of the Raiders, said Davidson was “pretty strong” at the tournament, first beating the Outlook Blues 43-28 and the Eatonia Spartans 49-19 in pool A action before moving on to the first place game, a 61-35 win over the Eston Mustangs. She said the other teams at the tournament were pretty young, comprised of mostly grades 7 and 8 players, so her team that dresses four Grade 9s proved formidable to their opponents.
“They are good leaders on the court,” Baldwin said of Grade 9 players Tina Stone (guard), Kaitlyn Baldwin (post), Cheyanne Nordmarken (wing) and Sydney Booker (point guard).
Cheyanne was particularly strong on the offensive side against the Mustangs scoring a team high 18 points including a couple long threes. Sydney netted 13 points during the blowout that saw Davidson go up 19-3 in the first quarter and 35-9 by the half.
Tina was all over the court during the final game coming down with numerous rebounds and playing a quick transition game to get the ball back up to her wings, while Kaitlyn was solid on the defensive side wrestling for any balls that an opposing Mustang dared try advance into the key.
“My girls thought Davidson was going to be difficult to begin with and they were a little bit slow getting out of the gate,” said Mustangs coach Marea Olafson. “Finally, it was like ‘oh, we can play with Davidson so let’s play,’ but we started slow.”
The Mustangs dominated the third quarter scoring 18 points to Davidson’s 10, bringing the score to 45-27. The home side came back to form in the final 8 minutes, putting the game away for good and taking first place with the 26-point victory.
Olafson said the tournament as a whole was “great” for their club, as it let their younger players get in some game action and grow more as a team.
“We were able to win a few basketball games,” she said. “The Grade 7s are getting stronger and the Grade 9s are helping them. Our team building is really strong right now.”
Baldwin said her girls played extremely well together as a team even though she mixed her players up position-wise throughout the final game.
“They still went out and passed well to each other,” she said. “They made sure everybody touched the ball and they spread out the points.”
The Raiders coach said the junior girls have enjoyed a solid season so far and they look forward to playoff action come the beginning of March.
“I expect us to be at districts in the final game,” said Baldwin. “That’s our goal.”

featured

Wheat Board supporters seek $17B from feds

Former directors and supporters of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly are not letting it go down without a fight.
Cam Goff, director for district six of the Wheat Board from 2008-2011, said the federal government “broke the laws of Canada” when it dissolved the board in December 2011 without first holding a plebiscite among grain producers. He said the government could have easily changed or repealed the law forcing them to hold a plebiscite, but “just ignored the law” instead when they introduced legislation, Bill C-18, in October 2011 to end the single desk for 2012 harvested crop.
Section 47 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act says the government must hold a plebiscite among grain producers before making these changes to the board.
This action by the government drove the Wheat Board as an organization and eight of its former directors to launch a lawsuit in Federal Court against the government arguing the dissolution of the board not go ahead because the government did not follow the rule of law. This lawsuit was seen before the court in December 2011 with the court ruling in the claimant’s favour.
“The judge came down very strongly that the federal government had actually really broken the law or they were not abiding by the rule of law,” said Goff. “He really felt the government had overstepped its bounds.”
The federal government then appealed the case to the Federal Court of Appeal, which sided with the government in a ruling “sometime in late February or March” that refused the directors’ request for a stay of the dissolution of the board and that the federal government’s dissolution actions could go forward.
The claimants then asked the Supreme Court of Canada to decide the case. The Supreme Court ruled it would not hear the appeal Jan. 17. They did not give reasons for this decision.
“Really, we’ve run out of legal options,” said Goff. “Having the Supreme Court say that they’re not going to hear the case means that, aside from the class-action lawsuit, there really is nothing else legally we can do to try to have the government obey the law.
“Unfortunately, the court system doesn’t seem to think the federal government has to be bound by the laws of this country and I find that incredibly disappointing. They should be willing to hear the arguments, but they just said ‘no we’re not even going to listen to you,’ so I find that very disturbing.
“I always thought Canada was a democratic country that works by the rule of law, but apparently it is run by the rule of bye law.”
The class-action lawsuit, launched in Federal Court in February 2012, seeks to reinstate the Wheat Board’s monopoly and if that can’t happen to compensate the affected farmers with $17 billion in damages for the loss.
Goff said the lawsuit includes every farmer in Western Canada who sold grain through the Canadian Wheat Board between 2006 and 2011, unless a farmer specifically requests not to be a part of it. He said everyone involved in the lawsuit would be treated equally in regards to the compensation, but the $17 billion amount is just a starting figure, which will eventually be decided by the court once they adjudicate on the issue.
To read more please see the January 28 print edition of The Davidson Leader.