An alarming increase in all-terrain vehicle deaths and injuries has prompted the Saskatchewan All-Terrain Vehicle Association (SATVA) to launch a province-wide campaign this spring to promote the use of helmets for ATV drivers and passengers along with other general safety measures.

John Meed, general manager of SATVA, said there were eight fatalities involving ATVs in this province last year and in five of those deaths the rider of the machine wasn’t wearing a helmet. He said this is a “record” mortality rate in Saskatchewan, so SATVA feels they have to remind people of the dangers of operating the vehicles without taking appropriate safety precautions.

Wearing a helmet “can obviously save your life,” said Meed. “It can save you from serious brain injuries and we think it is a message that needs to get out.”

Meed said it is the law in Saskatchewan to wear a helmet when riding an ATV on public property. He said a person also has to wear goggles when operating an ATV if the helmet doesn’t have a face screen.

“We’d love people on their own property to wear their helmet too,” he said. “We know that the farming community is one that rides a lot on their own property, on their own land, and we’d like to promote that they wear their helmets as well.”

Along with eight deaths involving ATVs in 2013, there were also 47 injuries resulting from ATV accidents. This was the second highest injury rate in 14 years.

Since 2000, 50 people have been killed and 442 have been injured while riding an ATV. There has already been one death and injury in the province involving unsafe ATV use in 2014 after a 40-year-old man was killed and his 14-year-old passenger injured in what is believed to be an alcohol-related accident near Togo earlier this month.

Meed said an ATV tends to be a more bumpy and rocky ride than what someone experiences in a car, so people need to be in control of their faculties when driving the machine. He said a wrong decision or wrong reaction could cause the vehicle to flip over or hit something resulting in a bad injury or death.

Proper ATV training is also important for any riders of the machines. Meed said this can be accomplished through taking either the SATVA training course or one offered by the Canadian Safety Council.

To read more please see the May 19 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Helen’s Run was first organized five years ago as a small gathering of friends and family to honour a loved Dundurn grandmother while also raising some funds towards a cure for the disease that took her life.

Considering Helen’s Run 2014 already has participants registered from as far away as British Columbia and a goal of raising over $5,000 for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, this year’s five-kilometre charity walk and run is shaping up to be much more than originally envisioned.

“It’s kind of exciting that it’s getting that big,” said Logan Williams, co-organizer of the May 31 event that takes place at the Dundurn Military Base. “It’s a lot more professional. We have t-shirts now and we’re working with The Running Room for our registration and event planning. It’s becoming more of an actual event instead of just some friends getting together.”

Logan said people who register for the walk and run through The Running Room website or by emailing her at helensrun@yahoo.ca for a small fee that is donated to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation can basically expect a morning of food and fellowship. She said her grandmother Helen enjoyed spending time with family and friends before she passed away in 1993 after a courageous battle with breast cancer, so the race is meant to celebrate those values.

“My grandmother was well known for hosting get-togethers,” said Logan. “She loved seeing her family. I’ve had lots of comments lately about how many kids at the time in this community called her ‘mum’ even though they weren’t related to her. She loved to have people over and see her family get together, so I think this is a good way to remember her in that way.”

Logan and co-organizer Donna Williams have raised a total of $11,399 for breast cancer research since first putting on the Dundurn event that attracted 28 family and friends in 2009. Logan said each year since the event has gotten bigger and better with Helen’s Run 2013 managing to attract 58 adult participants and 17 kids who raised more than $4,800 for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

“Our goal is to raise $5,500 this year and have 100 walkers and runners,” she said. “Our family usually all shows up and our friends and now (there’s) more people, so that’s remembering her in a way that she liked to see.

“Then with the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation we just try to do pink. We’ll have lots of pink things there and all the money is going towards the Foundation.”

Untidy people not properly securing their garbage before heading to the Davidson landfill this spring has once again drawn the ire of many of this area’s ratepayers who must drive by the mess while travelling to and from town.

A number of residents have recently spotted garbage strewn along the road leading up to the landfill, which if not picked up eventually blows into a farmer’s nearby field.

Gary Edom, administrator for the Town of Davidson, said ratepayers hauling garbage to the landfill should tarp or tie down their load. He said the road leading up to the landfill doesn’t belong to anyone, but whenever garbage does fall off a truck it is the town’s ratepayers that must foot the bill for its pick-up.

“It would be our responsibility to clean up any garbage along it or to see that it is cleaned up,” said Edom. “It’s our landfill.”

Davidson has erected a fence around the landfill to keep any trash from escaping from the area. The town also has some “dirt mounding” in place to act as a windbreak, so nothing blows out.

Edom said it is the town’s employees who are tasked with the cleanup if something does find its way out of the landfill. He said they are also tasked with picking up any trash that falls off a truck before it gets to the dump, as they have no way to forcing people to properly secure their load before heading there.

“Even as far as making them come back, we have no idea whose truck (it was) unless there was a bag of garbage with their name on it,” he said. “You have no idea. You just got to pick it up and really that’s all you can do.”

It is common courtesy to other ratepayers as well as the town’s employees to make sure a load of garbage is secured so it won’t fall or blow off the back of a truck, he confirmed. Otherwise it’s a mess waiting to happen.

“Tie down or tarp (it),” said Edom. “Just make sure it is secured with the truck.”

Kids from Loreburn and Kenaston have a new place to play next year and some Davidson athletes are getting new teammates.

Seven or eight Kenaston School boys are joining the Davidson Raiders senior boys football team this September and four Loreburn Central School girls are becoming members of the Raiders senior girls volleyball team. This co-op agreement between the schools is the result of a low senior student population at the schools and a desire of the kids to continue playing the sports.

Ryan Johnson, principal of Kenaston School, said the agreement between the schools is for three years, but the co-op may continue beyond that. He said Kenaston has been in a senior boys football co-op with Loreburn since 1999, but due to only having 13 eligible players between the two schools next year and having most of them in either Grade 9 or 10 it was decided that was no longer a safe arrangement.

“The coaches have been talking for quite a while, almost since the end of last season, because we knew it wasn’t looking good for numbers between Loreburn and Kenaston,” said Johnson, noting he and Kenaston teacher John Jamieson would also be coming to Davidson to help coach the team. “We talked to the players a little bit about it and we talked to the coaches throughout the winter and when (it came time) to sign a new three-year agreement with Loreburn in the spring we had another meeting with Loreburn and Kenaston coaches and just came to the conclusion it wasn’t going to be safe and there is just not enough boys to make a team.

“That’s when I contacted (Davidson School principal Jason Low) and asked if he’d be willing to have a co-op with us and he said yes.”

Loreburn Central School principal Jill Long said the co-op affects the girls and their families the most as far as travel to and from Davidson, so the arrangement to join the Raiders for the next three years had a lot to do with initial discussions between the school, students and their parents. She said this was also the case with the senior boys at Loreburn and their decision to form a football co-op with Outlook High School.

“The biggest thing is we want them to have a place to play,” said Long. “Right now it’s pretty tough to have a football team with seven players or a volleyball team with four players, so the biggest thing for them is being able to play the sport that they’re passionate about and (us) making sure they have a location to play that sport.”

Low said these are the only two sports teams at Davidson that are presently going to feature a co-op arrangement. He said before they agreed to team up with Loreburn and Kenaston he first met with the coaches of each Raiders team to look at the numbers and decide if it would make a good fit, which in each case it did.

“In terms of football it’s really good because our numbers have never been really high,” said Low. “Last year for example we had to have a few Grade 9s play in our game situations and in a regular program the Grade 9s won’t play. They would come to the games and they would participate in the fifth quarter versus the other team’s Grade 9s. It gives us a little more depth and allows us to help those players develop without having to throw them into game situations where they might get hurt.

To read more please see the May 12 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

A Second World War flying helmet once worn by Hanley’s Lew Duddridge has found its way back to safe keeping in Saskatchewan, but by the most unusual means.

The leather Type C flight lieutenant helmet that was used by Duddridge when he flew out of a Royal Air Force station in Cark England during the war was stolen a few years ago from his summer home in Hanley. The theft had largely passed from Duddridge’s mind when a letter from Rod Dignean, a Saskatoon teacher and Canadian Forces reservist, arrived at his and his wife Hilda’s door in Victoria asking if the helmet belonged to him and whether it could now be placed in a travelling historical military display.

“I donated it to him because I thought this was a wonderful effort that he was making,” said Duddridge, noting Dignean bought the helmet fair and square from a military memorabilia collector in California for his display and deserved to keep it. “I knew in the future it was going to be for everybody to see and as long as it was with me it was just for me to see and my family.”

Dignean said the helmet now has a prominent part in his large First World War, Second World War, Korean War and Vietnam War collection that tours schools, Legions and armories in the area. He said there is also a little write-up in front of the helmet about how it ended up where it did and whom it belonged to previously.

“I got into this about 25 years ago (for) three main reasons,” said Dignean, noting he recently held an exhibit at Clavet School. “I do it to keep the history of our military service alive and teach new generations about Canada’s military history. Secondly, (this is) to honour my own ancestors as a First Nations person who served in Canada and the United States and thirdly, (it’s) to honour all those that served past and present.

“Being a serving member in the reserves and a veteran of Afghanistan myself, I can go out there and walk the talk and speak to the students first hand about it and give them a little taste of history.”

Duddridge said the jacket he married Hilda in back in Wales during the war is still in his collection, so having one of his flying helmets part ways isn’t that much of a big deal. He said also having a person near Hanley being able to display it makes him “exceedingly happy” about how things seemed to work out.

Dignean said the RAF helmet ending up in Saskatchewan again involves an “incredible” twist of fate and circumstance and he is proud to be able to now display the military artifact with his collection.

“I think it was meant to come back,” he said. “It was meant to come home where hopefully I can show it and it can be appreciated and remain part of local history.”