Elaine Reich

May 14, 1934 – April 17, 2019

Elaine passed away peacefully after a brief illness with her family by her side on Wednesday, April 17 at the age of 84. Elaine will be sadly missed and lovingly remembered by her husband of 63 years, Norbert, and her children: Norlaine (Jim McIvor), Gail (Dale Glines), Kevin (Lorraine), Bev (Brian Ziefflie), Karen (Lindsay Dieno), and daughter-in-law, Brenda, 21 grandchildren, and 28 great grandchildren. Elaine was predeceased by her parents, Ralph and Frances (Kettles) Lund, her son, Colin, daughter-in-law, Colleen (Manz), and sister, Verlee (Lund) Bate. After graduating from high school, Elaine worked as a bank teller until her marriage to Norbert on July 11, 1955 at the Sacred Heart Parish Church in Davidson, SK. They resided on the family farm 10 miles west of Davidson where they raised their family of six children. In 1976, the family moved into town where they continue to reside today. Elaine was a living example of love and kindness. The love of her family was evident as she enjoyed family gatherings and spending time with her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Lots to read this week including: Super Daft, Craik Coffee Club, Davidson School Drama Club, Sask. Tourism Award Winner, What to Feed the Bees, Keep Clubroot out of Farmers’ Fields… and much more.

To read the full paper, you’ll need to subscribe. Phone 306-567-2047, email davidsonleader@sasktel.net or click the Subscribe button. The Davidson Leader is available at these fine retailers: Davidson – Stedmans, Shell, Riverbend Co-op Gas Bar and Food Store, The Davidson Leader; Kenaston: KC Distributors; Craik – Big Way Foods.

The Davidson Leader won several awards at the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association (SWNA) Better Newspapers Competition (BNC). The awards were presented at the SWNA’s BNC banquet in Regina April 6. Tara de Ryk, publisher of The Davidson Leader, (left) won three awards: Best Educational Coverage K-12 series of stories for her series about Davidson School’s Grade 4 class’s efforts to install a sunscreen dispenser at Panther Pool. She also won the Best Feature Story award for the story about Terry Dieno’s restoration of a P-51 Mustang and she won the award for Best Saskatchewan Arts or Cultural series of stories for her series on the restoration of Davidson’s coffee pot. Leanne Read (right) won the award for Best Advertisement for her colourful ad promoting print work. She also placed second in the Best Wildlife Photo category for her picture of mule deer bucks. The Davidson Leader was also recognized in the general excellence awards, placing second in the Best Front Page competition in its circulation classification.

To read the full paper, you’ll need to subscribe. Phone 306-567-2047, email davidsonleader@sasktel.net or click the Subscribe button.

The Davidson Leader is available at these fine retailers: Davidson – Stedmans, Shell, Riverbend Co-op Gas Bar and Food Store, The Davidson Leader; Kenaston: KC Distributors; Craik – Big Way Foods

DAVIDSON—Small, mom and pop collision repair shops fear that new requirements for autobody shops to keep their SGI (Saskatchewan Government Insurance) accreditation will force them out of business.

SGI recently announced that it intends to introduce new equipment and training requirements that autobody repair shops must meet in order to retain their SGI accreditation.

SGI says the changes are needed due to how new vehicles are made. New vehicles have significant advancements in vehicle construction and driver safety technologies that require new tools, equipment and training to ensure the vehicles are repaired safely to the manufacturer’s standards.

SGI collision repair work is the main source of revenue for autobody shops.

“I feel this is going to close down a lot of smaller shops. I don’t know who is going to be left after this sweep,” Barry Millham said last Wednesday.

To read the full story, you’ll need to subscribe. Phone 306-567-2047, email davidsonleader@sasktel.net or click the Subscribe button.

DAVIDSON—To quote Gordon Willner’s daughter Jessica Foster’s comment about the three-headed calf story: “No three-headed calves were harmed in this joke”.

A practical joke or an April Fool’s day prank isn’t born overnight. It takes a bit of thought and planning to pull it off.

In the case of the three-headed calf story that appeared on the front page of the April 1 edition of The Davidson Leader, this three-headed calf was born 20 years ago.

In 1999 I visited the Wilson Museum in Dundurn, where a stuffed two-headed calf that had been born in the area was on display. I found it fascinating and a freaky thing to look at.

The year before, I worked at a newspaper in Cold Lake, Alta. April 1, 1998 happened to occur on our publication day, so we played a joke that our offices had been flooded by spring runoff. Thanks to the magic of Photoshop, we created convincing images of water that was a metre deep threatening the computers. We even had coffee cups and rubber ducks bobbing in the floodwater. We included a story about how we persevered through this natural disaster to bring people the April 1, 1998 edition of their paper.

Despite the fact our offices were located on higher ground and the land around was bone dry, people fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

After seeing that two-headed calf in Dundurn, I decided if I ever got another chance I would do an April Fool’s Day joke using a three-headed calf.

The first opportunity was April 1, 2002, however, I didn’t own The Davidson Leader at the time and I was on a maternity leave with my first child.

The next time that April Fool’s Day was on a Monday, which is our publication day, was April 1, 2013. I started to make a plan, and then realized April Fool’s Day was also Easter Monday and we would be unable to distribute the paper until April 2.

After that, I hadn’t given it much thought until I realized in February of this year that April 1 landed on a Monday.

The calf was born March 24, the day I wrote the story, but the pump of believability was primed, so to speak, with the news that a cow near Leross, Saskatchewan had given birth to quadruplets in late March.

The story was easy to write. After a straightforward start, about a quarter of the way through, the reader was introduced to Dr. April Fool AKA Olaf Lipro. He is a reoccurring character in my April Fool’s Day pranks. Last April Fool’s Day he was a bylaw nuisance officer employed in the Inspections and Investigations Department of the City of Saskatoon. On April 1 last year, my husband received a letter from Inspector Lipro requiring him to obtain a backyard skating rink permit due to complaints that his skating rink was deemed an eyesore and failed to comply with City’s backyard rink regulations. The aftermath of that letter was fun to watch….he even filled out the City’s online forms to obtain a building permit so he could bring his rink into compliance.

…Back to the three-headed calf, the pug/Rottweiler pups was the second clue that something about this story was a bit fishy as was the detail the young vet had to consult his textbook while performing his first C-section on the cow.

After doing a bit of research on the website wikiHow regarding how to perform a C-section on a cow, the story took off from there.

I saved the reference to the fictional Newt Scamander for last, hoping it would tip off many readers to the fact it was a joke.

I let my children read a draft of the story. They immediately wanted to come out to the Willner Farm to see it, even my16-year-old daughter believed it. This was a bit disappointing because we had watched the Newt Scamander character in the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them a few days before.

The story needed to be more preposterous, so I added the bit about using straws from Tim Hortons and Twisted Sisters to suck out amniotic fluid. We double-checked on Friday prior to publication that Twisted Sisters was still closed for the season. Imagine my dismay on Monday when I saw on social media that the Chamberlain eatery had opened for the season April 1.

The key to the story was the fantastic Photoshop skills of Leanne Read, who had taken a picture of the calf that was born on her and Troy’s family farm. She even fooled her mother in-law. But we couldn’t have pulled it off without the consent of a well-respected farmer. Thank you Gord Willner.

So folks, now you know the rest of the story…

To all the people who believed there was indeed a three-headed calf born, I hope you are able to chuckle about it and not be too sore about being fooled.

It happens to me every April Fool’s Day too, just ask my husband who’s burned me quite a few times.

Readers are safe from these hijinks for the foreseeable future.

The next time April 1 lands on a Monday is in 2024, but this is also an Easter Monday.

Rest assured that you may continue to trust The Davidson Leader as a reliable source of local news. We appreciate your support. As a point of interest…this spring, local shed hunters have been finding spiral shaped horns northeast of Davidson and Kenaston. This coincides with reports of sightings in the Allan Hills east of Hanley of a wild horse with a horn protruding from its head…you may read more about it on April 1, 2030.