By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — After an intense week of learning and rehearsals, Davidson families got to enjoy the fruits of their children’s labours in the form of a stage musical last weekend.

The talents of 42 students were featured in “Rapunzel,” presented on June 20 as a production of the Missoula Children’s Theatre company, before a crowd of 150 in the school gymnasium.

Theatre employees Chelsey Campbell and Eli Halterman worked at the school throughout the week leading up to Saturday, holding workshops for students in grades 1 through 8 during the day and rehearsing for “Rapunzel” in the afternoons.

Teacher Arlene Low said the final product was outstanding and showed the hard work that students and other contributors had put into it.

“They are a wonderful group and they work and communicate with kids so well,” she said. “They (the students) learned so much about the theatre . . . So did I.”

The production was open to students in grades 1 through 12. All 42 students who auditioned on Monday were given parts in the play, which told an expanded version of the Grimm brothers’ classic fairy tale of the girl with the long golden hair.

This version moved the story to France and added a large cast of characters, including wood elves, the Billy Goats Gruff, ogres, unicorns, the Three Bears, a beaver named Bucky, mushrooms, ears of corn and a potato.

Campbell played the role of Frenchy, the narrator, while Halterman served as the director. The play featured several songs sung by the students, who were accompanied by pianist Pearl Unger of Craik.

Students stayed after school for between two and four hours each day throughout the week as they familiarized themselves with their lines, staging and directions. The sets, props, makeup and costumes were furnished by the theatre company.

At the play’s close, Halterman thanked the school and students for hosting them and working with them, and noted that after taking a week off, they would be headed overseas to lead workshops in Turkey, Portugal and Germany.

Low said that the process of bringing the Missoula, Mont.-based theatre company to Davidson took about a year and a half.

A four-member committee was established and solicited donations from local service clubs and businesses to cover the cost of the program — around $2,500 in U.S. funds, or just over $3,100 in Canadian funds.

Low said the committee hopes that the money collected at the door will allow the school to bring the company back on an annual basis.

“We have some talented kids,” she said. “I think it’s just wonderful that we have an opportunity for them to shine.”

The Missoula Children’s Theatre company (MCT) has been conducting its tours for four decades. According to the company’s promotional material, this year alone the company will work with 65,000 children in more than 1,200 communities across the U.S. and 17 other countries.

By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — The Town of Davidson will scale back on its pavement plans for this summer as it attempts to shoulder other unexpected costs, council heard at its meeting last week.

Administrator Gary Edom said during council’s regular meeting on Tuesday that the town needs to recover about $80,000 in its budget, following an unplanned string of street repairs caused by a high water table and subsequent frost boils.

“Our street repairs have just gone through the roof,” said Mayor Clayton Schneider, explaining that town needed to revisit the budget to find funding to “cover these surprises.”

Edom recommended that the town’s pavement budget be reduced from $200,000 to $120,000 for the current year, though he said this would sharply reduce the number of projects the town could afford to tackle.

“I think we’re just going to have to cut back as much as we can,” he said, explaining that he couldn’t find any other areas in the budget to target for reduction.

“We’ve had so darn much street work to do this year,” he told the Leader on Wednesday. “We’ll just have to play it by ear as we go.”

Edom said the town would still aim to resurface a couple of sections along First Street, including the two blocks from Washington Avenue to Garfield Street, and one block between Grant Street and Francis Street.

United Paving, based in Swift Current, has been recruited to complete the paving. Edom said the company had initially scheduled the work to begin June 1, but then came up against delays as employees finish the pavement at the Riverbend Co-op’s new service station on Highway 11.

Coun. Tyler Alexander remarked that if the water table continues to stay high in future years, council members may “have to revamp our whole thinking on it.”

In response to a query from Coun. Gerald Kenny, Edom noted that there had been very little wiggle room in the budget, with a budgeted surplus of $1,819.

By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — In nine years of local ministry, Rev. F. Diane Eurig touched the lives of a lot of people, within the Davidson United Church congregation and beyond.

As Ian McCreary put it, “You got introduced to Diane as a minister . . . She very quickly became a friend for many.”

These friends filled the church’s basement hall on June 14 for a retirement social held in Eurig’s honour, featuring music, memories and plenty of laughs.

Eurig, who began serving the Davidson-Girvin pastoral charge in July 2006, preached her farewell sermon on Sunday, followed by a potluck meal and the social, which attracted a crowd of around 75 people. Cake and ice cream were served after the program.

McCreary and others spoke of her community outreach and how she provided effective leadership while remaining in the background much of the time.

“The key to great leadership was humility, and not needing to be the centre of attention,” said McCreary, who served as chair of the church’s ministry and personnel committee during Eurig’s tenure.

He likened her to the grinders on a hockey team and told her, “It’s your failure to need to be great that makes you great.”

The program began with a performance by the “kitchen band,” a group that leads regular singing with residents at the Davidson Health Centre.

Led by Sandra Zoerb and accompanied by pianist Norma McNabb, the group sang several old-time favourites. Eurig joined them on stage for their final song, a rousing performance of “Beer Barrel Polka.”

The Riecken sisters — Cheryl Riecken, Karen Edom, Donna Russell and Gloria Morrison — took the stage to perform two songs, including Mac Davis’s “I Believe in Music” and a rewrite of Paul Anka’s “Diana,” which became “Diane.”

Sharon Riecken read two selected poems about friendship, while Sylvia McConnell offered her own tribute poem, with adjectives describing Eurig written on brightly-coloured pieces of Bristol board.

Gord McRae expressed thanks on behalf of the local Royal Canadian Legion branch, presenting the gift of a red sweater. He explained that Eurig and others from the Davidson Inter-Church Association (DICA) were instrumental in keeping Remembrance Day services going as the Legion’s membership has declined.

McCreary read a letter from Pamela Thomas, personnel minister for the Saskatchewan Conference of the United Church, recalling the circumstances around Eurig’s arrival in Davidson.

The church’s pulpit was vacant after the departure of Rev. Nobuko Iwai, who had served as president of the Saskatchewan Conference, and Thomas said she had been worried about finding someone to fill her shoes.

None of the available interim ministers seemed like the right fit, but when Eurig appeared as a candidate, she displayed many of the gifts the church had sought in its next minister, including a passion for justice and pastoral care, and a heart for the community.

On behalf of the church, Gwen Allan presented Eurig with a painting by Anita Storey, depicting a prairie scene at sunset with a road leading into the distance.

Eurig spoke to the crowd at the program’s close, thanking them for the time she spent in Davidson.

“It certainly has been a joy,” she said, adding, “I’m not going far, and that’s the nice part of it.”

Eurig moved to Saskatoon last week, where she now resides with Adele and Beth Smillie, who are the mother and sister, respectively, of Davidson parishioner Mary Smillie.

Raised near Mount Forest, Ont., Eurig spent her earlier years farming but later returned to school, earning her B.A. in women’s studies at the University of Guelph, then completing a master’s degree of divinity at the Vancouver School of Theology in 2000.

She told the Leader in a previous interview that she had learned much through volunteering with Vancouver’s First United Church, helping sex trade workers in the East Hastings community.

After her ordination, she served the United Church congregation in Cabri for six years, then accepted the call in Davidson. Eurig turned 70 in December; her daughter Shelley and son-in-law Darek live in Calgary.

She said that Davidson has been “a wonderful home” where she has felt encouraged, respected and supported, and where she was conscious of the love of the congregation and community.

“There are many gifts and talents in this community,” she said. “They all work together to make this a vibrant church. . . It has been an honour to be here.”

Rev. Mathias Ross, currently serving the Grasslands pastoral charge in southwestern Saskatchewan, has accepted the call in Davidson and will begin his ministry here around July 15.