Davidson

Locals head to slammer for gym floor fundraiser

Twenty of Davidson’s finest are being sent to the slammer next Wednesday.

In other words, a high school classroom for an afternoon of lessons, but as it always is with people of privilege they can buy their way out, unlike the unfortunate students.

Davidson School is holding a “Jail and Bail” fund-raising event Oct. 24 where 20 members of the community will be locked in classrooms with the students during their afternoon lessons. The “prisoners” will be working the phones at the school in trying to raise as much “bail” as they can between 1 and 3 p.m. for the new hardwood floor for the main gym as part of the school’s Sea of Blue campaign.

“The classes will be continuing on,” said Karielle Willner, a middle years teacher at the school. “We’ll be teaching and they’ll be in our classes interacting with us and just kind of having a fun afternoon. Who knows, maybe they’ll learn a thing or two.”

The school is currently at a little over $9,000 in their effort to raise $40,000 by March to upgrade from a rubberized floor for the main gym to a hardwood one. The Sun West School Division is replacing the floor next summer and gave the school the option to upgrade if they could raise the funds, so students and teachers started the Sea of Blue campaign where 400 floor tiles will be sold off at $10 each, thereby reaching the $40,000 goal.

To read more please see the Oct. 15 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson

Loreburn Arena wins Mars Bars contest for rink upgrades

The rink in the Village of Loreburn sees around 50 people a week walk through its doors during the wintertime for hockey, figure skating, public skating and power skating and, as a result, the 48-year-old arena has received some wear and tear, but thanks to Mars Bars upgrades are in the works.

Vanessa Tastad, Loreburn recreation board president and village councillor, said Mars Bars informed her in June they were picked as one of five arenas from across the country that would be receiving $5,000 from the chocolate bar company and as much as $15,000 more depending on how their Mars Play Your Part Promotion unfolds.

“We’ll be putting in new flooring in both of the dressing rooms plus the hallway out to the ice surface,” said Tastad, adding work will begin once the promotion closes at the end of December and they find out how much they will actually receive. “We’ll also be doing dry walling we had to finish (in the hallway) and some painting and we’ll get some stick racks (for the dressing rooms) and some door closures, so just some finer things.”

Tastad said the amount of money Loreburn Arena will ultimately receive depends on how many people buy a Mars Bar with the red strip on it and then go to the Mars Play Your Part Promotion website and enter the pin off the wrapper. She said every time a pin is entered $5 is “unlocked” from the promotion and depending on how many pins are entered a total of $75,000 could be unlocked at the beginning of the New Year, which will be split equally among the five selected arenas.

“Everybody in the community is helping out,” she said. “The rink will only be selling Mars Bars till December and we’ll try out some deep-fried Mars Bars too. Loreburn School is selling them at their football games and just regular people are buying boxes and asking if they could go out and sell them.”

Tastad sent in the application for Loreburn Arena, which was essentially “an essay about what our project is and what our goal was,” to Mars Bars in March and received notice they had advanced to the second round of the competition in May. She said the company then asked her a few more questions about what exactly they had planned for the arena.

“We got the phone call (in June) that we were picked based on our application and our need for the project,” she said. “We’re just so excited to be picked and we hope everyone helps out by buying Mars Bars and entering their pins online.”

featured

Craik RCMP officer injured in Chamberlain car crash

A member of the Craik RCMP detachment is in a Regina hospital with serious injuries after being involved in a fatal motor vehicle collision south of Chamberlain.

The officer, a 47-year-old male whose name was not released, was sitting in a marked 2010 Chevy Tahoe with its emergency equipment activated at approximately 2:35 p.m. on Sept. 28 when the collision occurred.

While investigating a single-vehicle rollover, the officer parked on the side of the road in the northbound lane of Highway 11 about 1 kilometre south of Chamberlain where the highway splits.

At the same time, the RCMP Divisional Operational Communications Centre (DOCC) began receiving complaints of a vehicle driving erratically and at high speeds southbound through the community of Chamberlain. It is suspected by the RCMP this is the same vehicle that collided with the police SUV.

The driver of the vehicle, a 35-year-old male from Saskatoon, whose name was also not released, was travelling southbound on Hwy 11 when it crossed over into the northbound lane crashing into the marked police vehicle head-on.

“The RCMP member was then taken away in serious condition by STARS air ambulance to Regina, where he still remains in hospital,” said RCMP Cpl. Rob King.

The Saskatoon man was pronounced dead at the scene.

King said it is not yet known if alcohol was a factor in the crash.

“We’ll have to wait for the re-constructionist report to be completed and for toxicology reports from the autopsy to know that,” he said.

In addition to the RCMP re-constructionist who travelled to the collision, emergency personal and members of the Craik, Lumsden and Regina RCMP detachments also descended on the scene to help in the investigation and provide relief of traffic congestion.

“The northbound lane of Hwy 11 was closed for about seven hours (after the crash),” said King.

This is the second serious motor vehicle incident involving the Craik RCMP in September and the third involving a Saskatchewan RCMP member while on-duty since July.

On Sept. 2, a 35-year-old constable with the Craik RCMP was air lifted to hospital in Regina after rolling his police car while responding to a domestic disturbance call. He was travelling west on the 732 grid road in the RM of Sarnia when he lost control of his car around 11 p.m. and entered the ditch.

King said he is still in hospital and is in stable condition.

The RCMP member employee assistance program is providing comfort to family and members of the Craik RCMP detachment and officers from other detachments are being brought in to help officers in Craik deal with the call load.

On July 20, Const. Derek Pineo was killed when his cruiser hit a moose 7 kms west of the town of Wilkie while reporting to a call.

Davidson, featured

Davidson Co-op Food Store addresses deadly E. coli beef infections

Davidson beef is safe to eat.

The Davidson Co-op Food Store has pulled all its beef products that were processed at the XL Foods Inc. plant in Brooks, Alta. that is at the centre of the new E. coli infection scare, but want to assure all customers the meat that is on the counter today is safe.

Dale Firby, general manager of Riverbend Co-op, said the plant in Brooks is their “preferred supplier,” but once the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) issued the recall; the grocery store “immediately” pulled all the products that were specified from the counter.

CFIA first issued the recall in September and further expanded it to dozens of additional products including roasts and sausages last Monday.

“When we were informed of the recall, we addressed it,” said Firby. “Anyone that was asking about the product, we had encouraged them to bring the product back for a full refund and all product was isolated and returned back to the supplier.”

There were 13 E. coli infection cases being investigated in September, which differs sharply from the usual zero to four during that month, by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health to see if they are linked to beef processed at the XL Foods Inc. plant. There have been five confirmed cases in Alberta linked to the processing plant.

The Heath Ministry is reminding consumers to use safe beef handling and cooking procedures such as thorough hand washing when handling or preparing food and making sure that all meat is cooked thoroughly.

People with an E. coli infection will experience symptoms such as severe abdominal pain, watery or bloody diarrhoea, vomiting, nausea and headaches with little or no fever. These symptoms usually appear within three to four days, but can occur up to 10 days later and last about five to 10 days. People most at risk of developing serious complications from E. coli are pregnant women, people with compromised immune systems, young children and the elderly.

To read more please see the Oct. 8 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, Sports

Raiders and Bisons engage in a hard-hitting affair

The Raiders senior boys football team lost 44-0 to the LCBI Bisons in chilly football weather last Thursday at the Bison Dome, but that didn’t stop them from having a bit of fun and enjoying a game they are all happy to play no matter what the score happens to be in the end.

Raiders head coach Jason Low said he was “pretty happy” with the game, which featured a number of hard tackles, long bombs and interceptions, despite the uneven score. He said the game plan heading into the Dome was more focused on the little things and they pulled off some great plays.

“It’s easy to get down with the score, but to me it’s the second year of the program and we’re looking more at plays and players,” said Low. “We’re gelling as a team, are more focused and I think we did well.

“Mike Kowalski (Raiders running back and quarterback) had a great game and the defence is starting to figure things out.”

Low said the team has to remember why they are playing football in the first place and that is to have fun. He said the goal is to win games, but just having a good game as a team is a great reward as well.

Raiders linebacker Jon Taylor had fun laying out a few bone-crunching hits during the game on a couple Bisons, while defensive lineman Kirby Manz may have had the highlight of the game when he drove into Bisons QB Damon Berggren for a teeth-rattling sack in the fourth quarter. On the Bisons side, tight end Jordan Bott was a force to be reckoned with as he took out any Raiders trying to run down his side of the field.

Phil Guebert, head coach of the Bisons, said the Raiders “played with a lot of heart” and he was even rooting for them to get into the end zone in the fourth quarter when Kowalski tried to muscle the ball in from in-close, but he’s still happy his team held them back too.

“We played with good intensity today, but not high intensity,” said Guebert. “We were short staffed and didn’t have many guys. There were a few guys playing out of position, but they did a good job.”

The Raiders are now preparing to host the Hague Panthers Oct. 11 for their last home game of the year at The Ranch and are hoping for a good crowd.

Kowalski said the team will need to try hard to improve their game against the Panthers, but he is confident they can do better on their home field.

“It’s pretty plausible it’ll be a very close game,” he said. “We’re expecting to give them a run for their money.”

Davidson, Sports

Cross-country running team finish tough season

The Raiders cross-country running team crossed the finish line last week, which capped off a successful season for the Davidson School group that saw them compete in three meets and most recently the district championships last Thursday in Eston.

Karen McConnell, head coach of the running team, said the 15 participants in the group, who range from grades 5 through 9 students, had a demanding but fantastic year. She said the team gave their all to the sport that had the kids run through a gruelling before school practice schedule, not to mention the four meets they compete in during such a short period of time.

“I’m very proud of them,” said McConnell. “I’ve played and been involved with a lot of sports and I can honestly say that cross-country running is the most physically demanding sport I have ever been a part of and they did absolutely excellent.”

The coach had the kids up and running in the early morning hours two to three days a week along the walking trail in Davidson and also doing hill sprints by the Davidson Health Centre to get them used to uneven terrain.

She said they had to complete this rough practice schedule in order to be ready for the demanding meets they compete in that sees the Grade 5 students run through a 2 kilometre marked course, the grades 6 and 7 pupils through a 3 km course and the grades 8 and 9 students in a 4 km course.

“It’s more to set their pace (through practice) and then to be able to sprint after they’ve set that pace,” said McConnell. “They don’t want to start off sprinting the whole thing, because they’ll really never make it. You want to set a nice pace, but it is so demanding at the end of the race that they need to be able to have that sprint left in them for that last coming home stretch.”

She said the great thing about building a love of running in these kids at such an early age is it gives them a life-long connection to the sport that promotes a healthy lifestyle and a dedication to fitness.

“It’s a very easy sport to do, because all you need is a pair of runners. If you’re competitive with yourself, it’s a great sport to do because you can always push yourself to go faster. It doesn’t matter where you are as you can always have that as a physical activity to do.”

The Davidson Leader, Davidson, Saskatchewan