Local News

The Okotoks Food Bank's largest food drive of the year is coming up.

The annual event is organized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and officially began on Wednesday (Sept. 18) when they left bags on people's front doors to be filled with donations for the food bank.

One of the coordinators of the food drive, Rob Court, says his team will be dropping a bag and an instruction tag off at every home in Okotoks, as well as the Heritage Pointe and Artesia neighbourhoods.

The Swift Current Museum will soon welcome a captivating military exhibition, The Wounded, which showcases the mental and physical journey of today's veterans. 

The Wounded, from the Canadian War Museum in cooperation with the Legion Magazine, will be opening in Swift Current on Monday, October 7.

Melissa Shaw, general manager of cultural and aquatic services at the Swift Current Museum, noted that the exhibition will be geared more towards adults and older children, as they will have to be able to read.

The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) said in a statement that while the province's announcement on capital funding for schools is important, it will not solve ongoing issues in education.

"Brick and mortar solutions will not solve the ongoing problems of class size and composition, teacher retention and recruitment, and inadequate support for students, particularly those with special learning needs," The ATA said in a statement on Wednesday.

The devil is in the detail, and that's what Rocky View Schools (RVS) is awaiting on the government's new school construction accelerator program.

Three Cochrane high school students are about to kick off a program to help younger schools with their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) studies.

Alexis Larsen, Abigael Myers and Lily King and want to give youth in grades 1 to 6 extra help with STEM subjects to prepare them for the future, and in some cases, catch up from the COVID lockdown.

The province has released an update for its Saskatchewan Growth Plan, which is a series of goals the provincial government has set for itself leading into 2030.

In their update, they documented some of the items that have made progress, met their goals, or have fallen behind since the plan was made back in 2020.

Estevan MLA Lori Carr says that the growth plan shows Saskatchewan is making good progress in a number of areas.

Alberta Education has confirmed none of the 10 priority school projects are now approved for the next stage of project delivery are in the Rocky View School Division.

Yesterday, Infrastructure minister Peter Guthrie announced added flexibility to accelerate the construction of new schools in the province outside the traditional budget-year cycle. Projects already in the planning and design stages can move forward to the next step as soon as they are ready to do so without having to wait for the next budget cycle.

Additional rainfall received Wednesday morning has only inflated already significant totals received across the region this week.

"The brief, but intense, downpour brought another significant dump in places that already had anywhere between 100 and 150mm earlier this week," explained CMOS Accredited Weathercaster Chris Sumner. "The Winkler and Morden area, south into the R.M. of Stanley, based on our Rainwatcher reports, again appears to have received the highest totals."

"It was a very successful summer in three different areas," says Arts Administrator Giselle Beaupre at the Heritage Home for the Arts in Killarney.

The Youth Art Camp:

"Our Youth Art Camp ran every afternoon under the direction of Miss Ava Blair who was working with us for the third summer in a row," explains Beaupre.  "As it turns out it will be her last summer as she is now in Grade 12 and getting ready for all kinds of other things!"

The program had full classes most every day, with only a handful of sessions that weren't full.  

The Brandon Police Service is hosting a Recruitment Information Session THIS Friday, September 20th.

If you've ever dreamed of making a difference in your community and are considering a career in law enforcement, this is your chance to learn more.

Date: Friday, September 20, 2024