Looking Back: Bryant oratory contest
100 years ago - Dec. 24, 1925
Officials of the town and nearby rural municipalities agreed to discontinue free treatment at Rosetown Union Hospital. The decision came after the department of Attorney General Thomas Davis had declared municipal for free hospital treatment to be illegal. A delegation met in Regina with Premier Charles Dunning and his cabinet to appeal this but to no avail.
Charles Mathieson, Lawrence Saunderson, Fred Hollick, Howard Brown, Violet Cleaver Annie Hollick assisted students in an entertainment at Lotus School, west of Anglia.
80 years ago - Dec. 20, 1945
Recent reports stated that Rfm. Hervé Alfred Labrecque and others had been murdered by German soldiers while prisoners of war in June. Labrecque, 22, was born here and took all his schooling at Hillside School but for two years at St. Thomas College in North Battleford.
70 years ago - Dec. 22, 1955
Ruth Stout won the high school Bryant oratory contest with her speech, The Canadian Way of Life. Edna Smith placed second. Sylvia Moxley, Barbara Holler, Madeline Hanson and Carole Clarke also spoke.
Almost 700 people attended the carol festival at the high school.
At Druid, east of Dodsland, the recent blizzard meant children spent the night in their classrooms, some without food. A dozen farms had no power for 45 hours. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Horysh closed off the rest of their house and lived in their kitchen, heated by the gas range oven with light from two candles and drinking water dipped from the cistern. For the first time, the morning passenger and evening passenger trains met at Druid Station. There wasn’t a collision, “much to the disappointment of two little boys.”
Mrs. Jim McWatters of the Milden - Zealandia district had spent from Monday noon until Wednesday morning in her car in a field. She’d gone to look for their stock. Her husband was in hospital and her children at school. While without water or food, Mrs. McWatters had her dog with her, which kept her from freezing to death.
At Anglia, Jean Czubak got storm-stayed with schoolmate Marian Millard, said correspondent Mrs. H. B. Saunderson.
The oldest McGee-district settler, Bob Gilroy, was found dead in his home on Dec. 17. Gilroy homesteaded there in 1905.
50 years ago - Dec. 22, 1975
The town had a new fire chief: Paul Hrynkiw.
Rosetown Composite High School students put on a musical comedy-drama, Young Dracula, on two nights. The cast included Karen Martens, Penny Auckland, Bill Clarke, Lorene Zacharias, Kim Strelioff, Jerry Epp, Tom Liska, Rita Bechard, Barb Scott, Wendy Werner, Myrna Pearce, Sue Betts, Carolyn Williams, Dennis Fleming, Monte Solberg, Lori Aitken, Joan Werner, John Ritz and Merla Ahrens. The title contradicted the lead role played by Joel Shortt, who admitted near the end, “I’m just an old bat.”
30 years ago - Dec. 18, 1995
While the congregation numbered 20, about 60 attended the final service of Rosetown Presbyterian Church on Dec. 10. The church opened in 1910. Members Harold Barrie, Doreen Lewicki and Margaret Coulter and former member and missionary Georgina Bone spoke about the loss.
20 years ago - Dec. 19, 2005
Lloyd Henderson of Herschel joined 500 other air force veterans in the unveiling at Trenton, Ont., of a fully restored Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber, the only one of its kind in the world and the same kind that Henderson flew during the Second World War.
A photo showed resident Starla Kemp and elementary student Kami Brooks packing Christmas hampers for needy families. Donations were down this year, said one of the organizers, Alisa McGregor