St. Albert was flying high in July of 1973 when resident Dick Miamini took to the skies above Winnipeg, Man. in the national glider pilot competition. When the retired aeronautics engineer touched down on the final day of the meet, he discovered he had won first prize, the Shell Canada Trophy, as the country’s best pilot.
The following year a pair of St. Albert boys were making headlines for their skills in the water, specifically the Sturgeon River. Bernie Roy and Chris Purschke were hanging out by Cunningham Bridge when some girls came screaming down the beach, saying two of their friends were in trouble. The boys couldn’t see anybody in the water but both knew from experience that there was a 12-foot drop-off in the river. When they swam to that point, they saw air bubbles floating to the surface and dove towards them. They managed to haul both women to shore where they received artificial respiration. Both were revived within 30 minutes.
July of 1975 was marred by tragedy. As construction crews graded areas in Lacombe Lake Park, Edmontonian Brian Murchison, who was a worker on the site, decided to give the grade a closer inspection. While watching another piece of heavy grading equipment, a 20-ton packer ran him over, killing him instantly.
After much debate throughout the summer of 1976, council finally decided in July on the location of the town’s first indoor pool — beside Paul Kane High School. The location would also include tennis courts. Councillors also approved a multipurpose recreation facility for the former rodeo grounds along Highway 2 (that never materialized) and unveiled a $30-million redevelopment proposal for the downtown that would see it redesigned as more pedestrian friendly with more entertainment, theatres, restaurants and shops.
Vandals made the headlines in July of 1976 as they descended on the parish cemetery, causing $75,000 worth of damage and knocking over 160 small grave markers, most of which belonged to the graves of brothers and priests of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate Order (OMI). The vandalism caused public outrage. Across town, nurses at the Sturgeon General Hospital, who were ready to strike for an 18 per cent pay raise on July 11, received a back-to-work order, along with 2,500 nurses already striking across the province, on July 9, sending both the nurses and health boards to the arbitrator’s table. Residents were pleased with the results of a survey completed of Capital region residents, who saw St. Albert as “secluded and remote but not isolated, unspoiled and undeveloped but not wild, peaceful and quiet but not boring.” The same respondents labelled Edmonton as “congested, noisy and revolting.” But at the end of the month, the city lost one of its great residents. Dr. William Cuts, a former physician who helped start the St. Albert United Church and Protestant School District, succumbed to heart failure.
A move towards building a west bypass road around St. Albert started gaining momentum in July of 1978 when, despite stiff resistance from a few councillors, Mayor Ronald Harvey served and managed to pass a motion calling for the city to support the concept of a westerly bypass road. When passed, the words “in the immediate future” had also been added to the text.
While July of 1979 saw the city authorize its first study for a new civic building and put out a call for help naming its new track and field facility along Sir Winston Churchill Avenue, it was the drive-in theatre making news. Council was faced with a litany of complaints due not just to the amount of noise it caused, but some of its content. The drive-in frequently showed restricted adult movies with nudity and, due to the size and location of the screen, most residents had a clear view of what was being shown whether they wanted to or not. Consequently, council started to draft a bylaw that, under the provincial Amusement Act, would classify it as a designated drive-in, meaning it would no longer be able to run adult restricted shows. Unfortunately for the city, a Court of Queen’s Bench justice quashed the bylaw in July of 1981. The bylaw had stipulated the drive-in could only show movies considered to be family entertainment. The justice’s order now meant the drive-in could run any movie allowed by the Alberta Censor Board, including restricted adult films. By then, council was meeting in new, temporary digs. The city’s new courthouse had officially opened and, to escape the heat and mosquitoes of the old city hall annex, council had started meeting in its basement courtroom, even before the building was complete.
A local woman found herself in hot water in July of 1982 for selling illegal drugs. These drugs, however, were not the kind purchased from street-level drug dealers. She was selling starch block-out tablets, deemed illegal because the federal government’s Health Protection Branch had ordered the diet pills pulled from store shelves six months prior because the company would not submit a drug analysis of the tablet. The woman was selling them out of her home, getting her supply from a man in Morinville who was getting them from the United States. Both said they knew nothing of any potential health risks from using the drug, but within a week the Morinville supplier’s stash had mysteriously dried up and the saleswoman in St. Albert was starting to question their use.
The Julys of 1983 and 1984 were very slow, but the news picked up again in July 1985 when a local resident — one Archi Baldwin — held a press conference to announce he was running for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party in Alberta. The former school teacher, who was unemployed and lived with his parents, claimed he had $9 million in funds for the race and the support of one organization that alone involved 90,000 people, though he wouldn’t name the group. He said he didn’t want to be premier but wanted to select someone more skilled for the role while he remained as leader. It was also revealed that Baldwin had visited the Gazette a few months prior looking for freelance work, explaining to editor Duff Jamison that he wanted to learn more about journalism before he became premier or prime minister.
Peter Boer is the editor of the Gazette.
