Remember when...
Here’s a look at what was making the news 15 and 50 years ago in the Hants Journal.
15 YEARS AGO (EARLY MAY 2007 EDITIONS)
A 27-year-old Windsor man
• of no fixed address was arrested for a rash of break-ins over a two-day period in Hantsport. The places targeted included the town hall, Scotia Investments, the Hantsport legion, R&G’s Restaurant and attempts were made at the post office and doctor’s office.
A woman walking her dog
• in Hantsport was approached by a stocky man demanding she give him her wallet. She refused and managed to flee the scene without incident.
Police officers and volunteers
• with the Valley and West Hants ground search and rescue teams helped search for a missing 76-year-old Belmont man. The community was in mourning after his body was discovered in a pond at the rear of his property.
official DNR received its first
• complaint of the season in early May of a black bear venturing too close to a property in Ashdale. A story appeared in the paper reminding people that black bears were starting to come out of hibernation and would be looking for accessible food sources — like compost piles and bird feeders.
The Windsor Hockey
•
Heritage Museum was saved, with Jeff White being hired as a
running, full-time curator to keep it and a new board elected, with Paula Lunn at the helm.
Windsor town council
• decided against partnering with West Hants for a Communities in Bloom bid.
Businesses and organizations
• were getting behind the Hants Aquatic Centre fundraising committee’s final $200,000 push. Scotiabank donated $15,000 and Sepracor Canada donated $10,000.
An episode of Wrestling
•
Reality — a new TV show — was filmed in Kentville on
April 30. The six-episode project, which was being called the biggest news in Maritime wrestling, was to be shot in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and aired nationally and internationally.
A wilderness navigation
• course was held at Camp Mockingee in late April, with several Valley hikers taking part to learn GPS. The participants then practised what they learned at the 75-acre property in Vaughan.
Jana Church, a Falmouth
• businesswoman and mother of six children, started the Hants County free-cycle group four years ago in hopes of preventing items deemed too good for the landfill to find new homes. In 2007, she was looking to branch out and see if companies would be interested in participating in the new way to recycle.
After a few people complained
• about a sunbathing watercolour painting included in the Hants Community Hospital’s art gallery, it was removed.
50 YEARS AGO (EARLY MAY 1972 EDITIONS)
Theresa Alanna Elizabeth
•
Payne, of Three Mile Plains, was crowned Miss Windsor 1972. She competed against nine other women to be was selected. She was to compete in the Apple Blossom Festival later in the month. The second-year bachelor of science student majoring in nursing at Saint Mary’s University was described as a “vivacious brunette.”
Windsor council voted
• to have the police committee hire an attendant to patrol the town’s parking meters on Friday nights and Saturday mornings throughout the spring months.
Sixteen-year-old Laura
•
Johnson of Windsor was one of two Rangers in the country to be selected by the Girl Guides of Canada to go to Our Cabana in Mexico for a camp.
Douglas Walker of
•
Hantsport joined the Wise
Owl Club of Canada. The millwright was “attempting to extract a broken off steel tap from a casting by using a steel punch” while working at Canadian Keyes Fibre Company Limited. A piece of metal broke off and shattered the left lens of his safety glasses. Because he was being safe at work, his vision was saved. The Wise Owl Club, first formed in 1947, soon branched into Canada and as of May 1972, had 4,500 members.
A helicopter pilot was
• forced to make an emergency landing in Ellershouse after a blinding snow squall.
The Hants Journal newspaper
• editor, Pat Hardy, announced it was moving its operations to the former office of Gerald Regan on Gerrish Street.
Lakeshore Fina Centre on
•
Water Street in Windsor held
its grand opening. Everyone who stopped by was entitled to enjoy a complimentary glass of Coca-Cola.
Capt. J.J. Tobias was reelected
• as president of the Valley Softball League.
Four 20-ounce loaves of
• sliced bread could be picked up at Windsor IGA for 88 cents, while five tins of beans, spaghetti or soup could be purchased for a dollar.
Canada Tire was selling
•
8-track tapes from Columbia Records for $3.99 each. Some of the tapes listed included most-wanted country, rock, the sounds of love, moments to remember and close to you.
The Doc Williams Show
•
— a legend in country music — was at the Tower Light Night Club in Newport Corner in May. The cost to attend the show was $2 for adults and $1 for children under 13.
On the big screen at Windsor’s
• Imperial Theatre was The Yearling, starring Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman, That’s the Way It Is starring Elvis Presley, Pardners with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, A Bullet for Pretty Boy, The Cycle Savages, Everyone Wants Catlow, Chandler, and two restricted films by the “king of erotica” Russ Meyer: Cherry, Harry & Raquel, and Mud Honey.
In the Hants History
• column from 1947, readers learned that renovations were underway at W.A. Stephens’ store. When completed, it was reported that it would “give Windsor one of the finest display rooms in the Maritimes.”
In the Hants History column
• from 1922, it was reported that Windsor’s preliminary census was 3,590; Hantsport was 718; Shubenacadie was 1721; and Nova Scotia had an overall census of 523,837.