Looking Back — May 18, 2024

SIXTY YEARS AGO

Britain’s singing Beatles were called a “cheap, plastic, candy-floss substitute for culture” in the House of Lords last night.

FIFTY YEARS AGO

Ronald Diller, formerly a food manager for the Brandon Consumer’s Cooperative, has been named to replace Stephen A. Humphrey as administrative manager of Brandon Shoppers Mall.

Permission was given at the annual meeting of the Russell Community Club Ltd. to install artificial ice in the curling rink.

FORTY YEARS AGO

A pilgrimage by band leaders to Indian Affairs Minister John Munro’s constituency office in Hamilton has prompted the federal government to speed up construction of a new school on the Sioux Valley reserve.

Arid conditions in southwestern Manitoba went from bad to worse yesterday as winds gusting up to 90 kilometres per hour blew topsoil into ditches and across highways, creating a haze throughout the region.

THIRTY YEARS AGO

The Vincent Massey Vikings varsity boys soccer team will have to do without their top goal scorer in the biggest game of the season today. Vikings striker Todd Laluk is currently in Brandon General Hospital with a punctured and partially collapsed lung and two cracked ribs following a collision in Monday’s 2-0 loss to the Crocus Plainsmen. Laluk collided with Plainsmen goalkeeper Jeremy Fabian while going up for a header on a corner kick.

TWENTY YEARS AGO

For the first time since 1967, women veterans from Brandon and Portage la Prairie gathered to remember and reflect. Seventeen women gathered this weekend and together toured the Royal Canadian Artillery Museum, lunched at CFB Shilo’s Officer’s Mess and visited with crew members of the HMCS Brandon who are currently in the city.

TEN YEARS AGO

Isabela Onyshko has already found success on the international gymnastics scene this year, and she’s looking for more. The 15-year-old Brandonite is making her final preparations for the Canadian Gymnastics Championships in Ottawa from May 27-31, and there’s a lot more than national pride up for grabs at the event. How competitors fare in the championships will be key components in selecting the Canadian teams that will represent the country in July’s Commonwealth Games, August’s Pan American championships and October’s world championships. Onyshko’s ultimate goal is to compete at the world championships, but she admits being in any of those events would be pretty special.

Friends of an Indigenous woman found dead in Brandon still hold hope justice will be served even after the case has remained unsolved for nearly a decade. There are more than 1,000 cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women since 1980, and a 22-page RCMP report released Friday suggests police solve cases involving Indigenous women at the same rate as their non-Indigenous counterparts. The report, a detailed statistical breakdown of the cases, says Indigenous women make up 4.3 per cent of the Canadian population, yet account for 16 per cent of female homicides and 11.3 per cent of missing women.

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West will wed and host a reception at Florence’s imposing 16th-century Belvedere Fort on May 24, a spokeswoman at the Florence mayor’s office said Friday.