Set to embark on a school year that will more closely resemble a prepandemic environment, there is no shortage of excitement among the educators at Mountain View School Division (MVSD).

“It’s such an air of positivity that’s out there amongst staff and amongst administrators,” MVSD superintendent, CEO Stephen Jaddock said. “I just met with our admin council group yesterday . . . we had lots of optimism surrounding the type of startup that we’ve got going this year.”

Students return to MVSD classrooms tomorrow (Sept. 7) and Jaddock said everything is in place to ensure a smooth start to the school year.

“We’re at more relaxed COVID-19 protocols. So we’re not under a mask mandate nor are we under any sort of distancing requirements,” Jaddock said. “So we’re hoping that it’s probably one of the most normal startups we’ve had in the last number of years.” Jaddock added their will be some health measures left in place such as opportunities for frequent hand washing, hand sanitizer placed strategically throughout schools and frequent cleaning of high touch surfaces.

As well, school staff will work closely with parents to ensure children who are displaying symptoms stay home. “The kind of things that we’ve had in place through the pandemic, some of those will not be disappearing,” Jaddock said. “And I think that extra vigilance on making sure that everyone was healthy at school had an effect on the overall numbers of colds and flus that we had. We saw a reduction in that.” Jaddock added the early part of the year will be used to evaluate where there might be a need for MVSD to invest some extra money received from the province to support needs surrounding post-pandemic academic needs. The division received a share of $11 million allocated by the province at the end of the last school year, as well as a yet-to-be-determined share of an additional $6.5 million announced last week.

“We’ve got some ideas as to how we might spend that and we shared that with our board of trustees. We’re just now waiting to see what happens when startup actually is occurring in all of our schools,” Jaddock said. The second allotment, Jaddock added, is more focused on students who left the public school system during the pandemic and are now returning and the need for additional staffing which might be required. Weight was also given to the social economic status of families based on Statistics Canada data. “What they were recognizing there is those families that had lower SES, had more struggles even when we were in the remote learning phase,” Jaddock said. “Maybe some of them didn’t even have the luxury of having a computer, or if they had a computer, they didn’t have internet access. I think this was more of an attempt to bring equity to the allotment that was going out to school divisions.”

A third factor in determining the allotment is considering children in care.

“Again recognizing that those children were more challenged to accomplish the learning goals that they’d want to accomplish in the last two-and-a-half-years,” Jaddock said. “Part of this, too, is to look at student well-being and mental health. It’s not a huge amount of money.

“I guess what we’d really like to do is just look at where we’ve got some hot spots and where we’ve got some additional challenges that we would like to address through that additional funding.”

Did you know that communities that participate in recreation and sport develop stronger social bonds, are safer places to live, and the people who live in them are generally healthier and happier?

My goal is to keep this community all of the above; strong, safe, healthy and happy!

REConnect in this week’s Rec Report.

A locally Indigenous owned business and entrepreneur is in the semi-finals for the national Pow Wow Pitch competition.

Sipie’s Mobile Wash started up five years ago with a unique concept to the Parkland area and has been going strong ever since.

Read the rest of the story in this week’s Review.

As part of the Manitoba government’s ongoing effort to help families make ends meet, Premier Heather Stefanson on Wednesday unveiled an $87-
million Family Affordability Package to immediately provide families with children, seniors living on a fixed income, and Manitobans who are hurting the most, with benefits to help ease the burden of rising costs and high inflation.

“We know that many Manitobans are hurting right now and having a hard time making ends meet,” said Stefanson in announcing the help.

More in this issue.

This year’s Opaskwayak Indigenous Days (OID) Princess was one who had both talent and a message to deliver.

16-year-old Juliana Bignell was crowned OID Princess and she is ready to represent OCN to the best of her capabilities. 

“I feel really proud to be crowned OID Princess,” said Bignell. “I also feel honoured to be this year’s OID Princess, so I can represent the community as best as I can. “I will speak up for those that can't be active and advocate during bully awareness week. Also, I’ll be available to anyone if they need a friend, for I personally know how the impacts of bullying can affect a person and I never want anyone to experience that."

Get the full story in this week's Opasquia Times!

In 2017, approximately 11 lives were lost each day in Canada due to opioid overdoses and the crisis continues to grow.

The last day of August is known as International Overdose Awareness Day and a community organization is trying to share more knowledge about this epidemic, to prevent more lives from being lost. “Play It Safer Network's International Overdose Awareness Day event is today, which is the designated date to honour those who have been lost to drug overdose,” said The Pas/OCN Play It Safer Network Coordinator Krista Tooley.

“It also helps to reduce the stigma around drug use and to raise awareness of the toxic drug supply crisis across the nation."

Read more in this week's edition of the Opasquia Times!

The Pas Fire Department responded to a late night structure fire over the weekend.

On Saturday at approximately 12:49 am the department received the report of the fire on Bignell Ave.

According to Duty Officer Matt Pecar, the structure was fully involved with the adjacent structure starting to catch fire. 

“Crews brought the fire under control,” Pecar noted. He added the first structure was a wooden shed was a loss while the second structure had extensive damage to the side and roof.

This week features the follow-up to last week’s story on the former Swan River band called The Group.
As The Group kept playing more gigs, Hornbeck and his band members began earning some money, from what started out as just a hobby. Hornbeck recalls the first big ticket item he purchased with his money earned from playing in The Group.
“We had a strict policy that each band member was responsible for looking after replacing and maintaining their musical instrument,” said Hornbeck. “After each gig, we would pool the money together and divide it equally. We all bought our own stuff with the money we earned over the years and we were quite proud of ourselves. Each time we bought better and better equipment. As I look through the array of photographs over that time span, we had some pretty decent-looking equipment towards the end of it.
“I ordered myself a British set of Premier drums from Scalif’s, just like the ones Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones had.
“I can also recall, one day I had accumulated $52 dollars in my bank account, so I went over to Emerson Barnard’s Jewelry store on Main Street, and I asked what they had for rings,” said Hornbeck. “I wanted to buy a ring and he showed me some. I picked one out, had it sized and paid $50. I’ve still got the ring and wear it. It’s gold with a red round ruby like stone in the center of it and is my Group ring forever.”
It wasn’t long before The Group decided to do some recording locally in the area. They caught the attention of a well-known DJ in the area, and he helped them to record some songs in studio at a radio station in Dauphin.
“There was a radio company in Dauphin that had a DJ named Ron Waddell, The Ugly Duckling,” said Hornbeck “He was quite popular with the music he played. Waddell invited us to do come down and do a recording at the studio. We travelled to Dauphin and recorded some songs. That was quite the experience for us.”
Hornbeck has quite the elaborate collection of The Group memorabilia to this date. He has the performances documented through a series of videos and photographs.
“I have the name of the band, The Group, on the bass drumhead, still today,” said Hornbeck. “It’s one of the main artifacts I’ve kept over the years. I printed it myself onto the drumhead. From then on we were The Group. I have hundreds of photographs from our time together and several framed in my home in chronological order. The entire story of the Group is documented within those photos.
“I still have my wooden block for the drum kit, the cowbell and a handful of drumsticks from our days together. I used to go through a lot of drumsticks back then from banging on the drums so hard. I would throw my broken drumstick into the crowd and people would be scrambling to pick it up as a souvenir, I guess. I always had an instant grab for replacement sticks at hand. Garry Pederson of the Guess Who, taught me that.
“I was so fortunate that I got all the band members to sign the drumhead before some of them passed on,” said Hornbeck.
Even fans of The Group hung on to some time-honoured memorabilia from the band’s glory days.
“Dennis and Maureen Bowles were always in the front of the stage during our performances,” said Hornbeck. “I even have them on the home movies. Dennis went on to buy my parents’ home. One day he told me to come by the house and he had something he wanted to show me. I hadn’t been back to the house after my parents had passed away. So I went over and there in the rumpus room, where The Group played and practiced, on the door, perfectly intact with black friction tape was our band name still glued to the door, along with the artifacts on the floor. Dennis said he couldn’t bare to take it off.”
Hornbeck recalls The Group getting together for a reunion and doing one last performance together.
“Our very last performance was in 2003, here in Swan River at the Legion Hall,” said Hornbeck. “The High School Reunion Committee asked us to get together for their program. At first, the guys weren’t interested in getting together, but eventually we did. We all met the night before at Glenn’s basement, where his band called Kind of Country, would practice. We only played about two or three songs and got caught up musing about the past. The guys were having a good time reminiscing.
“The night of the big concert where The Group was to entertain over 300 people, we played three songs and then Jimmy asked, out of the blue, if anyone remembered a certain song. Then all of a sudden it all came back and we were playing music we hadn’t played together for 45 years. The dinner became a dance floor again and it felt magical.
“We have all of that performance, the crowd and interviews with members from The Group all filmed and I have it on DVD thanks to Jim Makichuk,” said Hornbeck.
The Group band members all went their separate ways after 1967 and their band is listed as one on the Manitoba Music Museum’s webpage with photographs going back to that time.
“Jimmy Hooper became a solo performer,” said Hornbeck. “He would play his acoustic guitar and sing, despite not singing in The Group. He has since passed on and the funeral was held in Hudson Bay, SK. An old friend, Jim Webster and I made the trip out for his funeral. There were artifacts of his life all across the stage and wall-to-wall music tributes.
We were ushered in and seated amongst his family at the front.”
Aaron Burnett went on to become an elementary school teacher and then realized his musical calling was still prevalent. He started playing rhythm guitar and doing lead vocals for Salvek Hanzlik’s bluegrass band in Winnipeg. The band parted ways and Barnett formed another bluegrass band called Ain’t No Mountain Boys that toured around Manitoba and northwestern Ontario. From there he moved on to join the Keystone Bluegrass Quartet, which became a popular band.
Burnett decided to record an album in 2002 and received a Juno nomination. He released a second bluegrass album with the musical backing of the Dry River Boys. He now plays traditional bluegrass music in a band called Prairie Grass.
Glenn Kerestes went on to marry Marilyn Shaver of Swan River, raised a family and became a loans officer at the Swan Valley Credit Union. He kept his love of playing bass guitar by playing in the band Kind of Country. Kerestes passed away last year on Nov.18, 2021 at the age of 74.
Raymond Fulford entered the medical profession and went stateside for a while. He now resides in Winnipeg, designing amputee prosthetics.
Gord Hornbeck is 74 now and winding up business in the Valley. He and his companion, Dale, are happy with growing old together and keeping busy.

The Swan Valley Museum held their Harvest Festival on Sunday (Aug. 28) with a packed crowd taking part in the games and activities.

The council of Russell Binscarth met on Aug 25th in council chambers in Russell for their second regular meeting of the month.

This meeting drew 29 spectators to the chambers and the lobby of the buildng.

While Councillor Baseley brought a number of questions to the floor the highlight - which will be dealt with later in this acticle, were the delgegation to council brought forward by Mrs. Jamie Bradshaw, as printed on page 2.

Councillor Cadieux also fulfilled a promise made at the last meeting after Len Derkach brought an issue to floor with a delegation pertaining to a resolution brought forward by Councillor Cadieux that banned Mr. Len Derkach and Mr. Nick Foisy from running in the upcoming election. (See coverage of this meeting and Derkach’s delegation in Aug. 16th issue of The Russell Banner.)

Read more details in this week's Russell Banner!