A new face will be behind the counter at the Dauphin Lake Golf Club (DLGC) pro shop, this season.

Shawn Woods is the new general manager and golf professional at the local golf course, replacing Ray Karlson, who retired at the end of last year.

Woods spent 12 years at the Neepawa golf course until 2010, when he went to Poplar Ridge at Onanole.

“And then a couple of years at Kenosee and after that, I’ve been on the road as a sales rep for many golf companies,” he added.

Woods decided to make the move to Dauphin Lake when the opportunity arose.

“It’s been a while since the shop or ran a golf course, so I thought it was a good chance to get back into it in my later years,” he said, adding he missed interacting with club members. “I’ve always been in sales relatively my whole life, since I was about 12. So it looked like a good opportunity. It’s not too far from home where I can have that job and still reside where I do.”

While it has been a few years since he has been in a shop, Woods expects the challenges of running a golf course will be the same as when he last did it.

“Building your membership. Keeping your membership. Weather is always an indicator of the year, sometimes. I think keeping momentum going for golf in general. The pandemic was hard on everybody, as we know. On the other side of that, it was probably one of the greatest things for golf,” Woods said.

“So keeping that growth of golf that happened during that time to continue. I think everybody in the business realizes that it’s going to level off and I think it has leveled off a little bit. But it’s maintaining the people that did come to golf during that time and, hopefully, building on that and building on new relationships in the game.”

Woods feels there are some untapped markets available to golf courses, such as junior golf, as well as ladies golf.

“I think that’s gotten so much better, but I think we still have a long ways to go,” he said. “I think as it was before, just making people realize that golf is open to everybody. It’s a lifetime sport. You may think it’s silly before you play it, but once you play it, it’s a very addictive and challenging sport like no other, probably.”

At this point, Woods said it is too early to tell what changes may be made. One thing Woods brings to DLGC is that of a golf professional, which the club hasn’t had for a number of years.

“So there will be a better avenue for them learning the game, I would guess. I love to teach the game, so as far as private lessons or group lessons are way more available to them,” he said, adding one change to the pro shop is it will offer more in the way of equipment. “We’ll be carrying all the name brands. So now they don’t have to go to Golf Town to shop,” he said.

“That’s probably one of my biggest goals is to make sure that people give us a chance at the course to serve all their golfing needs and equipment needs and realize that we can get anything that the big stores can get.”

With this being his first year at DLGC, there will be a learning curve as he learns about the members and their needs, as well as the general public.

Woods has been doing some renovations at the pro shop, but it will be open starting Monday from noon to 5 p.m., on most days for anyone wishing to purchase a membership.

“I’ve had lots of people show up, even in my mess of renovations, just to say hi and pay their memberships. It’s always nice to meet people that are as eager as you to get to know some people already. It’s important,” he said.

At this point, it is hard to gauge when the course will be open for business. Woods doesn’t anticipate being open until the first week of May.

“There has to be a lot of melting and then there’s always cleanup and getting things ready. So I would think we’re likely looking at May sometime,” he said.

Developer Gerry Wieler, left, and Dauphin Church of Christ Community Minister Wayne Olson, second from right, show off one of the new affordable housing units for rent on the Parkland Crossing grounds.

The development includes four units which each measure 625 square feet and rent for $825 per month, including heat and water. The building utilized state-of-the-art construction materials and techniques, with the modular and walls and shed-style roof made up of five inches of foam insulation sandwiched between two pieces of sheet metal. Plans are to construct three more of the four-suite units, as well as two fourplexes of bachelor suites once funding is secured.

Parkland Crossing executive director Jamie Harvey said the project would have never gotten off the ground if it were not for $420,000 of funding provided to the project by the City of Dauphin.

A memorial has sprung up at the intersection in Gilbert Plains that was the site of a tragic accident which claimed the lives of four teenagers, last week.

On Mar. 29, at approximately 10:50 p.m., Dauphin RCMP received numerous calls about a motor vehicle collision involving a semi-trailer and a car at the junction of Hwy. 5 and PR 274.

Initial investigation determined that a car with five occupants was travelling northbound on PR 274 into the town of Gilbert Plains when it failed to stop at the stop sign.

A semi-trailer was travelling eastbound on Hwy. 5, and the car struck the trailer portion of the semi-trailer. Two 17-year-old males and one 18-year-old male, the driver, were pronounced dead at the scene. All were from the Dauphin area. An 18-year-old female from Carberry was transported to hospital, where she was pronounced dead. A 15-year-old female from the RM of Dauphin was transported to hospital with serious injuries, where she remains.

The 30-year-old male driver of the semi, from Saskatoon, was not physically injured in the collision.

The investigation continues with the assistance of a RCMP Forensic Collision Reconstructionist.

The North Western Marquette Festival of the Arts was held in Russell March 14, 15 and 16 with 44 entries in the dance competition, 48 entries for piano and 12 in the vocal category, which inlcued five school choirs.

The adjudicator for Dance was Tamara Topsnik Hicks from Brandon and Winnipeg’s Theresa Thordarson took care of judging Piano and Vocal entries.

The Speech Arts portion took place in February with some 15 entries.

Check out the winners in this week’s paper.

Election time is just around the corner and many political parties are lining up and announcing their candidates for certain ridings.

The Swan River constituency’s Progressive Conservative (PC) Association held its candidate selection meeting March 30 in Swan River at the Westwood Inn where MLA Rick Wowchuk won an uncontested nomination.

Read all about it in this week’s Review.

Manitoba Natural Resources and Northern Development is advising that outfitting licences of two resource tourism operators in the Grandview area have been cancelled.

The move comes after a lengthy investigation led by the Manitoba Conservation Officer Service along with Canadian and American wildlife investigators.

Find out why in this issue.

A group of art driven and minded people met at the Northern Arts Workshop held last week at Bakers Narrows. It was a collaboration of different art organizations on a local, provincial and national level.
“The Northern Arts Workshop, sponsored by UCN, was held to bring people in the professional and volunteer fields of the arts together to discuss what they have in common, what their goals are, barriers, funding opportunities, networking and more,” said Cheryl Antonio. “Jesse Wente, Chair of Canada Council for the Arts; Rose-Anne Harder, Director of the Manitoba Arts Network; Thom Sparling from Creative Manitoba; along with representatives from PrairiesCan, Canadian Heritage, and MB Film & Music were in attendance to listen, learn and collaborate.

A Care Closet will be up and running one day this week to help those who are in need of basic personal items. Donations have been collected to provide a selection of items for those in need to choose from. This is the first time a project like this has been set up in tri-community and it gives people a chance to clean out their closets and help those who are less fortunate.
“This is the first time we have done this event,” said The Pas Helping Hands 4-H Volunteer Leader Cheryl Antonio. “I heard about it through a friend, through another organization and began to research it. Usually Care Closets are set up in schools, health facilities, churches, etc., and are more of a permanent venue. They can also go by similar or different names, however, they all do the same thing.

Northland Ford is celebrating a milestone anniversary this year as today marks 30 years in business in The Pas. It was a venture that Northland Ford Dealer Principal Dale Bigelow decided to take a chance on and it paid off.
“The former dealership, Northgate Motors, went into receivership in 1992 and there was an empty building left,” said Bigelow. “At the time I was working for Trail Motors GM dealership. I was a journeyman mechanic and had spent 10 years in the shop, then got into sales. I decided it was time for me to make a move, so I called a Ford of Canada representative in Winnipeg and five months later we opened the doors to Northland Ford on March 29, 1993.
“There were huge changes from working in the shop to running a dealership. It was a change for me to manage staff and daily business operations.”

Electric vehicles are becoming the future of transportation and in order to meet that demand and shift, communities will need EV chargers and infrastructure to accommodate this change. The Town of The Pas and The Pas Community Development Corporation (TPCDC) are working together to install an EV charger in the community for the near future.
“Electric vehicles can become very important to economic development and tourism, with it being quite new in the local community, we don't know exactly what impacts will happen, but we do know there is an opportunity to advance alongside the rest of the country,” said TPCDC Economic Development Coordinator Jackie Rechenmacher. “With the popularity of EV and the requirements from federal government over the next 10 years, this is an opportunity to work towards that goal and ensure The Pas is an option when it comes to EV tourism.