This time of year always brings back childhood memories.
The long days of summer are over and so too are the long days of freedom. It’s back to school. But the exciting part about back to school was always the beginning-of-the-school-year shopping. That meant a full day of picking out new shoes, new clothes, a new book bag, a cool lunch box, the best pencils, a good calculator... It was like Christmas in September.
Then there was always the first day jitters - making sure to wake up on time to not be late for the bus, and seeing all my friends again and how everyone had changed over the summer.
Minus all my childhood excitement, I too will be joining the crowd of people going back to school this fall as I head to the University of Calgary. And with that, I must say a big farewell to the Rocky View Weekly and all of its faithful readers. It’s been slice.
I started at the Rocky View Weekly in May 2013, new to Alberta and new to Rocky View County (RVC). It’s been a non-stop adventure ever since. The first challenge was grappling the sheer size and diversity of the county. Making trips out to cover community events in Beiseker, Indus and Bragg Creek all in one day helped, but covering the development of the County Plan really gave me the insight I needed. Residents came out in droves to tell their council what they wanted growth to look like in their County in the future. They responded to online surveys, attended workshops and spoke at public hearings. Although opinions were slightly varied in different areas of the county, the bottom line was always that residents were proud of their rural municipality and they wanted to leave growth to the 16-communities within its boundaries.
I also found it interesting to cover the progress being made on the Recreation and Culture Master Plan. Residents had different opinions on where recreation and cultural amenities should be found in the county, but it always amazed me to see how passionately so many volunteers work to make their community a better place for other people to live. Speaking of volunteers, RVC has some good ones: Lisa Brister in Indus, Cathy O’Donoghue in Irricana, Margaret Barclay in Bragg Creek, and countless more who I know work tirelessly behind the scenes.
In the months since I first walked in the doors of the Rocky View Weekly newsroom I’ve had the opportunity to write about many game-changing events. None of us can forget the 2013 flood that whipped through southern Alberta.
We all watched in the days, weeks and months since as people helped the Hamlet of Bragg Creek get back on its feet, Airdrie clean up its streets and the rural roads in the county get repaired. To this day, we reporters continue to write about the help still finding its way down from the Provincial government.
Last year also brought a change to RVC council. The October municipal election saw two new faces in council chambers: Councillor Jerry Arshinoff representing the Springbank area and Councillor Bruce Kendall representing northwest RVC, as well as a new reeve, Margaret Bahcheli.
I’ve watched as council has had some difficult issues fall on their plates, Bingham Crossing in Springbank taking first place. Other developments have come to council chambers, including a new Asian Mall, a horse racetrack and casino and the new municipal campus, and a proposed outlet mall in Springbank called Tanger Outlets.
As I reflect on this last year and several months, I realize that the life of a Rocky View Weekly reporter is never boring.
I can never predict what’s going to be waiting for me when I walk into the office in the morning, and by the end of the day, I never would’ve guessed that the last eight hours would’ve included interviews on as varied topics as community fundraisers, environmental stewardship plans, agricultural participants at the Calgary Stampede, and so on. So I thank my colleagues for having me and to our readers for hearing what I have to say. As I said, it’s been a slice.
