Bow Island Chamber seeks more involvement of members
ANDREA KLASSEN Medicine Hat News
One annual event held by the Bow Island Chamber of Commerce won’t be on the calendar this year. Chamber president Randy DeLeenheer says the organization has decided to put its annual trade fair “on the back burner” for 2010.
DeLeenheer says the decision was made because there was “just (a) lack of people to run it. We didn't have a lot of volunteers.”
However, he says the Chamber still hopes to mount the fair in 2011.
Increasing the Chamber’s profile in the Bow Island area and getting the organization’s 107 member businesses more involved in Chamber activities are this year’s top priorities, says DeLeenheer.
"We're going to do a bit of an advertising campaign, and we're doing some different things with the community,” he adds. That includes promoting the organization’s Chamber Bucks program.
The Bucks can be purchased from the Chamber, and are accepted by members in lieu of cash.
The Chamber also held its annual award ceremony in February, honouring top businesses, employees and volunteers in the region.
Lynn Olsen, owner of TLC Farms — which won the award for Best Agribusiness — says she was surprised her business had been selected for recognition.
“We were taken aback by it,” she says. “We didn't realize someone would think we're worthy of that.”
Olsen says her farm, which supplies seasonal produce, free-range eggs and locally raised meats to the Medicine Hat and Bow Island area, works to deliver personal service to its customers.
“We try and work with our customers directly and give them what they want,” she says. “We’ve listened to the customers for the last three years, and we’re doing what they’ve asked of us.”
Other winners this year include Energy Pro Insulators for Best New Business, Eunice Siggelkow for Best Home-Based Business, and Bernice DeLenheer for Business Volunteering. Henry and Alda Kerner took home this year’s Long Service Award, while Business of the Year went to Jade Homes.
• Campground • Golf Course • Outdoor Pool • Soccer Field • Baseball Diamonds
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Free Children’s Festival June 20th Gospel Jamboree - June 25th
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403-545-2522
Submitted Photo
Kelsey Yule poses for a family photo with husband Wes and her son Cash. Yule says she moved to a farm in Special Area 2 in 2009, so her children could be raised in the same rural environment where she grew up.
Families returning to their rural roots
ANDREA KLASSEN Medicine Hat News
Christie Caskey hadn’t lived in a small town in 15 years. But when her husband was offered a job in Oyen, the long-time Calgary resident and mother of two was more than happy to move her young family out of the city.
“We always talked about raising our kids in a rural setting,” says Caskey, whose own childhood was spent on a farm near Champion, Alberta. “We wanted to give them the opportunities that we had as kids.”
Though Alberta’s cities remain popular destinations for relocation, many towns and hamlets in the province’s southeast corner have reported a slow but steady increase in population in the last several years.
Officials in Oyen, Empress, the MD of Acadia and the Special Areas say this new growth — vital for rural areas more used to population decline — is driven largely by young families like the Caskeys, who typically come from Calgary or other large cities in Western Canada.
Caskey says the move allows her to stay home with her three-year-old son Luke and six-month-old daughter Cleo, something that wasn’t possible in Calgary. The sense of community in the town of just over 1,000 is also a welcome change.
"We can just go and pop over to the skating rink and go skating any day. The doors are open. That doesn't happen in Calgary,” she says. “We probably wouldn't even have bought Luke skates if we lived in Calgary."
Dr. Harry Hiller, author of the Alberta In-Migration Study which looks at relocation within the country and the province, says he’s not surprised some families are opting out of cities.
"All the evidence suggests that whenever cities get bigger, there are some people who choose to move out,” he says. “It may be a small minority, but it's significant.”
In the Special Areas and MD of Acadia, the SAMDA Economic Partnership is spending half a million dollars on a “Return to Rural” campaign, which will offer young workers and families business, technological and social support.
“We’re looking at the 21 to 45-year-olds, and we’re saying ‘stay, or come back,’ ” says economic development officer Christie Dick.
An extensive video conferencing system is now in place in the area, and Dick says SAMDA is holding open houses with young people in the region to identify other services municipalities can offer youth.
Kelsey Yule, who moved to a farm in Special Area 2 in 2009, says the area’s video conferencing has allowed her to raise her children in a rural environment and keep her urban-based career.
Submitted Photo
After living in Calgary for 10 years Christie Caskey moved to Oyen with her husband Trent and children Luke and Cleo. Christie says she doesn't miss Calgary's traffic, and enjoys the "sense of community" she feels in a smaller centre.
Yule, who runs the Purely Inspired Academy of Beauty in Lethbridge and teaches high school cosmetology at rural high schools, conducts most of her meetings on the computer in her home office, commuting into the city only a few times per month.
Like Caskey, Yule is originally from a rural area. Her family has lived in the Special Areas for four generations, and she says she wants her two children to grow up with the same values and experiences she had.
"If you go to the high school where my kids are going to go, there aren’t even locks on the lockers,” she explains. “You trust the children, you trust
the teachers, you know who your kids are going to be hanging around with.”
It’s a story Hiller has heard many times in his research. Small communities exert a “natural pull” on former rural residents, he says, especially when they begin to start families.
Indeed, Caskey says many of her friends moved back to their hometowns to start families, or after having children.
“It’s kind of what we all thought we would never do when we left at 18,” she jokes. “It seems like there's more and more people who want to give their kids a sense of community and belonging to something bigger.”
REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA 2010 ■ Celebrating our Community — 89
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