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24 years ago, photo radar came to 100 Mile House

From the Free Press Archives
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24 YEARS AGO (1997): Photo radar came to 100 Mile House, the last of the four RCMP detachments in the Cariboo. The decision to implement the system came after a meeting with the local community consultive committee, 100 Mile House RCMP, Williams Lake RCMP and photo radar operators from the Kamloops Division. Mayor Donna Barnett said the goal was to save lives, or even just one life, by getting people to slow down. The cameras for the system would be placed in high accident areas as determined by the RCMP but the support for them was conditional.

18 YEARS AGO (2003): Upwards of 160 students were absent from Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School as bugs and viruses made the rounds in SD27 schools. Shelly Larson said the students were absent from Feb 24-28, something she only had only ever seen when temperatures were -36C. The viruses were “a mixed bag” according to Nora Walker, a communicable disease program leader with Interior Health who investigated the matter. She said it included both strains of flu, A and B, as well as strep throat, whooping cough, diarrhea and vomiting.

12 YEARS AGO (2009): A change in name and location of an annual sled dog event left the daughter of a lost musher sad and confused. Christine Gawthorn lost her father Jack on April 3, 1991, when he and his sled team fell through the ice of Lang Lake. While he was never found, Gawthorn said she took comfort from the annual Jack Gawthorn Memorial Sled Dog Races started by his family and friends. She would come up from the Lower Mainland every year to honour her father. In 2009, however, the races were replaced by the Cariboo Dog Sledding Fun Day.

6 YEARS AGO (2015): At the Canada-Wide Science Fair in 2014, one of the brightest young minds was 100 Mile’s Leanne Varney. A year later, Varney brought forward a new project that looked to solve a deadly problem. Entitled “Talk to You Later, Saving My Life,” her science project aimed to reduce the growing number of drivers texting behind the wheel. The 16-year-old designed a device designed to jam cellphones whenever the ignition is turned on, which would feed the cellphone’s signal back into itself to confuse it. However, actually building such a device was illegal.



Patrick Davies

About the Author: Patrick Davies

An avid lover of theatre, media, and the arts in all its forms, I've enjoyed building my professional reputation in 100 Mile House.
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