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- Huron County Newsletter #21
Huron County Newsletter
Week of May 12th to May 18th, 2024
Good day,
No housekeeping this week, just our weekly news wrap-up, and trivia questions courtesy of local author and historian David Yates at the end.
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Thank you for checking out the Huron County Newsletter and have a great week.
This week’s Huron County Newsletter is brought to you by:
 Seaforth Golf Club |  Tuckersmith Communications Co-operative |
Blyth Festival Teams Up With Maelstrom Winery To Celebrate Festival's 50th Anniversary Season
by Bob Montgomery
The Blyth Festival has partnered with Maelstrom Winery in celebrating the Festival's 50th Anniversary Season.
Director of Audience Development Jennifer Lamb says they've been working on the project for a few years and they recently invited theatre members from the area around the Winery to join board members in introducing two special wines to mark the anniversary. They designed special labels and Artistic Director Gil Garratt, and created new names for the wines…
The Ontario Barrel Racing Association President Says the First Event of the Season Exceeded Expectations For Number of Competitors and Number of Spectators
by Bob Montgomery
The Ontario Barrel Racing Association kicked off the 2024 season with the Blast Off event at the Reach Centre in Clinton over the weekend.
The events included pole bending and barrel racing in a range of age groups from beginners up to seniors. President Gary Nelson says the number of competitors and spectators significantly surpassed their expectations. “We're actually very overwhelmed. We're pushing almost two hundred entries for the weekend and in the early stages we were looking at just over one hundred, so it really came together at the end.”
Nelson says they've also had a few local people take advantage of the free admission drop in…
 Gary Nelson - President, Ontario Barrel Racing Association |  Amy Fotheringham - Barrel Racing Competitor |  Amy Ward - Barrel Racing Competitor |
Central Huron Council Increases Funding For Facade Improvement
by Bob Montgomery
Central Huron council has increased their funding for facade improvement in the municipality.
The Facade Grant Program includes facade improvements for properties in Central Huron that are assessed as commercial. The goal of the program is to enhance the appearance of commercial businesses within the community. Central Huron Mayor Jim Ginn says they upped the funding for the Facade Grant Program this year from forty-thousand dollars to fifty-thousand dollars and this year they had a total of 65-thousand dollars worth of requests…
Lake Huron Coastal Centre Now Accepting Applications For Their Coastal Conservation Youth Corps For The 2024 Season
by Bob Montgomery
The Lake Huron Coastal Centres is now accepting applications for its Coastal Conservation Youth Corp.
Interim Executive Director Alyssa Bourassa says the Youth Corp provides young people between the ages of fourteen and eighteen the opportunity to learn about Lake Huron along the shoreline while getting hands-on experience with local environmental projects, and earn up to thirty volunteer hours. “They get to learn about things like coastal processes, water quality, aquatic ecosystems, low impact design and development, shoreline history and coastal economy all in a five-day course”…
Huron County's Manager of Planning Says The Changes Made To The Revised Draft Of The Provincial Planning Statement Address Many Of The County's Concerns
by Bob Montgomery
Huron County's Manager of Planning says the changes the Province has made to the Revised Draft of the Provincial Planning Statement have addressed some of the county's concerns.
Denise Van Amersfoort says the county's chief concern was the policy that would allow three residential lots on every farm. That has been removed from consideration by the Province and that's a welcome change as far as Huron County is concerned. “The farms groups were very clear in their consultations with the Province last summer that this was not a policy they could support, so we're glad to see that that was heard by the Province and that change has been removed.”
Van Amersfoort says there are also a number of changes within the…
Central Huron Creates Program to Recognize the Value of Young People in Their Community
by Bob Montgomery
Central Huron has launched a new program to recognize the value of young people in their community.
Mayor Jim Ginn says young people often don't get the credit they deserve for the contributions they make to their community and that makes it much easier for them to leave their home community after they graduate from high school, either for post-secondary school education or to find a job. Ginn says the goal is to give them a reason to come back and work in their home community once they've completed their post-secondary school education and they're…
Huron County Library Digitization Program Comes to an End as Funding Runs Out
by Bob Montgomery
Huron County's Director of Cultural Services presented her final report on their Digitization project earlier this month.
Beth Rumble told council the Digitization project started in 2014 with a goal of improving access to a large volume of local newspapers. She points out digitizing the newspapers made them word searchable and available any time of the night or day. A couple of years ago, when they had digitized most of the newspapers they transitioned to some of the archival collections they have at the museum and that was funded partially through…
Bruce Power Commits $100,000 to CT Scanner at Wingham & District Hospital
by Bob Montgomery
Bruce Power is committed to investing in healthcare in Bruce and Huron counties.
And they've backed up that commitment with a donation of 100-thousand dollars to the Wingham & District Hospital Foundation to help bring a new CT Scanner service to the hospital.
The Wingham & District Hospital Foundation’s Caring Together campaign is focused on raising at least 2.5 million dollars for a CT Scanner and the required facility renovations. CT scans have become the new standard of medical practice for emergency care. A local CT scanner will also make the hospital more attractive to potential healthcare providers who…
LWHA CEO Karl Ellis, Bruce Power Director of Community and Media Relations and Economic Development John Peevers, WDH Foundation Executive Director Nicole Duquette, and WDH Foundation Board Chair Jenny Hogervorst Photo courtesy of Wingham and District Hospital Foundation
The Chair of the Huron Manufacturing Association says The Shortage of Manpower is Going to Be An On-going Problem For Some Time
by Bob Montgomery
The Chair of the Huron Manufacturing Association says the shortage of manpower is a problem that's being felt throughout the entire region.
And Larry Livingston says it's a problem that isn't going to go away anytime soon. The Manufacturing Association recently held a meeting at the Maelstrom Winery near Seaforth to bring members up to date about some of the issues facing manufacturers. Livingston says the number one challenge is a shortage of people in the skilled trades and it extends beyond Huron County to the entire four county region. Livingston says people 45 years old and older seem to be staying on the job and while there are a significant number of new people moving into the area, they're coming here to retire.
Livingston says the Huron Manufacturing Association has done a good job of promoting the skilled trades to younger people who are…
Huron County Director of Cultural Services Says Period Poverty Program Will Continue
by Bob Montgomery
Huron County's Director of Cultural Services says the Period Poverty Program has been very popular and will continue in Huron County libraries.
The Period Poverty Program started as a pilot project in 2023 offering free menstrual products to the public. The 2023 library budget included $1000 to fund this pilot but Beth Rumble says the program is essentially funded through the donation of products and the only cost to them is the containers to hold the menstrual products. The group is now comprised of…
Work on a Tunnel Under County Road 25 to Connect the G2G Trail Near Blyth Expected to Start Next Week
by Bob Montgomery
Work on a tunnel under County Road 25 to connect the G2G trail near Blyth is expected to start next week.
Huron County's Director of Public Works, Imran Khalid, says the tunnel that was there was filled in some time ago and he's not sure why that was done. He says asking everyone using the G2G Trail to cross the highways is creating an inconvenience at the very least, as well a serious risk and for some people with mobility issues it could mean the end of their trip.
The G2G Trail group had asked that the tunnel be put back in at their cost. The county's commitment is limited to time spent on project management in dealing with the contractor and the consultants involved in the project. Beyond that, the G2G Trail group…
Central Huron Secondary School Jazz Band is Gold at Nationals
by Bob Montgomery
The Central Huron Secondary School Jazz Band can add another plaque to their trophy case after their recent competition at the 52nd Musicfest Nationals at the University of Toronto on May 15th.
Aaron Neeb is the Music Teacher and the Director of the Bands at Central Huron Secondary School. They have the Jazz Band, a concert band and an intermediate band. And the Jazz Band did exceptionally well at the 52nd Musicfest Nationals under some fairly challenging circumstances. “We had an 8:00am performance slot and we had to leave at 3:00 in the morning to get there on time.. We played three pieces for music professors from McGill University and Humber College, and their performance earned them a gold standing at the A300 level in competition with other jazz bands and students from across Canada, so that was pretty impressive.”
Neeb says the Jazz Band is made up of…
Central Huron Secondary School Jazz Band Photo courtesy of Central Huron Secondary School
Weekly Trivia Questions
What was the former Bluewater Centre before it was a youth detention centre?
a) Ontario Psychiatric Hospital
b) County House of Refuge
c) Police Training Centre
d) County Home for the Aged and Infirm
This year is the 100th Anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Which was the last air station to close in Huron County?
a) RAF/RCAF Air Navigation School (Port Albert)
b) RCAF Station Centralia
c) RCAF Station Clinton
d) RCAF Station Goderich (Sky Harbour)
Answers to last week’s questions:
What Huron County town was Francistown the northern section of?
a) Goderich
b) Seaforth
c) Wingham
d) Exeter*
Who was the last person in the Goderich gaol to be publicly hanged?
a) Edward Jardine
b) Nicholas Melady*
c) William Mahone
d) Alfred Ackford
Trivia questions courtesy of local author and historian David Yates