Left to right are the candidates seeking the provincial Conservative party nomination for Drumheller-Stettler: Ed Mah, Jack Hayden, and Greggory Jackson.

    It is no surprise who will be running for the nomination to be the Progressive Conservative candidate for the Drumheller-Stettler riding, but to make your selection, most are going to have to travel to Hanna to vote.
    The nomination period closed on March 7 and three have stepped forward. They include former MLA Jack Hayden of Byemoor, Greggory Jackson of Gadsby and Ed Mah of Drumheller.
    The ballot to select the leader will be held on March 21 from noon to 6 p.m. at the Hanna and District Community Centre. This will be the only poll.   Bert McFadyen, chair of the Nomination Committee said it was simply because they did not have enough manpower.
    “We need about five people for each polling station, we were just short of people, it’s that simple,” said McFadyen.
    He explains there are a number of rules from the party that they have to abide by, and the candidates wanted to have seven polls. He said for this to happen, they would have to have all the polls on the same day at the same time as the main poll. If they decided to have advance polls, again, they would have to be all at the same time. They would need at least five people to man each poll.
    “Logically it wasn’t going to work, you understand just how many people we would need,” said McFadyen.
    Despite this, candidates will have seven opportunities to go head to head at seven forums throughout the riding.
    They begin on Friday, March 13 at the Consort Seniors Lodge. The next week on Monday, March 16, they will be at the Coronation Community Centre, Tuesday at the New Community Centre in Castor, Wednesday at the Senior Citizen’s Rec Centre in Oyen.
    They head to the Stettler Agri Plex on Thursday and then Drumheller on Friday at the Jurassic Inn.
    The nominee forums are from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
    The final forum will be Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon at the Seniors Circle in Hanna. After that, the poll opens until 6 p.m. at the Community Centre.  
    PC memberships will be available for sale at the door to the forums.  Current Wildrose members will be able to swap their membership cards for a PC membership if desired.
    Chair of the Drumheller-Stettler PC Constituency Association Board Doug Jones says in a press release he is looking forward to the forums, stating that it was exciting to have three nominees and looks forward to taking this constituency out of the wilderness of the last four years. He said we need a strong representative for this constituency at the provincial level.  
    For further information, contact Bert McFadyen, chair of the Nomination Committee, Drumheller-Stettler Progressive Conservative Association at 403-664-0816.

The Morrin Girls high school curling team took the provincial championship in Lloydminster Saturday, March 7. The team's players that took the gold are  (l-r) Skip Katie Primrose, Third Amy Adams, Second Shelby Primrose, Lead Jessica Wolf, Coach Betty Primrose.

While provincial teams were playing off in the national Tim Horton’s Brier curling championship in Calgary, the Morrin Girls high school curling team was working their way through provincial playoffs, winning the title of Provincial Champions on Saturday.
    “We were pretty overwhelmed,” said team Skip Katie Primrose. “We worked really hard to get there, and it was pretty exciting to finally accomplish that goal that we set for ourselves.”
    The team of skip Katie Primrose, Third Amy Adams, Second Shelby Primrose, and Lead Jessica Wolf, with coach Betty Primrose earned the provincial title after beating out the defending high school girls champions from Chauvin in the final game on Saturday, March 7.
    Coach Betty Primrose notes of all the games the team played, the final game with Chauvin was the toughest.
    The Primrose team was up 4-3 going into the final end of play, and scored three in the eighth end, without the skip having to throw her final rock, to take the championship.
    Betty said the young curling team peaked at provincials.
    “And I would say Katie skipped fearlessly. Amazing. The teammates were amazing - whatever shot she asked them for, they gave. It all came together at the right time.”
    Katie said this year was the team’s third chance to play at the  provincial high school playoffs.
    Also attending provincials was the Morrin Mixed Team  of Skip Evan Hampton-, Third Caitlin Wolf, Second Lowell Nelson, Lead Jorden Ferguson, and coach Melanie Nelson.
    The mixed team ended up in a tie breaker Saturday morning, and were knocked out of competition by Leduc, the team that went on to win the gold medal mixed.
    This year’s curling provincial championship was hosted by Lloydminster March 5, 6 and 7.