Kneehill County broke ground on its new regional medical facility and administration offices Monday, November 3. The new clinic will be located next to the Three Hills hospital. Completion date for the building is expected to be spring 2016.

    Kneehill County is turning another page in its history, breaking ground on a new medical facility and offices.
    A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Monday, November 3 to make way for a new Regional Medical Clinic and Kneehill County Administration Building. The Medical Clinic is close to the hospital in Three Hills.  
    Kneehill Reeve Bob Long explains this is to consolidate its regional offices.
    “There is a clinic in Trochu and a clinic in Three Hills, and both are jammed up, there is no additional room for staff. The way medical services are delivered today, a medical clinic is used for other professionals so we have no room for that,” Long explains. “So what we are doing is building a new clinic. It is next to the hospital.”
    Connected to the building will be a new administration office for Kneehill County. This comes in its 70th year. The current county office on Main Street in Three Hills has been home since 1961.
    “It is 60 years old and it is small, we are running out of room there as well,” said Long. “We created a building fund a few years ago and we had a needs assessment completed on our own requirements, and four years ago we were 25 per cent short of our capacity needed, manpower and space wise.”
    “It was economies of scale for us to do the two buildings at once, and doing the two buildings on the same location.”
Of five bids received by the County, Shunda Consulting out of Red Deer came in with the lowest bid of $7,345,000.
    Kneehill has been building a reputation for being a leader when it comes to rural health delivery. In 2011, the Kneehill County Recruitment and Retention Taskforce received the RPAP Alberta Rural Community Attraction and Retention Award. Long says the new facility could help attract new graduates looking for a place to begin practice.
    “They are shopping around, so you have to remain current, relevant and a viable choice. We thought this could help,” said Long. “The other thing that is happening is medical practices are becoming a team effort, so having all the doctors in one building will have a spin-off effect.”
    Groundwork began this fall and the County has set a completion date for spring 2016.     

An Albertosaurus was first discovered when Joseph B. Tyrrell found the fossilized skull within six kilometres of The Royall Tyrrell Museum, named after him. The new $20 silver coin depicts Albertosaurus sarcophagus sporting a crest of feathers along the back from head to tail.

Coin collectors and dinosaur lovers alike may want to have a close look at the fourth and final coin in the Canadian Dinosaurs series.
    The Royal Canadian Mint has featured Albertosaurus on its 2015 final coin of the series, on a one ounce silver twenty dollar coin.
    And the Albertosaurus is sporting something not seen in a lot of dinosaur pictures - feathers.
“We don’t have any evidence for feathers in the Alberta species,” said the Royal Tyrrell Museum’s Dr. Francois Therrien, “so we tried to compromise a little bit.”
    He said even though there is not evidence of feathers on the Albertosaurus sarcophagus, there is the potential for feathers, because some of the dinosaur’s distant ancestors sported feathers.
    The coin shows the Albertosaurus with a crest of feathers from the top of its head, running down the back, including the tail, to reflect new scientific discoveries being made, explains Dr. Therrien.
    He said there is evidence some Tyrannosaurs had feathers, and the distant older relative of Albertosaurus discovered in China sported feathers, so the ability to produce feathers would be in Albertosaurus genetic make up.
    A few small pieces of fossilized Albertosaurus skin have been discovered in Alberta that show a scaly skin, said Dr. Therrien, but there are no skin impressions available for the entire skeleton. That also leaves open the possibility of feathers.
    Joseph B. Tyrrell discovered the first Albertosaurus, a skull, within six kilometres of the current Royal Tyrrell Museum, said Dr. Therrien.
    Dr. Therrien has been a scientific consultant with the Royal Canadian Mint since 2007. He estimates close to fifteen coins he’s consulted on now with the Mint.
    He also  consulted with the mint on coins depicting Canadian ice age animals.
    The $20 Albertosaurus coin is currently available to order online at www.mint.ca