Submitted Lil Mayhew
The Drayton Valley Royal Purple has surrendered its charter after 65 years in the community. Here’s a look back at the group’s history of service in Drayton Valley.
On March 18, 1956, twenty ladies met in the banquet room of the Drayton Valley Hotel to be installed, by Supreme Lodge, as the charter members of the Drayton Valley Royal Purple Lodge #196. Election of officers was held and Dorothy Pickel became the first Honored Royal Lady. The Elks had, already, been formed.
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We were given 60 days, following our institution, to recruit new members, whose names would, also, be added to the charter. We initiated 4 new members, in April, and had two ladies transfer to us, from Spruce Grove Royal Purple (Lady Rand and Lady McMorris). Nine more ladies joined us in May. Our charter contains the names of these 35 ladies, as follows:
Dorothy Pickell Marge Gallant Helen J. Casson
Enid Seibert Gerry Weston Margot Meier
Blanche Watson Mary Burrows Joyce Fraser
Marjorie Hoyle Vivian Sand Marge Creelman
Betty Trollope Dorothy Rattray Valerie Fraser
Connie Humphrey Lesle Hamilton Joan Machan
Eunice Dennis Donna Sweinson Donalda Smith
Cecelia MacKenzie Shirley Tolchard Ester Davidson
Phyllis Redl Helen Leschenko Eunice Lebick
Jean Roberts Ethel Gregory Hilda Rand
Peggy McDonald Jeanne Reed Gladys McMorris
Vivian Peterson Madge Wall
Soon, members came in bunches…seven in November and fourteen on November 19. Our highest membership was in 1959, when we had 65 members on our roster. We had a whopping 75 percent increase in membership our second year!!!
We held one meeting per month for the first year, but found that two were needed, as we had become very busy in the community. Two meetings were held every month from 1957 to 2005, and were busy years. Our meeting place was the Community Hall, until Oct of 1957, when we moved to the Scout Hall, and paid $7.50 per meeting. In the fall of 1958, we moved back to the old Community Hall, which had been purchased by the Elks. In February of 1974, we began to hear rumblings of a new Elks Hall…and Block’s Store (owned by Hamdon Hamdon) became our new hall. This building was our home until June 1, 2004, when it was sold to Life Church.
When I first got into the advertising and sales side of the newspaper I didn’t know anything about anything. But I did know I wanted to make sure that we built our clients effective ads specific to newspaper marketing.
“Newspaper friendly” advertising is a stand alone subset of advertising, just like every social network has their own specs for effective digital advertising, and billboards have their requirements, and radio has their requirements. Newspaper ads that follow certain specs are more effective.
Why is this important for you to know? Because with the rise of AI, we have been getting many AI posters as graphic design submissions for advertising. As a jumping off point for our graphic designer this is fantastic intel, however as a carbon copy ad, these posters are not always newspaper friendly.
A few basic tips I share with people when they are considering submitting a draft design are these:
White space! Newspapers need white space. Too much of everything leads to a whole lot of nothing for the eye to focus on. White space allows your prospective clients to see your important messaging from a distance and draws them in closer to see more once interest is piqued.
Font size. The Free Press type font is 9pt. Advertising should be larger than this. In some cases much larger.
Font contrast. A dark font on a lighter background is the easiest to read. This is why newspapers are black font on white paper. Again this takes us back to white space.
These are the basics that I let people know about. This may mean that your newspaper ad is not a carbon copy of your promotional poster.
But our brand! You might protest.
Branding does not mean placing the same identical ad across multiple mediums. Branding requires you to ensure the big picture aspects of your company are included in all advertising such things like: colours, typeface, image themes etc.
You wouldn’t put a very detailed poster on a billboard would you? No. People driving at 70km per hour don’t have time to read all of the information. But you may put the same headline, with the same colour and similar imagery with a big bold company name. Social media advertising favours not just images but videos – branding may appear in the beginning and end of the video.
If you do choose to draft your ad graphics in AI here are some prompts I pulled from Gemini you could use in that will help make your ad specific to the newspaper medium:
Newspaper prompt guidelines from Gemini
1. Demand High Contrast and Grayscale Clarity
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“High contrast, strong key lighting, bold outlines, optimized for black and white print, crisp grayscale separation.”
Note: you can reference the same but in colour, the colour contrast will be more defined.
2. Enforce Simple Compositions and Ample Negative Space
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“Minimalist background, single clear focal point, uncluttered design, generous empty negative space for text overlays.”
3. Choose Graphic or Vector Styles Over Hyper-Realism
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“Flat vector art style, clean graphic illustration, sharp edges, print-ready layout, high-legibility design.”
One of the services the Free Press provides is graphic design. Our graphic designer on staff, has worked in marketing and has a degree in graphic design. She has a keen eye and great understanding of the importance of typeface, layout, and focal point. If you draft your poster initially in AI send it our way to be rendered into a newspaper friendly format. Provide us with a png or pdf file, unflattened so we can adjust to make sure you are getting the best ad that will catch the most eyeballs.
The fact is the wrong ad style for the wrong medium is ineffective no matter the marketing platform you use. Over at the Free Press, advertising is part of the full newspaper package and we want your ads to be as interesting and eye catching to our readers as our editorial headlines.
Last Friday the Evansburg Inn was entered into the annals of history by the Beer Parlour Project, which has been making a photographic documentary of historic hotels across Western Canada.
Chris Doering, Rob Pohl, and Doering’s wife Connie Biggart are the founders of the Beer Parlour Project, which aims to record the history of hotels that were the focal point of their community when they were first built. The group wants to capture the essence of the building using a combination of digital and vintage flash photography of the building and the community of people who use it.
“My friends and I are history photographers,” says Doering. “So we go around and document historic buildings, machinery, or whatever the case may be.”
While they were out in the field working, they were often in rural areas. Often there were hotels in the community, some of which were still original structures from the first half of the 20th century, and they would stop in for lunch.
“Right under our noses is all these really interesting hotels with really interesting stories,” says Doering.
The trio started the project in 2022 and have been to about 50 rural establishments since then. Their goal is to visit 100 older hotels across Western Canada so they can publish a coffee table book. They’ve already secured an exhibit at the Alberta Art Gallery in 2028, which they are excited about.
The Beer Parlour group started their weekend on a Thursday at the Colinton Hotel in Colinton, Alberta. From there they drove to Evansburg on Friday, and on Saturday they stopped in at the Warburg Hotel and Saloon.
Though Doering, Biggart, and Pohl all have full-time jobs, this project is their main hobby. The group is funding their project on their own, though they are looking for some arts grants to help cover some expenses. As such, they try to get as many stops in as possible if they have to travel any distance.
Doering says they pick areas to focus on each time they are planning to work on their project. Once they have the area and have selected the hotels, they look into the history of the building and its relationship to the community. They also consider the cultural side of things and how people are involved in the history of the building.
“They’re really little hidden gems,” says Doering. “Outside appearances can be deceiving.”
Doering’s role in the project is digital photography, research, and handling most of the interviews.
“You hear some really amazing stories,” says Doering. “Some hilarious, heart-breaking — you name it.”
Pohl focuses on taking photos, often on his vintage tri-pod camera, and he also helps with some of the writing for the website.
While Pohl’s camera isn’t the best camera for the project, he uses it because he prefers to develop the pictures in his darkroom. It also provides a great ice breaker as patrons come up and ask him questions about it.
“It’s funny, the expectations of people now, especially the younger generation. [They say] ‘Can I see the back of the camera? What does the picture look like?’” says Pohl.
He says people are often shocked that it will take a month for the picture to be developed, but they always offer to send them a complimentary picture when it’s ready.
Pohl says now that they’ve been to a few different bars, had their stories told in the paper, and have been interviewed for television and radio, they can show that they are credible and have a legitimate project that they are working on. This could make it easier to secure grants to help cover some expenses, and it could also make it easier for them to get their work published in a book.
It hasn’t always been easy for them to get people to trust them. For the most part, owners have allowed them to come in, take some photos, and talk to people; however, some have turned them away.
“There is always a little suspicion because they think we’re either gonna portray their place as a dump and try to make fun of it, which we’re not. We’re trying to celebrate it, get people aware of these [places] and out there to enjoy them,” says Pohl. “We don’t use any images or take any pictures in a way to portray it in that light, so we’ve got to get that understanding in place.”
The other suspicion owners sometimes have is that the Beer Parlour Project is going to charge them for the work they are doing, which has never been the case.
The owners of the Evansburg Inn, Christine and Diane Maskell, say they were happy to participate in the project because they believe it’s important for small towns to be recognized and supported.
“Some people don’t even go off of Highway 16, and when they go to these small communities, they’re amazed at what they can find in them,” says Christine.
Christine and her mother-in-law, Diane, have owned the Evansburg Inn for nearly 26 years, and it was only recently that Christine decided to close the bar down on Sundays. Prior to that, she had been working every single day to keep the place going while raising five kids.
The best memories Christine and Diane have are of the people they’ve met along the way. The history of their time running the bar is tied to their memories of their patrons and friends.
Currently, Christine, Diane, Christine’s daughter Lindsey, and her daughter-in-law, Jacey, run the place.
“We do get along really good, honest to God,” says Diane. “They say that mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law don’t get along, but we do.”
The family run business has seen its ups and downs. Their family lost a grandson, son, brother, and husband when Robbie Maskell passed away in 2022.
But still, the women have continued to serve their loyal customer base. Christine is a Jill-of-all- trades, but she doesn’t touch the electrical. She does, however, handle the maintenance for the rest of the building.
“If it’s broken, she’ll fix it,” says Diane.
Over the years, their bar has been known as a place of respect.
“I say, if you respect the place, then I’ll respect you,” says Christine.
In the time they’ve owned the place, there have only been a handful of fights.
Diane recalls a time when Christine had to step in to keep the peace one night.
“There was going to be a fight — this was a few years ago. There was a regular sitting at the bar, and [Christine] knew he was going to go after [another patron]. She jumped over the bar and grabbed him, and hung onto him like you wouldn’t believe,” says Diane.
The bar has become a memorial for some. A bench outside the Inn was placed there in Robbie’s honour, and inside, there is a column filled with messages for a loyal patron who passed away.
“He used to sit in that spot,” says Christine. “He did a lot of plumbing work and help for us over the years we were here, and he suddenly passed away.”
They held a memorial service for Jerry Lee, and his family asked if they could write messages on the wall. Christine pointed them to the area where Jerry always sat, and Jerry’s family and friends left messages for him there.
Several years later, those messages are still preserved, and Jerry is still remembered.
“He had some nieces and nephews that were five or six years old. They’re 18 now and they come in, and they so appreciate that we still have [the messages],” says Christine. “A couple of weeks ago his daughter came in, and she brought her daughter in and they were talking about it. It’s kind of nice.”
Pohl and Doering’s only regret with this project is that they didn’t start sooner. Many old hotels have been closing down in recent years.
“We’ve kind of missed the boat in a way. We should have started a decade sooner and we could’ve gotten a lot more, but we’re going to have no problem hitting 100,” he says.
The group is also really enjoying working on the project, and Pohl thinks they might push past 100 simply because they enjoy it.
More information about the Beer Parlour Project can be found at www.beerparlourproject.com.
Society raising funds for child with cancer
The Drayton Valley and District Agriculture Society is raising funds for a local family whose child is fighting a rare form of cancer.
Shortly after his third birthday, Leo Grosjean was diagnosed with a rare cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma.
“His mom had just come off of maternity leave, and it turned out he needed 42 weeks of treatment including chemo, radiation, and possibly surgery,” says Tayler Vakoulich, one of the organizers of the fundraiser. “Even after that, there is a follow-up of 24 weeks of maintenance therapy.”
The ag society is working with a group called the Golden Circle of Champions, a program that originates in the United States and is just starting up in Canada, to help the Grosjean family cover costs while they care for their son. The group is similar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation with a cowgirl/cowboy focus.
The society was the one to approach the Golden Circle and put Leo forward as a candidate for their program. Typically, the candidates come through rodeos.
“[We] sponsor them and then this program sends them to the [Canadian Finals Rodeo] for the week, it gets them a hotel room, and it gets them all these really cool experiences where they get to go meet the animals and cowboys, and they get their own banquet,” says Vakoulich.
The Golden Circle also sends one of its Canadian candidates to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.
The ag society was the one who put forward the funds to cover the expenses of the CFR, says Vakoulich, because they wanted to go with a second option that the program offers. It helps people with different fundraisers to help out families.
Some of the fundraisers they have include the Golden Boot, which is a golden cowboy boot that gets passed around during the Thursday Night Rodeos.
“It goes from $400 to $700 every night,” says Vakoulich.
Other fundraisers include 50/50s at their markets. For the past three months, all of those funds have gone to Leo’s family.
The group is also partnering with Stella Stevens from CFCW Edmonton, who works with the Golden Circle, to put on a concert in the fall, says Vakoulich.
“She’s helping us get an artist to do a nice big concert in town,” says Vakoulich.
They are also looking for items that can be raffled off at the Thursday Night Rodeos, she says.
Over the next few weeks, the Grosjean family will be incurring far more expense than usual, says Vakoulich. Leo will be headed to Florida for treatments with the hope that a change in treatment will keep the toxicity levels in his lungs down.
Those who would like to donate to the cause can participate in any of the fundraisers, such as the Golden Boot or the 50/50 raffles. They can also reach out to the Ag Society at 780-621-0030 or they can send an email to dvagsocietyinfo@gmail.com.
My battle with birds and my war on wasps
Folks, this month I find myself at war with nature. And so far it looks like nature is winning
Last night I was awoken by the sound of crashing from right outside the bedroom window. I looked out to see half of one of my tomato plants lying on the ground, while the other half was steadily being chomped by a full sized whitetail. Unruffled, the deer gave me a not particularly apologetic look before wandering over to poop on the lawn.
I suppose at least the deer are nice to watch, unlike the caterpillars we saw earlier in the season. The lesson we learned then is that while a single caterpillar is interesting to look at and potentially even cute in a creepy crawly kind of way, when that same caterpillar is accompanied by several thousand of his friends and relations it’s really kind of gross.
Meanwhile, as summer has hit its stride over the last couple of weeks it’s become increasingly important to sleep with the window open. At least it is if you’re me. It’s something that was driven into me by my grandmother; a woman who had tremendous belief in the health benefits of fresh air. Mind you, she also believed that if you ate apple seeds a tree would grow inside you, and that you could never have too much slightly used Christmas wrapping paper. But when it comes to fresh air, you know, I think she had a point.
A few lungs full of the evening air, redolent with the scents of roses and honeysuckle and carried through the bedroom window on the gentlest of zephyrs, lulls you to sleep like a half bottle of cheap Scotch on an empty stomach. But staying asleep, well, that’s a different matter, because sometime around 4 a.m., just as the sun is starting to sneak over the horizon, Mother Nature lets go with a positive cacophony of squawks and screeches as the magpies in our backyard prepare to greet the day.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of birds. I especially like them roasted, with gravy and new potatoes. But I speak as someone who finds it increasingly hard to stay asleep over the sound of his own snoring, so I could really do without any outside interference.
My final brush with nature (so far) has come in the form of a merry band of wasps who have set up home underneath our deck in an area that is both annoyingly close to the back door and inaccessible for wasp spray unless I’m prepared to go to the lengths of removing a couple of planks to allow me to get at them. I’ve set up a system where I sit in a lawnchair every afternoon and try to hit the wasps with a fly swatter as they come and go. It’s a simple task, but it involves quite a lot of swearing, because most of the time the wasps refuse to sit still and accept their fate. I suppose, on the plus side, it gives the neighbours something to talk about, but I can’t help but feel that somehow this is going to end badly.
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Our first delegate to a Supreme Lodge Convention was Eileen Belva, who went to Kamloops in 1960.
Our Lodge was composed of very young ladies. Some were newly-weds and many had jobs and young children. With both home and work commitments, somehow, we always found time to attend meetings and to do tons of community work.
We have gone through a lot of ladies during our 65 years! 259 to be exact.
Over the years, our District No. and the Lodges within it have changed. We’ve had Ponoka, Gainsford, Entwistle, Wildwood, Edson, Jasper, Onoway, Warburg, Breton, Leduc, etc. Many of these closed, over the years, and now we are doing the same. Our membership is small and old.
Catering was our main money maker. Some of them were big affairs! In 1983 we did an outdoor catering, at a nearby farm, for 800 people, and catered to a High School Graduation Banquet to 600 guests. Soon after we were formed, we helped the Elks cater to a BBQ for 700 people for Drayton Valley’s 10th anniversary. We catered to provincial boxing meets, gun club shoots, rodeos, weddings, anniversaries, blood donor clinics, Wed night bingos, farmer’s markets, brunches and lunches. The bingos and Farmers Market caterings were weekly events for many, many years.
We were instrumental in many community projects. Gladys McMorris was our driving force in helping seniors. We organized the first senior citizens’ club, and even washed their windows when they acquired a building. We petitioned the town for a senior lodge, did tons of background work and cleaned the rooms for the contractor, when the Shangri-La Lodge opened in 1972. We promoted the establishment of the Wishing Well and Leizure Lea apartments for seniors, and participated in operating them until 1994, under the name “Purple Pansy Sr. Citizens Association”. We treated all seniors to a free turkey supper and entertainment, every Christmas, beginning in 1971- until 1990 when we had to quit because the number of seniors had outgrown the capacity of the Elks Hall. We initiated the Emergency Response System, for seniors, and assisted in its operation. We purchased a 4 wheeled scooter for use by seniors and paid for taxi service for seniors, one day per week. Funeral lunches for seniors were provided free.
When I first got into the advertising and sales side of the newspaper I didn’t know anything about anything. But I did know I wanted to make sure that we built our clients effective ads specific to newspaper marketing.
“Newspaper friendly” advertising is a stand alone subset of advertising, just like every social network has their own specs for effective digital advertising, and billboards have their requirements, and radio has their requirements. Newspaper ads that follow certain specs are more effective.
Why is this important for you to know? Because with the rise of AI, we have been getting many AI posters as graphic design submissions for advertising. As a jumping off point for our graphic designer this is fantastic intel, however as a carbon copy ad, these posters are not always newspaper friendly.
A few basic tips I share with people when they are considering submitting a draft design are these:
White space! Newspapers need white space. Too much of everything leads to a whole lot of nothing for the eye to focus on. White space allows your prospective clients to see your important messaging from a distance and draws them in closer to see more once interest is piqued.
Font size. The Free Press type font is 9pt. Advertising should be larger than this. In some cases much larger.
Font contrast. A dark font on a lighter background is the easiest to read. This is why newspapers are black font on white paper. Again this takes us back to white space.
These are the basics that I let people know about. This may mean that your newspaper ad is not a carbon copy of your promotional poster.
But our brand! You might protest.
Branding does not mean placing the same identical ad across multiple mediums. Branding requires you to ensure the big picture aspects of your company are included in all advertising such things like: colours, typeface, image themes etc.
You wouldn’t put a very detailed poster on a billboard would you? No. People driving at 70km per hour don’t have time to read all of the information. But you may put the same headline, with the same colour and similar imagery with a big bold company name. Social media advertising favours not just images but videos – branding may appear in the beginning and end of the video.
If you do choose to draft your ad graphics in AI here are some prompts I pulled from Gemini you could use in that will help make your ad specific to the newspaper medium:
Newspaper prompt guidelines from Gemini
1. Demand High Contrast and Grayscale Clarity
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“High contrast, strong key lighting, bold outlines, optimized for black and white print, crisp grayscale separation.”
Note: you can reference the same but in colour, the colour contrast will be more defined.
2. Enforce Simple Compositions and Ample Negative Space
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“Minimalist background, single clear focal point, uncluttered design, generous empty negative space for text overlays.”
3. Choose Graphic or Vector Styles Over Hyper-Realism
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“Flat vector art style, clean graphic illustration, sharp edges, print-ready layout, high-legibility design.”
One of the services the Free Press provides is graphic design. Our graphic designer on staff, has worked in marketing and has a degree in graphic design. She has a keen eye and great understanding of the importance of typeface, layout, and focal point. If you draft your poster initially in AI send it our way to be rendered into a newspaper friendly format. Provide us with a png or pdf file, unflattened so we can adjust to make sure you are getting the best ad that will catch the most eyeballs.
The fact is the wrong ad style for the wrong medium is ineffective no matter the marketing platform you use. Over at the Free Press, advertising is part of the full newspaper package and we want your ads to be as interesting and eye catching to our readers as our editorial headlines.
Last Friday the Evansburg Inn was entered into the annals of history by the Beer Parlour Project, which has been making a photographic documentary of historic hotels across Western Canada.
Chris Doering, Rob Pohl, and Doering’s wife Connie Biggart are the founders of the Beer Parlour Project, which aims to record the history of hotels that were the focal point of their community when they were first built. The group wants to capture the essence of the building using a combination of digital and vintage flash photography of the building and the community of people who use it.
“My friends and I are history photographers,” says Doering. “So we go around and document historic buildings, machinery, or whatever the case may be.”
While they were out in the field working, they were often in rural areas. Often there were hotels in the community, some of which were still original structures from the first half of the 20th century, and they would stop in for lunch.
“Right under our noses is all these really interesting hotels with really interesting stories,” says Doering.
The trio started the project in 2022 and have been to about 50 rural establishments since then. Their goal is to visit 100 older hotels across Western Canada so they can publish a coffee table book. They’ve already secured an exhibit at the Alberta Art Gallery in 2028, which they are excited about.
The Beer Parlour group started their weekend on a Thursday at the Colinton Hotel in Colinton, Alberta. From there they drove to Evansburg on Friday, and on Saturday they stopped in at the Warburg Hotel and Saloon.
Though Doering, Biggart, and Pohl all have full-time jobs, this project is their main hobby. The group is funding their project on their own, though they are looking for some arts grants to help cover some expenses. As such, they try to get as many stops in as possible if they have to travel any distance.
Doering says they pick areas to focus on each time they are planning to work on their project. Once they have the area and have selected the hotels, they look into the history of the building and its relationship to the community. They also consider the cultural side of things and how people are involved in the history of the building.
“They’re really little hidden gems,” says Doering. “Outside appearances can be deceiving.”
Doering’s role in the project is digital photography, research, and handling most of the interviews.
“You hear some really amazing stories,” says Doering. “Some hilarious, heart-breaking — you name it.”
Pohl focuses on taking photos, often on his vintage tri-pod camera, and he also helps with some of the writing for the website.
While Pohl’s camera isn’t the best camera for the project, he uses it because he prefers to develop the pictures in his darkroom. It also provides a great ice breaker as patrons come up and ask him questions about it.
“It’s funny, the expectations of people now, especially the younger generation. [They say] ‘Can I see the back of the camera? What does the picture look like?’” says Pohl.
He says people are often shocked that it will take a month for the picture to be developed, but they always offer to send them a complimentary picture when it’s ready.
Pohl says now that they’ve been to a few different bars, had their stories told in the paper, and have been interviewed for television and radio, they can show that they are credible and have a legitimate project that they are working on. This could make it easier to secure grants to help cover some expenses, and it could also make it easier for them to get their work published in a book.
It hasn’t always been easy for them to get people to trust them. For the most part, owners have allowed them to come in, take some photos, and talk to people; however, some have turned them away.
“There is always a little suspicion because they think we’re either gonna portray their place as a dump and try to make fun of it, which we’re not. We’re trying to celebrate it, get people aware of these [places] and out there to enjoy them,” says Pohl. “We don’t use any images or take any pictures in a way to portray it in that light, so we’ve got to get that understanding in place.”
The other suspicion owners sometimes have is that the Beer Parlour Project is going to charge them for the work they are doing, which has never been the case.
The owners of the Evansburg Inn, Christine and Diane Maskell, say they were happy to participate in the project because they believe it’s important for small towns to be recognized and supported.
“Some people don’t even go off of Highway 16, and when they go to these small communities, they’re amazed at what they can find in them,” says Christine.
Christine and her mother-in-law, Diane, have owned the Evansburg Inn for nearly 26 years, and it was only recently that Christine decided to close the bar down on Sundays. Prior to that, she had been working every single day to keep the place going while raising five kids.
The best memories Christine and Diane have are of the people they’ve met along the way. The history of their time running the bar is tied to their memories of their patrons and friends.
Currently, Christine, Diane, Christine’s daughter Lindsey, and her daughter-in-law, Jacey, run the place.
“We do get along really good, honest to God,” says Diane. “They say that mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law don’t get along, but we do.”
The family run business has seen its ups and downs. Their family lost a grandson, son, brother, and husband when Robbie Maskell passed away in 2022.
But still, the women have continued to serve their loyal customer base. Christine is a Jill-of-all- trades, but she doesn’t touch the electrical. She does, however, handle the maintenance for the rest of the building.
“If it’s broken, she’ll fix it,” says Diane.
Over the years, their bar has been known as a place of respect.
“I say, if you respect the place, then I’ll respect you,” says Christine.
In the time they’ve owned the place, there have only been a handful of fights.
Diane recalls a time when Christine had to step in to keep the peace one night.
“There was going to be a fight — this was a few years ago. There was a regular sitting at the bar, and [Christine] knew he was going to go after [another patron]. She jumped over the bar and grabbed him, and hung onto him like you wouldn’t believe,” says Diane.
The bar has become a memorial for some. A bench outside the Inn was placed there in Robbie’s honour, and inside, there is a column filled with messages for a loyal patron who passed away.
“He used to sit in that spot,” says Christine. “He did a lot of plumbing work and help for us over the years we were here, and he suddenly passed away.”
They held a memorial service for Jerry Lee, and his family asked if they could write messages on the wall. Christine pointed them to the area where Jerry always sat, and Jerry’s family and friends left messages for him there.
Several years later, those messages are still preserved, and Jerry is still remembered.
“He had some nieces and nephews that were five or six years old. They’re 18 now and they come in, and they so appreciate that we still have [the messages],” says Christine. “A couple of weeks ago his daughter came in, and she brought her daughter in and they were talking about it. It’s kind of nice.”
Pohl and Doering’s only regret with this project is that they didn’t start sooner. Many old hotels have been closing down in recent years.
“We’ve kind of missed the boat in a way. We should have started a decade sooner and we could’ve gotten a lot more, but we’re going to have no problem hitting 100,” he says.
The group is also really enjoying working on the project, and Pohl thinks they might push past 100 simply because they enjoy it.
More information about the Beer Parlour Project can be found at www.beerparlourproject.com.
The Drayton Valley and District Agriculture Society is raising funds for a local family whose child is fighting a rare form of cancer.
Shortly after his third birthday, Leo Grosjean was diagnosed with a rare cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma.
“His mom had just come off of maternity leave, and it turned out he needed 42 weeks of treatment including chemo, radiation, and possibly surgery,” says Tayler Vakoulich, one of the organizers of the fundraiser. “Even after that, there is a follow-up of 24 weeks of maintenance therapy.”
The ag society is working with a group called the Golden Circle of Champions, a program that originates in the United States and is just starting up in Canada, to help the Grosjean family cover costs while they care for their son. The group is similar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation with a cowgirl/cowboy focus.
The society was the one to approach the Golden Circle and put Leo forward as a candidate for their program. Typically, the candidates come through rodeos.
“[We] sponsor them and then this program sends them to the [Canadian Finals Rodeo] for the week, it gets them a hotel room, and it gets them all these really cool experiences where they get to go meet the animals and cowboys, and they get their own banquet,” says Vakoulich.
The Golden Circle also sends one of its Canadian candidates to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.
The ag society was the one who put forward the funds to cover the expenses of the CFR, says Vakoulich, because they wanted to go with a second option that the program offers. It helps people with different fundraisers to help out families.
Some of the fundraisers they have include the Golden Boot, which is a golden cowboy boot that gets passed around during the Thursday Night Rodeos.
“It goes from $400 to $700 every night,” says Vakoulich.
Other fundraisers include 50/50s at their markets. For the past three months, all of those funds have gone to Leo’s family.
The group is also partnering with Stella Stevens from CFCW Edmonton, who works with the Golden Circle, to put on a concert in the fall, says Vakoulich.
“She’s helping us get an artist to do a nice big concert in town,” says Vakoulich.
They are also looking for items that can be raffled off at the Thursday Night Rodeos, she says.
Over the next few weeks, the Grosjean family will be incurring far more expense than usual, says Vakoulich. Leo will be headed to Florida for treatments with the hope that a change in treatment will keep the toxicity levels in his lungs down.
Those who would like to donate to the cause can participate in any of the fundraisers, such as the Golden Boot or the 50/50 raffles. They can also reach out to the Ag Society at 780-621-0030 or they can send an email to dvagsocietyinfo@gmail.com.
Folks, this month I find myself at war with nature. And so far it looks like nature is winning
Last night I was awoken by the sound of crashing from right outside the bedroom window. I looked out to see half of one of my tomato plants lying on the ground, while the other half was steadily being chomped by a full sized whitetail. Unruffled, the deer gave me a not particularly apologetic look before wandering over to poop on the lawn.
I suppose at least the deer are nice to watch, unlike the caterpillars we saw earlier in the season. The lesson we learned then is that while a single caterpillar is interesting to look at and potentially even cute in a creepy crawly kind of way, when that same caterpillar is accompanied by several thousand of his friends and relations it’s really kind of gross.
Meanwhile, as summer has hit its stride over the last couple of weeks it’s become increasingly important to sleep with the window open. At least it is if you’re me. It’s something that was driven into me by my grandmother; a woman who had tremendous belief in the health benefits of fresh air. Mind you, she also believed that if you ate apple seeds a tree would grow inside you, and that you could never have too much slightly used Christmas wrapping paper. But when it comes to fresh air, you know, I think she had a point.
A few lungs full of the evening air, redolent with the scents of roses and honeysuckle and carried through the bedroom window on the gentlest of zephyrs, lulls you to sleep like a half bottle of cheap Scotch on an empty stomach. But staying asleep, well, that’s a different matter, because sometime around 4 a.m., just as the sun is starting to sneak over the horizon, Mother Nature lets go with a positive cacophony of squawks and screeches as the magpies in our backyard prepare to greet the day.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of birds. I especially like them roasted, with gravy and new potatoes. But I speak as someone who finds it increasingly hard to stay asleep over the sound of his own snoring, so I could really do without any outside interference.
My final brush with nature (so far) has come in the form of a merry band of wasps who have set up home underneath our deck in an area that is both annoyingly close to the back door and inaccessible for wasp spray unless I’m prepared to go to the lengths of removing a couple of planks to allow me to get at them. I’ve set up a system where I sit in a lawnchair every afternoon and try to hit the wasps with a fly swatter as they come and go. It’s a simple task, but it involves quite a lot of swearing, because most of the time the wasps refuse to sit still and accept their fate. I suppose, on the plus side, it gives the neighbours something to talk about, but I can’t help but feel that somehow this is going to end badly.
Services
- Companion Animals
- Emergency and After Hours Services
- Ovine and Caprine Health
- Bovine Health
- Equine Health
- Avian Health
780-236-0654
- Investments
- Retirement Planning
- Tax Planning
- Estate Planning
Our philanthropy extended to all parts of the community. The schools were the recipients of help in many ways including bursaries, an auditory machine, books, lunch programs, Valentine Dances, etc.
The local hospital has received help, too. An incubator, baby car seats, adult crib and even a wringer/washer in 1957 are a few examples.
We donated to projects; Centennial Arena, Bus Association, a football field, and to every family, unfortunate enough to have lost their home by fire.
Lastly, we assisted the Elks, ( with whom we have always had a good working relationship) in their beautification of the hall with new drapes, stage redecoration, carpeting and kept the kitchen updated with the latest equipment including a commercial mixer.
Presently, we have a membership of 16, with an average age of 80.7 years. The four chair officers are:
Ethel Mankow (Honored Royal Lady)
Angeline Halushka (Associate Royal Lady)
Caroline Harrison(Loyal Lady)
Phyllis Landers (Lecturing Lady)
Other executive officers include: Lilly Mayhew (Secretary)
Betty Starling (Treasurer)
Reta Kenworthy (Conductress)
Morna Welch
“All in all”, we have had a wonderful, fruitful 65 years. We will miss our connection to the community and I’m sure we will be missed!
When I first got into the advertising and sales side of the newspaper I didn’t know anything about anything. But I did know I wanted to make sure that we built our clients effective ads specific to newspaper marketing.
“Newspaper friendly” advertising is a stand alone subset of advertising, just like every social network has their own specs for effective digital advertising, and billboards have their requirements, and radio has their requirements. Newspaper ads that follow certain specs are more effective.
Why is this important for you to know? Because with the rise of AI, we have been getting many AI posters as graphic design submissions for advertising. As a jumping off point for our graphic designer this is fantastic intel, however as a carbon copy ad, these posters are not always newspaper friendly.
A few basic tips I share with people when they are considering submitting a draft design are these:
White space! Newspapers need white space. Too much of everything leads to a whole lot of nothing for the eye to focus on. White space allows your prospective clients to see your important messaging from a distance and draws them in closer to see more once interest is piqued.
Font size. The Free Press type font is 9pt. Advertising should be larger than this. In some cases much larger.
Font contrast. A dark font on a lighter background is the easiest to read. This is why newspapers are black font on white paper. Again this takes us back to white space.
These are the basics that I let people know about. This may mean that your newspaper ad is not a carbon copy of your promotional poster.
But our brand! You might protest.
Branding does not mean placing the same identical ad across multiple mediums. Branding requires you to ensure the big picture aspects of your company are included in all advertising such things like: colours, typeface, image themes etc.
You wouldn’t put a very detailed poster on a billboard would you? No. People driving at 70km per hour don’t have time to read all of the information. But you may put the same headline, with the same colour and similar imagery with a big bold company name. Social media advertising favours not just images but videos – branding may appear in the beginning and end of the video.
If you do choose to draft your ad graphics in AI here are some prompts I pulled from Gemini you could use in that will help make your ad specific to the newspaper medium:
Newspaper prompt guidelines from Gemini
1. Demand High Contrast and Grayscale Clarity
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“High contrast, strong key lighting, bold outlines, optimized for black and white print, crisp grayscale separation.”
Note: you can reference the same but in colour, the colour contrast will be more defined.
2. Enforce Simple Compositions and Ample Negative Space
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“Minimalist background, single clear focal point, uncluttered design, generous empty negative space for text overlays.”
3. Choose Graphic or Vector Styles Over Hyper-Realism
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“Flat vector art style, clean graphic illustration, sharp edges, print-ready layout, high-legibility design.”
One of the services the Free Press provides is graphic design. Our graphic designer on staff, has worked in marketing and has a degree in graphic design. She has a keen eye and great understanding of the importance of typeface, layout, and focal point. If you draft your poster initially in AI send it our way to be rendered into a newspaper friendly format. Provide us with a png or pdf file, unflattened so we can adjust to make sure you are getting the best ad that will catch the most eyeballs.
The fact is the wrong ad style for the wrong medium is ineffective no matter the marketing platform you use. Over at the Free Press, advertising is part of the full newspaper package and we want your ads to be as interesting and eye catching to our readers as our editorial headlines.
Last Friday the Evansburg Inn was entered into the annals of history by the Beer Parlour Project, which has been making a photographic documentary of historic hotels across Western Canada.
Chris Doering, Rob Pohl, and Doering’s wife Connie Biggart are the founders of the Beer Parlour Project, which aims to record the history of hotels that were the focal point of their community when they were first built. The group wants to capture the essence of the building using a combination of digital and vintage flash photography of the building and the community of people who use it.
“My friends and I are history photographers,” says Doering. “So we go around and document historic buildings, machinery, or whatever the case may be.”
While they were out in the field working, they were often in rural areas. Often there were hotels in the community, some of which were still original structures from the first half of the 20th century, and they would stop in for lunch.
“Right under our noses is all these really interesting hotels with really interesting stories,” says Doering.
The trio started the project in 2022 and have been to about 50 rural establishments since then. Their goal is to visit 100 older hotels across Western Canada so they can publish a coffee table book. They’ve already secured an exhibit at the Alberta Art Gallery in 2028, which they are excited about.
The Beer Parlour group started their weekend on a Thursday at the Colinton Hotel in Colinton, Alberta. From there they drove to Evansburg on Friday, and on Saturday they stopped in at the Warburg Hotel and Saloon.
Though Doering, Biggart, and Pohl all have full-time jobs, this project is their main hobby. The group is funding their project on their own, though they are looking for some arts grants to help cover some expenses. As such, they try to get as many stops in as possible if they have to travel any distance.
Doering says they pick areas to focus on each time they are planning to work on their project. Once they have the area and have selected the hotels, they look into the history of the building and its relationship to the community. They also consider the cultural side of things and how people are involved in the history of the building.
“They’re really little hidden gems,” says Doering. “Outside appearances can be deceiving.”
Doering’s role in the project is digital photography, research, and handling most of the interviews.
“You hear some really amazing stories,” says Doering. “Some hilarious, heart-breaking — you name it.”
Pohl focuses on taking photos, often on his vintage tri-pod camera, and he also helps with some of the writing for the website.
While Pohl’s camera isn’t the best camera for the project, he uses it because he prefers to develop the pictures in his darkroom. It also provides a great ice breaker as patrons come up and ask him questions about it.
“It’s funny, the expectations of people now, especially the younger generation. [They say] ‘Can I see the back of the camera? What does the picture look like?’” says Pohl.
He says people are often shocked that it will take a month for the picture to be developed, but they always offer to send them a complimentary picture when it’s ready.
Pohl says now that they’ve been to a few different bars, had their stories told in the paper, and have been interviewed for television and radio, they can show that they are credible and have a legitimate project that they are working on. This could make it easier to secure grants to help cover some expenses, and it could also make it easier for them to get their work published in a book.
It hasn’t always been easy for them to get people to trust them. For the most part, owners have allowed them to come in, take some photos, and talk to people; however, some have turned them away.
“There is always a little suspicion because they think we’re either gonna portray their place as a dump and try to make fun of it, which we’re not. We’re trying to celebrate it, get people aware of these [places] and out there to enjoy them,” says Pohl. “We don’t use any images or take any pictures in a way to portray it in that light, so we’ve got to get that understanding in place.”
The other suspicion owners sometimes have is that the Beer Parlour Project is going to charge them for the work they are doing, which has never been the case.
The owners of the Evansburg Inn, Christine and Diane Maskell, say they were happy to participate in the project because they believe it’s important for small towns to be recognized and supported.
“Some people don’t even go off of Highway 16, and when they go to these small communities, they’re amazed at what they can find in them,” says Christine.
Christine and her mother-in-law, Diane, have owned the Evansburg Inn for nearly 26 years, and it was only recently that Christine decided to close the bar down on Sundays. Prior to that, she had been working every single day to keep the place going while raising five kids.
The best memories Christine and Diane have are of the people they’ve met along the way. The history of their time running the bar is tied to their memories of their patrons and friends.
Currently, Christine, Diane, Christine’s daughter Lindsey, and her daughter-in-law, Jacey, run the place.
“We do get along really good, honest to God,” says Diane. “They say that mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law don’t get along, but we do.”
The family run business has seen its ups and downs. Their family lost a grandson, son, brother, and husband when Robbie Maskell passed away in 2022.
But still, the women have continued to serve their loyal customer base. Christine is a Jill-of-all- trades, but she doesn’t touch the electrical. She does, however, handle the maintenance for the rest of the building.
“If it’s broken, she’ll fix it,” says Diane.
Over the years, their bar has been known as a place of respect.
“I say, if you respect the place, then I’ll respect you,” says Christine.
In the time they’ve owned the place, there have only been a handful of fights.
Diane recalls a time when Christine had to step in to keep the peace one night.
“There was going to be a fight — this was a few years ago. There was a regular sitting at the bar, and [Christine] knew he was going to go after [another patron]. She jumped over the bar and grabbed him, and hung onto him like you wouldn’t believe,” says Diane.
The bar has become a memorial for some. A bench outside the Inn was placed there in Robbie’s honour, and inside, there is a column filled with messages for a loyal patron who passed away.
“He used to sit in that spot,” says Christine. “He did a lot of plumbing work and help for us over the years we were here, and he suddenly passed away.”
They held a memorial service for Jerry Lee, and his family asked if they could write messages on the wall. Christine pointed them to the area where Jerry always sat, and Jerry’s family and friends left messages for him there.
Several years later, those messages are still preserved, and Jerry is still remembered.
“He had some nieces and nephews that were five or six years old. They’re 18 now and they come in, and they so appreciate that we still have [the messages],” says Christine. “A couple of weeks ago his daughter came in, and she brought her daughter in and they were talking about it. It’s kind of nice.”
Pohl and Doering’s only regret with this project is that they didn’t start sooner. Many old hotels have been closing down in recent years.
“We’ve kind of missed the boat in a way. We should have started a decade sooner and we could’ve gotten a lot more, but we’re going to have no problem hitting 100,” he says.
The group is also really enjoying working on the project, and Pohl thinks they might push past 100 simply because they enjoy it.
More information about the Beer Parlour Project can be found at www.beerparlourproject.com.
The Drayton Valley and District Agriculture Society is raising funds for a local family whose child is fighting a rare form of cancer.
Shortly after his third birthday, Leo Grosjean was diagnosed with a rare cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma.
“His mom had just come off of maternity leave, and it turned out he needed 42 weeks of treatment including chemo, radiation, and possibly surgery,” says Tayler Vakoulich, one of the organizers of the fundraiser. “Even after that, there is a follow-up of 24 weeks of maintenance therapy.”
The ag society is working with a group called the Golden Circle of Champions, a program that originates in the United States and is just starting up in Canada, to help the Grosjean family cover costs while they care for their son. The group is similar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation with a cowgirl/cowboy focus.
The society was the one to approach the Golden Circle and put Leo forward as a candidate for their program. Typically, the candidates come through rodeos.
“[We] sponsor them and then this program sends them to the [Canadian Finals Rodeo] for the week, it gets them a hotel room, and it gets them all these really cool experiences where they get to go meet the animals and cowboys, and they get their own banquet,” says Vakoulich.
The Golden Circle also sends one of its Canadian candidates to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.
The ag society was the one who put forward the funds to cover the expenses of the CFR, says Vakoulich, because they wanted to go with a second option that the program offers. It helps people with different fundraisers to help out families.
Some of the fundraisers they have include the Golden Boot, which is a golden cowboy boot that gets passed around during the Thursday Night Rodeos.
“It goes from $400 to $700 every night,” says Vakoulich.
Other fundraisers include 50/50s at their markets. For the past three months, all of those funds have gone to Leo’s family.
The group is also partnering with Stella Stevens from CFCW Edmonton, who works with the Golden Circle, to put on a concert in the fall, says Vakoulich.
“She’s helping us get an artist to do a nice big concert in town,” says Vakoulich.
They are also looking for items that can be raffled off at the Thursday Night Rodeos, she says.
Over the next few weeks, the Grosjean family will be incurring far more expense than usual, says Vakoulich. Leo will be headed to Florida for treatments with the hope that a change in treatment will keep the toxicity levels in his lungs down.
Those who would like to donate to the cause can participate in any of the fundraisers, such as the Golden Boot or the 50/50 raffles. They can also reach out to the Ag Society at 780-621-0030 or they can send an email to dvagsocietyinfo@gmail.com.
Folks, this month I find myself at war with nature. And so far it looks like nature is winning
Last night I was awoken by the sound of crashing from right outside the bedroom window. I looked out to see half of one of my tomato plants lying on the ground, while the other half was steadily being chomped by a full sized whitetail. Unruffled, the deer gave me a not particularly apologetic look before wandering over to poop on the lawn.
I suppose at least the deer are nice to watch, unlike the caterpillars we saw earlier in the season. The lesson we learned then is that while a single caterpillar is interesting to look at and potentially even cute in a creepy crawly kind of way, when that same caterpillar is accompanied by several thousand of his friends and relations it’s really kind of gross.
Meanwhile, as summer has hit its stride over the last couple of weeks it’s become increasingly important to sleep with the window open. At least it is if you’re me. It’s something that was driven into me by my grandmother; a woman who had tremendous belief in the health benefits of fresh air. Mind you, she also believed that if you ate apple seeds a tree would grow inside you, and that you could never have too much slightly used Christmas wrapping paper. But when it comes to fresh air, you know, I think she had a point.
A few lungs full of the evening air, redolent with the scents of roses and honeysuckle and carried through the bedroom window on the gentlest of zephyrs, lulls you to sleep like a half bottle of cheap Scotch on an empty stomach. But staying asleep, well, that’s a different matter, because sometime around 4 a.m., just as the sun is starting to sneak over the horizon, Mother Nature lets go with a positive cacophony of squawks and screeches as the magpies in our backyard prepare to greet the day.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of birds. I especially like them roasted, with gravy and new potatoes. But I speak as someone who finds it increasingly hard to stay asleep over the sound of his own snoring, so I could really do without any outside interference.
My final brush with nature (so far) has come in the form of a merry band of wasps who have set up home underneath our deck in an area that is both annoyingly close to the back door and inaccessible for wasp spray unless I’m prepared to go to the lengths of removing a couple of planks to allow me to get at them. I’ve set up a system where I sit in a lawnchair every afternoon and try to hit the wasps with a fly swatter as they come and go. It’s a simple task, but it involves quite a lot of swearing, because most of the time the wasps refuse to sit still and accept their fate. I suppose, on the plus side, it gives the neighbours something to talk about, but I can’t help but feel that somehow this is going to end badly.
Services
- Companion Animals
- Emergency and After Hours Services
- Ovine and Caprine Health
- Bovine Health
- Equine Health
- Avian Health
780-236-0654
- Investments
- Retirement Planning
- Tax Planning
- Estate Planning
Project takes snapshots of historic watering holes
Last Friday the Evansburg Inn was entered into the annals of history by the Beer Parlour Project, which has been making a photographic documentary of historic hotels across Western Canada.
Society raising funds for child with cancer
The Drayton Valley and District Agriculture Society is raising funds for a local family whose child is fighting a rare form of cancer.
My battle with birds and my war on wasps
Folks, this month I find myself at war with nature. And so far it looks like nature is winning
Last night I was awoken by the sound of crashing from right outside the bedroom window.
Seasons in the sun (and rain, and smoke)
First it was caterpillars. Then it was rain. Then it was smoke. Then it was more rain. Then it was mosquitoes. Then it was moths. And then it was tornadoes.
