SHAUNAVON, SASK. — This fall, Great Western Railway is celebrating a significant milestone: 25 years of serving the southwest and its agricultural communities.

The company was established by local investors, including grain producers, ranchers, agricultural businesses, and communities, who came together to purchase and preserve the Southwest line. At the time, many tracks were being abandoned, but these local owners were determined to save this particular line, and it remains locally owned to this day.

Established in 2000, the company was established and continues to be locally owned by grain producers, ranchers, agricultural businesses and communities based primarily along its line. In fact, the track was purchased by local investors in an effort to save the Southwest line during a time when many tracks were being abandoned.

According to Andrew Glastetter, General Manager of the Great Western Railway of Saskatchewan and President of the Western Canadian Short Line Railway Association, the company’s success can be attributed to its focus on customer service and creating a positive work environment.

VIRDEN – The head librarian at Border Regional Library plans to add movie nights, a 3-D printer, and club space to the facility following renovations this summer.

Librarian Laranda Bailey said she is focused on adding new programming to go along with a new floor plan at the library at 312 Seventh Avenue South. The facility has been redesigned after it received several grants and donations this year.

“We’re feeling very excited,” Bailey told the Sun. “It is just a whole world of difference in here. It feels more welcome. It feels more modernized.”

New windows allow a lot more natural light to pour in, and the old lights have been replaced, Bailey said. Construction crews also replaced the carpets and redesigned the floor plan with added rooms, and installed a new water fountain. The kids’ space has been relocated into its own enclosed room.

The Thanksgiving holiday, a pause in the year to express gratitude for all of life’s bounty, is the perfect time to “pay it forward” and help to ensure that people in our community who are under financial distress can still access food for their tables.

“Over 3,300 households in Brandon receive assistance,” said Heather Symbalisty, executive director at Samaritan House Ministries Inc. (samaritanhouse.net), Manitoba’s second largest food bank.

The numbers are challenging. Almost 50 per cent of Samaritan House Ministries clients are children. The charity distributes 60 to 80 food hampers per day for a rough total of 20,000 hampers per year. That works out to over 147,000 pounds annually to help meet only the most basic of food needs.

“The community needs to know that our financial donations and food donations are down,” Symbalisty said.

The mayor of Carberry says a community safety officer will not be added to the community by the end of year, as previously hoped.

The plan to hire a community safety officer has been halted by some recent changes, including the loss of the town manager, Mayor Ray Muirhead told the Sun. The manager left for another job in Dauphin, and the town has had to prioritize and take a step back as it adjusts.

“We didn’t have the man or woman power to do all the stuff we need to do,” Muirhead said. “We, as a council, just said something has to be put on hold. And CSO, unfortunately, was it.”

The plan will pick up sometime nearer to 2027, Muirhead estimated. Other projects are expected to be completed by that time, freeing up staff to go through the long process of recruiting CSOs, he said.

RIVERS — A new mural has been painted in Rivers to commemorate history in the community.

The Rivers Train Station Restoration Committee hosted a ribbon cutting on Sept. 24 to designate a new mural on the side of the Westoba Credit Union building. The mural depicts a bicycle, a globe, a factory, blossoms and ribbons.

Committee member Donna Morken told the Sun the mural is about a former bicycle factory that operated in the ’70s and early ’80s near Rivers. The factory was a partnership within Canada, but also across the Pacific Ocean.

“It’s an amazing historical event that nobody really thinks about,” Morken said. “This is a country from another side of the world that came to produce bicycles here.”

As rural and northern communities across Manitoba grapple with access to health care, Prairie Mountain Health (PMH) used a recent University of Manitoba Family Medicine Residents Retreat (Sept. 19-21) to shine a spotlight on the urgent need to recruit doctors outside urban centres.

With 128 family medicine residents from across the province in Brandon, PMH saw the retreat as more than just training and networking, it was a critical recruitment tool for communities that continue to be underserved.

Manitoba is facing a significant physician shortage, particularly in family medicine. A 2024 update from Doctors Manitoba reported that the province has 219 physicians per 100,000 residents, still the second-lowest supply in the country, despite a slight two per cent increase from the previous year according to Doctors Manitoba’s Physician Resources in Manitoba: 2024 Update.

To reach the national average, Manitoba would need 346 more doctors. The situation is especially acute in primary care: Manitoba currently ranks last in the country for family physicians per capita, according to the 2024 report.

Big Daddy Tazz is rolling into town with the laughs this weekend and he’s bringing a couple of friends along for the ride.

On Sunday at 7 p.m. at the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium, the Big Daddy Tazz and Friends Comedy Show kicks off 90 minutes of hilarity with all proceeds to the Habitat for Humanity Brandon Chapter.

Big Daddy Tazz, lauded for his comedic chops, is also known as the “Bi-Polar Buddha,” a 30-year veteran of the stage who brings light and laughter and advocacy to all kinds of audiences.

He’ll be tripping across the boards with pals Danielle Kayahara, a festival circuit favourite, producer and host of “Wisecracks for Weirdos” and one of The Lady Lumps, and Rob Pue, the first Canadian-born winner of the prestigious San Francisco Comedy Competition and a North American touring champ.

A fully-Indigenous cast rendition of the musical “Grease!” kicked off a tour in Virden this fall and will be travelling through the maritimes and on to the West Coast.

“Bear Grease,” an Indigenous spin on the famous “Grease!” musical, started its tour in Virden on Sept. 21 after its Broadway debut. The cast was set to continue to Halifax in early October, producer Henry Cloud Andrade told the Sun.

The tour just so happened to work out that Virden Aud Theatre made the most sense for a starting point, Andrade said. The team continued to Winnipeg for a set of shows, before going off to the East Coast.

It’s been a wild ride since conceiving the project in 2019, he said, and the show’s recent traction with audiences has been amazing to see.

A recent twist of fate has shown how firefighters are bonded in Manitoba against mental health challenges.

Andrew Cherkas, a firefighter out of Portage La Prairie, set out to walk across Manitoba in September to raise money for a mental health program. After 292 kilometres, however, just over halfway, he fell to injury and was forced to stop.

Ten firefighters across south Manitoba lended their legs to finish the remainder of his journey. The turn of events became a prime example of the solidarity he was walking for, he said.

“What started really disappointing for me has actually turned into a really good thing, because it brought the firefighting community together and drove a lot more awareness to the cause,” Cherkas told the Sun.