Ko’s career a knockout on LPGA circuit

What a great career professional golfer Lydia Ko has enjoyed. And while her career may be winding down, fans of the Ladies’ Professional Golfers’ Association are hoping that Ko’s stated plan to retire three years from now at age 30 gets postponed.

Ko was an amateur, at age 15 no less, when she won the Canadian Open, a regular LPGA event, at Edmonton’s Royal Mayfair Golf Club in 2012. Just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, the New Zealander won the Canadian Open the next year, at age 16, at the Vancouver Golf Club. Needless to say, she was ready for the professional ranks.

And what a great career! Twenty-one LPGA wins, three of them majors. Three medals in three trips to the Olympic Games, including a gold this year. That Olympic victory in Paris not only gave her the gold medal, but it was the one final point she needed to earn Hall of Fame status. The LPGA’s Hall of Fame criteria is based on a point system — one point for each tournament win; two points for a major; one point for an Olympic gold. The win in Paris put her over the top, and then she went out and won the season’s final major, the AIG Women’s Open at the home of golf, St. Andrews, two weeks later..

“My mom says I played better golf when I was 15 than I do now,” said Ko with a chuckle during a post-AIG interview.

Rural SD’s talk cellphone ban

Rural communities have a different culture than large cities. So, when a cellphone ban comes out of Winnipeg, what do rural school divisions think?

The province in the middle of August announced a ban on cellphones in classrooms. The directive banned cellphones during school hours for students between kindergarten and Grade 8. For students in Grades 9 to 12, cellphones are banned at all times except lunch and recess.

Some exceptions are available, such as medical or learning accommodations.

The Sun contacted several superintendents in Westman to learn how their divisions are receiving the cellphone bans brought on by the province. Superintendents from the divisions of Rolling River, Beautiful Plains and Fort La Bosse shared their thoughts.

Province to decide future of Wawanesa dam

The province will soon make a decision about the future of a dam in Wawanesa, revolving around the need to ensure drinking water for the community of roughly 650.

The province is months from deciding between several design options for the dam, provincial project engineer Laura Robson told the Sun. Planners are weighing two options: rehabilitation of the dam, or replacement.

“We will be making a decision very soon,” said Robson. At an information session in Wawanesa in late August, she told the Sun, “This is the last step pretty much before we make the decision.”

Now staff need to pick from among several designs.

Hazel: A Love/Hate Relationship Redux

Hazel shrubs and the nuts they produce have been a long-standing theme in my writings over the past 25 years. As we watch this year’s crop of nuts ripen, I have decided to revise and update an article I wrote in 2013. Hope you enjoy it.

Hazel shrubs are truly remarkable. There are few places in the world that have an understory as thick and persistent as our hazel shrub layer. However, this doesn’t prevent me from having a love/hate relationship with it.

I hate that it prevents me from seeing anything more than a metre in any direction when I go hiking, or that it makes skiing off-trail almost impossible. And I hate that it scrapes the skin off my shins when I forget that there is no such thing as a short cut when walking through it.

On the other hand, I like that its twigs and nuts create an ecological base on which so many species depend. I like that, around our house, it has created what some have coined an “asbestos forest” in which aspen trees with a thick hazel understory are almost impossible to burn, unless under extremely dry and windy conditions.

Mural honours Rivers’ Ukrainian history

The year was 1931. Ukrainians from the west side of Rivers were dancing at a new community centre.

It was the opening day of the Taras Schevchenko Hall. Music spilled out from the building at the corner of Second Avenue and Columbia Street, and east-side Ukrainians stood in the street, tapping their toes and wishing they were allowed to join.

The cover charge was $0.35 if you could afford it. But for the east-siders, no entry at any cost. A communication breakdown between the two groups would take another year to resolve. For the time being, second-hand music was OK.

The night on Labour Day so many years ago is one the community is hoping to commemorate with a new mural. The Rivers Train Station Restoration Project commissioned artists to paint Ukrainian-inspired art onto the side of the hall this summer.

No rivals for Aaron Judge in MVP race

They won’t need a judge or jury to determine the Most Valuable Player in the American League this season. It’s a runaway for New York Yankees’ superstar slugger, Aaron Judge.

The 32-year-old centre fielder, a surefire Hall of Famer when he retires, is having a season to remember — and that’s saying something when one of his previous seasons resulted in a 62-homer campaign.

Judge, a mountain of a man at six-foot-seven and 282 pounds, set another long ball record recently when he swatted his 300th career home run in fewer games than anyone before him. Through Aug. 24 and with more than 30 games still to play, he has a Major-League-leading 49 homers, a pace that would give him 62 for the season. In a 99-game span starting April 27 (when he had only four homers), Judge blasted 44 homers. Last year, in an injury-shortened 106 games, Judge belted 37 homers (a 55-homer pace over a full season). He is without a doubt the most feared hitter in today’s MLB.

Through games of Aug. 24, Judge had 105 walks, including 16 intentionally. Blue Jays’ manager John Schneider showed the ultimate respect to Judge’s power in a recent game by walking him intentionally with the bases empty and two out — in the second inning. “I honestly didn’t feel like seeing him swing,” Schneider told reporters after the game. “That was kind of it. He’s in a different category … than anyone else in the league, where he can just flip the script of a game with one swing.”

WMRL — more than just a place to borrow books

In today’s fast-paced world, where digital screens often dominate our lives, it’s easy to overlook the value of our local public libraries.

Yet, for the residents served by the Western Manitoba Regional Library (WMRL), the library is much more than just a place to borrow books. It is a hub of learning, culture, and community — a welcoming refuge where everyone, from young children to seniors, can find a welcoming space and resources that cater to their needs.

I had the opportunity to chat with Erika Martin, director of library services, about the WMRL Annual Report, who shared valuable insights into the essential role that WMRL plays in our community.

“Every dollar that goes into libraries gets an incredible return on the community, directly and indirectly,” Erika said. “We provide safe and accessible spaces, opportunities to learn, be entertained, and inspired. The positive impact we have directly on our patrons has a ripple effect that reaches far beyond the walls of the library.”

DAUPHIN

Banking, weeds and walkways. Councillors have approved a contract for the city to move its banking services to Scotiabank after a review of five qualified responses to a request for proposals issued in May.

The agreement will be in place for a minimum of five years and will see city manager Sharla Griffiths, deputy city manager Lisa Gaudet, finance director Scott Carr, Mayor David Bosiak, Deputy Mayor Christian Laughland and Coun. Kathy Bellemare as authorized signing officers.

Council was also informed there were two City of Dauphin building permits issued in July for work valued at $26,000. That brings the 2024 total at month’s end to 35 permits with a combined value of $2,073,561. Although there were none issued in July, 2024 has also seen 10 Department of Labour permits issued for work valued at $10,419,633.

Councillor’s effort pays off with new playground

It was a few years ago that the community of Kemnay lost its baseball diamond. Falling into disrepair, the baseball field needed to be taken down.

A void was created at the Kemnay Recreation Centre in its wake — an empty space where children used to be able to play.

A community effort was put together to address this issue. Helping lead the effort was Coun. Kaley Mykula, who was determined to get a playground put in.

“She was the one out there making these connections, getting these donations, being a liaison with different community partners … she was connecting with everyone,” Regional Municipality of Whitehead CAO James Maxon told the Sun.

Sheena’s back with ‘Back To Life’

Sheena Legrand is ready.

It’s been a decade since the Treherne-born artist released new music. In that time, the singer-songwriter, formerly known as Sheena Grobb, got married, became a mother and did some much needed soul searching.

At 40 years old, she’s re-entering the music scene with a forthcoming record and a new perspective.

“Everything just clicked into place this year,” Legrand says, sitting in the cosy, sunlit living room of her Winnipeg home.

Homeschooling in Manitoba continues to grow

At a group of picnic tables outside Brandon’s Discovery Centre, a dozen homeschooled girls are holding a book on a Tuesday afternoon. The book is about being a girl, and they are declaring what they want to be when they grow up.

One girl wants do ballet, but on horseback.

The girls are not all the same age. Some are toddlers, others are about to be teenagers. But they’re studying together, and it’s something they do every two weeks.

Today’s book is called “Lies Girls Believe.” and one of the mothers, Raquel Driedger, leads the class. She points out to the girls: unlike what the world may soon tell them, there’s nothing wrong with being just a mother and a wife. Girls bring the new generation, she says, and bringing it up well is a very important job.

A brush with Ukraine in rural Manitoba

RIVERS — A historic building is putting on a new look.

The Zion Pentecostal Church is being adorned with vibrant colours in the small community northwest of Brandon. Mother and daughter artist combo Mary and Erica Lowe are at work painting a Ukrainian-style mural inspired by the heritage of the building.

Sunflowers, poppies and Pysanky eggs are some of the icons now painted on the broad side of the structure. The artwork is meant to pay homage to Manitoba’s experience of Ukrainian culture, which previously was housed in the building through language and dance lessons.

To get artwork up, the two assume different roles.

Time to recognize the hardballers of Crystal City

In his book “Baseball in Manitoba,” Hal G. Duncan speculates that our province’s baseball history can be traced back to the 1840s in the Red River Valley. He states that it’s generally accepted that the first organized games were played in Winnipeg in 1874. As rural communities sprung up, each had a baseball diamond, often on the school grounds, and a team to go with it.

In the city, the rural boys were labelled “country hardballers,” as baseball was often called hardball to distinguish it from softball. Through the years, softball was also known as diamond ball or fastball. Once the slo-pitch version of softball became popular, the name of the fastball version of the game was changed to fast pitch.

The Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame has made an effort to acknowledge baseball teams that represented small communities with a special induction category. In total, 31 teams representing 29 communities have been honoured by the hall. The list includes teams from Angusville, Belmont, Chatfield, Eden, Kaleida, Snowflake, Vita and Waskada — not exactly metropolises on the Manitoba map.

The HOF also has a minor teams category. To date, four teams — the 1953-58 Norwood C.C. juvenile and junior teams, the Elmwood Giants juniors from 2000 to 2007, the Carman Goldeyes midgets and juniors of the 1990s, and the Cardale Cougars, who won three minor provincials from 1971 to 1975 — have been recognized.