2025 Year in Review

Posted on January 8, 2026 by admin

January

Raymond hosted a first ever “Double-Dual” wrestling meet Tuesday, Dec. 17 in the Raymond High School gymnasium. Well over 50 athletes competed in weight, gender and age categories ranging from little Rug-Rats in elementary school all the way up through Junior High and High School.

The elementary grade matches started at 6 p.m. and ran for about 45 minutes of grappling action and ended with a free-for-all with all competitors spread out all over the two mats for a fun Rumble-Tumble.

Then at 7 p.m. the more serious and more seasoned High School grapplers warmed up for a “Double Dual” meet, where the Raymond Comets and Stirling Lakers took on wrestlers from Cardston and Lethbridge.

After the holiday break, teams were back on the ice last weekend in Central Alberta Hockey League competition.

At the U11 level, Raymond battled to a 4-4 draw in a Saturday contest against Redcliff. Cooper Rodeback scored three times for Raymond, while Jesse Wilde had a single tally. Brixden Manning and Beckett Holt picked up one assist each. Jordan Schmidt made 25 saves in goal to preserve the tie.

Magrath’s U11 team put on an offensive clinic in a 15-2 dismantling of Crowsnest Pass. Cody Beier had four goals and three assists to lead the way, as five other players had three-point efforts, with two goals and one assist each. Kacey Blackmore, Emmeline Brown, Liam Stanford, Beckett Balderson and Cooper Seward all ended the game with identical stat lines, while Weston Odland added two assists, Heagan Mohr scored once and Nik Wood added one helper to round out the scoring.

Glen Motz, Conservative MP for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner riding, describes 2024 as being ‘a very tough year for most people.’

“The economy was in the tank,” said MP Motz. “Cost of living continued to rise. Carbon taxes went up. The price of everything continued to increase. Wages certainly did not keep pace, and so people were struggling, not only in this riding, but across the country. I’m anxious for 2025 to change the course on that.”

Residents of the Cardston Health Centre are enjoying an upgraded and welcoming recreation space thanks to a donation from the Cardston and District Health Care Auxiliary Association.

In December 2024, the Great Canadian Plains Railway Society received a $10,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Lethbridge and Southwestern Alberta’s Community Priorities Fund.

The Society says that the money will be used to help them replace the vintage windows in the 134-year-old International Train Station with new, energy-efficient, ‘period correct’ windows.

As part of the State of the Region address on Saturday, Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter talked about many of the positive economic indicators that were showing promise in southern Alberta throughout 2024.

Hunter would initiate the four-part address at the Taber Community Centre Auditorium, which also featured presentations by MD of Taber Reeve Tamara Miyanaga, Town of Taber Mayor Andrew Prokop, and Town of Coaldale Mayor Jack Van Rijn.

Premier Danielle Smith is heading into 2025 with her provincial priorities in focus. A 2024 leadership vote found that Smith had a 91.5 per cent approval rating among UCP members, and while those who pay attention to the political landscape may have differing opinions about the premier, she’s impossible to ignore.

 In a new year’s edition of Alberta Update posted to her YouTube channel, Smith sat down for a conversation to reflect upon the twists and turns of 2024. Although she discussed the political upheaval in Ottawa, the economy, and federal interference in provincial jurisdiction, it was healthcare that she selected as the best evidence of her government’s forward progress.

February

The Remington Carriage Museum in Cardston is now home to a 1914 Waterous Steam Fire Pumper, which was donated by a local Calgary collector. Almost no others of its kind have remained intact. Adding to its rarity, the engine remains in fully functional condition.

A Taber woman spent decades hiding in plain sight as a fugitive from American justice and her true identity has now been revealed. Sharon Kinne was accused of killing her first husband and her married lover’s wife in the U.S. in the early 1960s before she fled the states and was convicted of killing another man in a hotel room in Mexico.

 Kinne was convicted of murder in Mexico and served almost five years in prison before she escaped in 1969 and vanished without a trace. In the early 1970s, Kinne showed up in Taber as Diedra (Dee) Glabus and blended seamlessly into the community, never raising any suspicions that might have tied her to a murderous past.

In December 2024, Cardston Junior High School received a grant of $7,500 from the Community Foundation of Lethbridge and Southwestern Alberta Communities Priorities Fund.

Hundreds of participants gathered at the Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre in Lethbridge for the 2025 Irrigated Crop Production Update, hosted by Lethbridge Polytechnic in partnership with industry, farmers, academic partners and government representatives from across Western Canada. 

It’s time for the second season to begin in the Central Alberta Hockey League.

In the U11 Division, the Raymond Tier 2 team will hit the ice on Saturday and Sunday for a playoff series against Redcliff. Raymond finished 7-8-1, while Redcliff’s regular season record was 4-8-4.

The Lethbridge economy potentially faces a hard hit if 25 per cent tariffs on Canada planned by American president Donald Trump are implemented.

Right now, Canadians are only facing those tariffs on aluminum and steel products but Economic Development Lethbridge chief executive officer Trevor Lewington says local businesses need to be prepared for a greater impact.

The Village of Stirling now has an updated land use bylaw that will help facilitate future development for the growing southern Alberta municipality.  

Councillors unanimously passed Land Use Bylaw 549-24 at the Feb. 5 regular council meeting and a final copy, with revisions, which is currently being drafted, will be posted on the Village of Stirling’s website, when completed.    

 Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter attended a recent Lethbridge County regular council meeting and provided councillors with an update on several items including the waterline to McCains, water engagement sessions and legislation that was passed in the fall addressing changing pronouns in schools, hormone treatments and non-biological males participating in female sports.

He also addressed one of the questions the county had on the water engagement sessions. 

March

While he may not admit it, Hunter Graves has been a pioneer for the Lethbridge Polytechnic Kodiaks indoor track team over the past two seasons.

Graves (second year, General Arts and Science, Raymond) joined the Kodiaks last season as the first para athlete to compete in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC). He’s been fully welcomed by both the Kodiaks and the ACAC, although he remains the lone competitor in the conference.

The provincial government’s plan to improve Alberta healthcare took an unexpected off-road turn in January and the path forward got rougher in February. Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos was fired by the deputy health minister after the CEO’s board failed to follow a directive from the Province to do the firing itself. Shortly thereafter, the entire board was ousted.

The 2024 season was one for the record books for the bantam Raymond Comets.

Raymond once again dominated the Southern Alberta Minor Football League, and the team went on to win the Alberta Tier 1 championship with a 29-6 victory over the Airdrie Raiders.

The Alberta School Athletic Association (ASAA) divides the province in to three zones for the sport of wrestling: Calgary, Edmonton, and Rural, which covers everything else from High Level in the North to Cardston in the South. 

The Rural Provincial Wrestling Championships took place at Notre Dame High School in Red Deer, on March 1. The top five wrestlers in each gender and weight category will then face the top five from Edmonton and Calgary at the Provincial Championships in Calgary, March 14-15, 2025.

High school grapplers from Southern Alberta are turning heads. People in the sport of wrestling are asking what is going on down south that is producing so many outstanding athletes. 

From all the high schools that participated in the Alberta School Athletic Association (ASAA) Provincial Championships March 14-15 at Crescent Heights High School in Calgary, a significant number of the medals and awards went to the south. Stirling Girls placed second in 1A/2A. Raymond Girls placed second in 3A, and Cardston Boys placed second in 3A. Overall, out of all 78 1A through 4A teams, Raymond placed 7th, overall, Medicine Hat, 14th, LCI 17th, Cardston 20th, Stirling 45th, W.R. Myers 49th, and Magrath 64th.

Broyce Jacobs, a two-term MLA for the former Cardston-Taber-Warner provincial riding in Southern Alberta, passed away March 14. He was 84.

Jacobs served as the Progressive Conservative MLA for the riding in two non-consecutive terms, from 2001 – 2004 before being defeated by then-Alberta Alliance Party member Paul Hinman, and later from 2008 – 2012 before being succeeded by Gary Bikman, a member of the Wildrose Party who later crossed the floor to join the PCs.

Roosters Country Marketplace, our local Magrath grocery store, recently coordinated an event where Magrath Elementary School children decorated brown paper grocery bags.  

The Community Food Pantry is a local service which provides free hampers with food and personal hygiene items to anyone who needs some extra support. The Pantry is run by the good folks at SASH: Disability Support who provide community and engagement opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities. 

April

MLA Schow says that Premier Smith has been doing lots of town halls around the province as she goes out to listen to Albertans. 

“I’m hoping to introduce a lot of my constituents firsthand to the premier in a town hall setting, but I’m also hoping to get more feedback about what’s most important to people at this time,” said MLA Schow.

The field of candidates is starting to fill out in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner after a general election was called on March 23.

Incumbent Glen Motz will seek a fourth election win for the Conservatives when Canadians go to the polls on April 28.

Three challengers have declared they will seek to win the local seat in Parliament.

Jocelyn Johnson will run in her second local election as the New Democratic Party of Canada candidate. Johnson, who ran under her maiden name of Stenger in the last general election, captured 14 per cent of the vote to place second in 2021.

The Village of Stirling’s drought and flood protection program will be revisited at a later date, following council’s discussion about a proposed application for the program at a recent regular council meeting.   

The 2025 Raymond Hospital Auxiliary Annual Spring Luncheon will be held on April 11 at the Raymond Ag. Society yellow building, with doors opening at 10 a.m. 

Donna Coppieters, second vice-president of the Raymond Hospital Auxiliary Executive Committee, says that the event is open to the public, free to gain entry to, and will include a lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., that will include a choice of four homemade soups, two sandwiches, desserts and drink for $5, a baked goods table, and a sewing goods table, and a raffle for gift cards for $600 and $400 gift cards to Raymond Mercantile. Ticket sales for the raffle, which will be held at 1 p.m. on Friday, are still underway, says and tickets are $5.

Agriculture Sciences – Agronomy student, Abigayle (Abby) Terrill, has been named valedictorian of the first class to graduate from Lethbridge Polytechnic. She will lead the procession of graduates and speak at the afternoon ceremony planned for 2 p.m. May 23 in the Val Matteotti Gymnasium.

Ballots for the April 28 federal election were set April 9 after an April 7 deadline to finalize nominations.

No new candidates other than those previously announced are registered in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner, where Conservative Glen Motz is seeking a fourth consecutive election win.

The office of Health Minister Adriana LaGrange says that Budget 2025 includes $1 million for the planning of the replacement of the current Cardston Health Centre.

After the next few weekends, the Raymond Comets girls rugby team should have a pretty solid idea about where its strengths lie.

It all starts with a big tournament in Edmonton this weekend, as Raymond is set to head north on Thursday.

May

Although local polls did not favour Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner candidate Tom Rooke – the Liberal received approximately 17 per cent of votes – his campaign headquarters remained lively Monday night as news outlets projected Mark Carney would be the next prime minister of Canada.

Rooke believes Canadian sovereignty was top of mind for voters heading into the election as tension between Ottawa and the Trump administration thickens, and he believes Carney is the correct candidate to stand up for Canada.

First-year Lethbridge Polytechnic student Hannah Pilling was recently the recipient of five KODI Awards.

A former southern Alberta boxer, who compiled 112 wins and was never knocked out, will be inducted posthumously into the 2025 class of the Lethbridge Sport Hall of Fame on May 9.

Curtis Hatch grew up in Raymond, but his career took him far beyond southern Alberta to more than a dozen countries, in fact.

The Raymond Comets senior girls rugby team continues to pile up victories as the 2025 season rolls along.

A total of five local organizations and community groups will share funding for facility-improvement projects and initiatives, courtesy of the Stirling Wind Project Community Benefit Fund. 

Potentia Renewables Inc., owner of the Stirling Wind Project which has 14 turbines in Lethbridge County—initiated the Community Benefit Fund to invest in the communities where it operates. The program supports capital projects, events and arts or education initiatives that advance environmental enhancement, social welfare, arts and culture, emergency relief, health and wellness or education and science.

In May 2025, Devil’s Coulee Cooperating Society (DCCS) in Warner County received $2,278 ($780 from a Field of Interest Fund) from the Community Priorities Fund of the Community Foundation of Lethbridge and Southwestern Alberta and will be used to purchase materials to create moulds of locally found fossils.

Canada Post employees may be headed back to the picket line this week as an extension of the existing agreement between the postal carrier and the union is set to expire on May 22. 

In May, Warner County and Warner Fireman’s Society received a grant of $10,144 (with $1,200 coming from a Field of Interest Fund) from the Community Foundation of Lethbridge and Southwestern Alberta’s Henry S. Varley Fund for Rural Life.

Craig Dies, lead on the grant application, says that the grant will be used to provide wildfire/general fire training to new firefighters, and to upgrade and certify current members for wildfire/medical emergency training for Warner Volunteer Fire Department and Milk River Volunteer Fire Department.

Traffic flow through the town of Raymond has changed with the stop signs removed from Highway 52, which crosses east/west through the community south of Lethbridge.

Now traffic heading north and south on Broadway – the town’s main street – will be stopping at the major intersection in the community.

Four sets of crossing lights were installed at the intersection this week to facilitate pedestrian traffic.

Just stepping into his newly appointed roles as Associate Minister of Water and Chief Government Whip, Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter is getting down to work in his new cabinet positions. 

Following the conclusion of the spring sitting of the legislature on May 15, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith made changes to her cabinet and caucus leadership, that included promoting Hunter to new cabinet roles. 

Now in his third term as MLA, Hunter has been in cabinet previously for two and a half years, when he was appointed the Associate Minister of Red Tape Reduction in 2019. He recently spoke about his new roles with Southern Alberta Newspapers, and said the position of Chief Government Whip requires building relationship with trust with his colleagues, while working in collaboration to build a better, stronger Alberta.  

See next week’s Westwind Weekly News  for more Year in Review