Flashback: Nice excuse

Appeared in the Leduc Rep Friday, Jan. 19, 1912.

Speaker brings up interesting point

For the Feb. 27 edition of the Rep, I wrote a story about the Smart Youth Power Assembly by Norbert Georget, who I thought was a great speaker with lots of interesting information.

The main focus in his evening presentation for families was a parents role in their child using or not using drugs.

I agreed 100 per cent with him that parents play a major role in what a child does when they are with their friends.

I have never heard of a city or town that doesnt have a problem with drinking or drugs, so I think it would be interesting to find out how people think addiction start.

Go to the Rep's website and scroll down to our weekly poll. Our question for the week is What do you think is the biggest influence in a person's decision to use drugs or alcohol?

And make sure you check out the results in the March 6 edition of the Rep!

Weekly Roundup — Feb. 27

Here's what's making headlines in Leduc this week:

• New Sarepta is taking neighbourly behaviour to a whole new level by providing water to a nearby village that is facing a critical shortage.

• Georges Narbonne is bulking up in preparation for an epic bike ride to raise money for cancer research this summer.

• Thorsby teachers are counting down the days until construction starts on the village's new elementary school.

• Emergency service personnel in Leduc are envisioning a day when every public building in the city will have its own defibrillator in case someone suffers a sudden cardiac arrest.

• Parents, students learn how to recognize drug and alcohol addiction and talk about it constructively in this week's feature, by Laura Ring.

• A group of highly motivated students from Calmar is heading to Belize to work on development projects.

• In sports, the Riggers and Oil Kings both ended their seasons, but Leduc athletes shone at a major track and field competition in Idaho.

All this and more in print and on our website.

Channeling John

Canadian blues artist Mark Sterling brought his show of John Lennon covers, "Songs of John," to the Maclab Centre for the Performing Arts on Feb. 26. Sterling and his band took concertgoers all the way back to 1962, playing several Beatles hits as well as Lennon classics and B-sides. Sterling will reprise "Songs of John" this December in Sherwood Park. For more photos from the show, check out the March 6 issue of the Rep. (Alex Pope photo)

"Teenaged" audio test?

Here's an interesting item that's making the rounds on the Internet:

A company called Train Horns has developed a way of keeping teenagers from loitering around malls and shops by literally annoying them until they walk away. How?

By playing a constant buzzing sound at a frequency that can supposedly only be heard by people 25 and younger. I'm 23, so I took the "teenaged audio test." I could definitely hear the sound, and it is definitely annoying; but then, I'm not the loitering type anyway.

I'm curious to see if it really is only audible to young people, though. I suspect that anybody with relatively normal hearing levels can hear at this pitch. If you're willing to take the risk, listen to an audio clip here.

The Starting Lineup

Novice hockey players get ready for a shooting drill during a practice at the Alexandra Arena on Feb. 24. (Alex Pope photo)

Oh My Blog

I have thought long and hard about how I would start of my first blog.... And I came up with nothing.
My name is Laura Ring.
I have been working at the Rep full time since April 2008, after three rounds of being the student reporter.
I graduated from the SAIT Journalism program in May 2008, where I concentrated mostly on wing nights at our on-campus bar, getting in as much shopping as I could on my student loan and attending a Calgary Flames game with my fellow classmates whenever possible. Somewhere between all that I did learn about blogs and online journalism. What I learned about them or if I even went to that class, I am not too sure about.
So as Rep readers and my Editor learn more about our online features I can honestly say so am I.
Between growing up in Leduc and working at the paper I have seen the City of Leduc and its local newspaper go through many changes.
And now I get to take part in the Rep going online.
Not only do we have a new blog we all will be taking part in, but our website has new features to find out what the reader thinks and soon a Facebook group.
I hope all our readers take advantage of the new forms of communication, and tell us what exactly what you think. Whether it is an opinion about a certain article or a community event going on in the Leduc County, we want to know!
Not only will this Blog will give us the chance to let the readers know about events going on in the County earlier, but now we can give the inside scoop and tell all the entertaining and interesting moments behind the scenes, that didn't make it into the paper.

Welcome to our blog

The Rep is gettin' with the technological times and along with our new website, we are adding a blog, and coming soon... Facebook.

Unfortunately, it is my younger staff members who have to school me on this stuff. When I took journalism, we didn't not have courses on the Internet, blogging, etc. They did.

I have been editor here at the Rep since Sept. 2007. We are moving beyond what you see in print and are expanding into new avenues on the web. 

As I start to step into this blogging world, slowly, but surely, I will get with the times, be a bit more proactive, and maybe learn a thing or two.

Now if I could only learn how to hook up my DVD player....

Conquer cancer

Today I spoke with Georges Narbonne, "a 53-year-old rider on a 30-year-old bike" who is going to participate in Alberta's first Ride to Conquer Cancer from June 26-28.

Narbonne will bike a 200-kilometre route around Calgary with an expected 1,500 other riders to raise money for the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

He is training hard five days a week to get ready for the ride and is already starting to collect pledges from people in the community, but he needs help to reach his goal of $3,200.

"When I talk to people, everyone has a story about cancer, but lately I'm hearing more survivor stories than stories of people who died," he says, adding that with continuing support, new and better technologies for detecting and treating cancer can be developed.

To sponsor Narbonne in the Ride to Conquer Cancer or follow his training adventures, visit his page on the Conquer Cancer website.

If you are interested in joining Narbonne on the ride as part of a Leduc team, email leducconquercancer@live.com.

Read more about Narbonne's journey in the Feb. 27 issue of the Rep.

Introductions

Hey everyone,

My name is Alexandra, I'm a reporter for the Leduc Representative. I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself. Alberta is the fourth province I've lived in — I was born in Quebec, raised in Ontario, educated in New Brunswick, and am now enjoying launching my media career in the wild, wild west.

I've worked in media in one form or another for about five years now. I was arts and entertainment editor of The Brunswickan, the student paper at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. While finishing my Master's degree at the University of Western Ontario, I enjoyed a brief stint as co-host of a weekly news-talk radio show and followed that up with a mind-blowing two weeks as a reporter for CBC radio in Fredericton. I also completed two television internships, one as a writer for The Weather Network and the other as the host of a mini documentary series on immigrants and refugees in New Brunswick for Rogers Television, entitled Crossing Borders.

Prior to coming to Alberta, I spent six amazing months in the Dominican Republic, working for an online English publication called Dominican Today.

I am very excited about the role the internet can play in bringing communities together and hope that you will find this blog informative, interesting, and above all representative of what matters to Leduc.

Welcome to the RepBlog!

There's been a lot of talk in the news lately about newspapers dying out and the Internet taking over as the public's primary source for news, information, entertainment and networking.

While it might take a while for that to happen, there's no denying that the Internet has become a huge part of many people's lives and work — including ours as reporters for the Leduc Representative.

Being a weekly newspaper means we have a lot of time to make sure our stories contain the most up-to-date and accurate information at the time they go to print, but we're also limited in the sense that something huge might happen on a Tuesday that everyone is talking about, but our story about it won't appear for three days.

That's why the Internet is a powerful tool — it enables us to publish what we know in a more timely fashion. In a nutshell, that's what this blog is all about: a kind of daily journal about what we're working on, who we're talking to, and also what we think about the stories that are making news right now. It's also a place where you can let us know what's going on (because we can't be everywhere at once, unfortunately) and what you think about it.

How does it work?

Chances are, if you've surfed the Internet in the last few years, you've viewed at least one blog. Maybe you follow a couple of blogs, or have even written one yourself. (If the latter is the case, the rest of this post probably won't be that interesting to you. Catch you on the flip side.)

If not, here's a basic primer on what to expect and how to use this blog:

Browsing posts

Articles are posted in descending order on the page from most recent to oldest, so scroll down for posts you may have missed. If you know approximately when an older article appeared, you can search for it in our monthly archives on the navigation menu on the right:

Another way to search for articles is by topic. All our posts are labeled according to what topics or themes they touch on, for example "sports" or "theatre." An article's labels will appear below it:


If you click on a label, a list of all posts with that label will appear.

Commenting

One of our major reasons for starting this blog is because we want to hear more of what our readers have to say about what's happening in our community, our country, and the world at large. Sometimes we get letters to the editor, but the fact that the internet allows people to respond to an article almost instantaneously makes it much easier to start a dialogue.

We will be moderating all comments on this blog and deleting any comments that use offensive or discriminatory language or contain personal attacks. Other than that, pretty much anything goes; just use your judgment.

Tips/ideas

We are always looking for story ideas. The phone is still the best way to get in touch with us during our office hours, but we also welcome emails and blog comments. If you've got an event going on that you'd like us to cover or have heard about something you want us to look into further, let us know!