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At the newspaper I worked at back in the old country we featured a weekly column called, 25 Years Ago, whereby we featured small tidbits and pictures that appeared in the same newspaper 25 years prior.

At the newspaper I worked at back in the old country we featured a weekly column called, 25 Years Ago, whereby we featured small tidbits and pictures that appeared in the same newspaper 25 years prior.

Not only did the column take a closer look at the community, but it also featured many former stories of the surrounding communities as well and was one of the reader’s favourite features.

However unlike most community newspapers – including this one, that paper maintained its same location for well over 50 years and included a small print shop and a massive, albeit antiquated printing press that was fired up for about 20 minutes a week to print off another week’s worth of editions.

On many occasions back then, we’d welcome children from the local elementary schools to take a tour of the press operations during production day including watching the big press peel off a few thousand issues, taking a tour of photographic dark room and generally checking our printing presses from another era.

It was always a bit of a chuckle to see the looks on the kid’s faces and the excitement they showed when we’d first fire it up. Being that it was so big, the entire building would shake and the thumping could be heard from a block away.

But alas, it was a time when many small-town newspapers were converting to colour pictures – especially on the front page, and because the old press simply could not be converted, it was mothballed and from that point on, the printing of that particular paper was done off-site.

But the big old behemoth is still in the building, in fact, it’s still in the exact same place where it was installed many decades ago.

The big advantage of that paper however, was the fact that its location never changed and all archives of past-printings were meticulously kept as a permanent record of the community and for their historical value because good, bad or otherwise, every community newspaper is a slice of history – even this one.

One other unique feature that the archives provided was to offer the public the opportunity to drop by and peruse through back issues to find a particular memorable event from the past such as their high school graduation picture, a particular award they may have won many years prior, or to just flip through the pages and see what life was like back then.

It never ceased to amaze me just how many people over the course of a year, would drop by and request a certain year or years that they’d like to have a closer look at which was provided to them in a large book-format whereby all the papers from that year would be bound together both to preserve the papers and to make it much easier for the public to find what they were looking for.

By now you’re probably wondering where exactly this is going, but wouldn’t it be great to be able to provide the same service to readers of the Rimbey Review?

Although we do have past editions here in the office, they only go back for a year or two and we have no idea where, or even if, previous years of the local newspaper are out there.

So the long and the short of it is does anyone know any information of where or if an extensive collection of past editions exists? How about some Rimbey Records?

Some pictures of the past would also make for a great addition to this paper as well.

Any information that any one could provide would be greatly appreciated and maybe with just a bit of luck, we’ll be able to feature the same historic-type column as well along with being able to give former residents or visitors a glimpse of Rimbey of yesteryear.

If you happen to know of any information that could help, please do not hesitate to call the office and we’ll try to get the ball rolling.

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On a totally unrelated note, it was quite the eye-opener to receive such a large amount of feedback from the recent editorials examining the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, most of which was very positive and encouraging.

In fact, the volume of comments, letters and visits to the office to chat about the issue was far greater than all previous editorials combined, and that includes the drag-strip donation, the mythical Alberta Advantage and even all that Saskatchewan Roughrider propaganda.

Congratulations to Mrs. Lorna Diggle for bringing up the debate in her recent letter, which just goes to show that folks don’t necessarily need to live in big cities with universities and all sorts of cultural outlets to be critical thinkers and that, based on the opinions of the readers, even the most ardent supporter of the United States and/or its government, can easily see through all the holes in that issue.

As was previously mentioned, volumes of this paper could be filled for many weeks with the amount of information currently available out there. It’s a bit like throwing gasoline on a fire, but the interest shown by you the readers, is certainly strong enough to warrant more ink on the topic in the weeks ahead – maybe even enough for another two-parter.

Look for that soon and in the meantime, keep those letters to the editor rolling in, as it should be obvious by now, that as long as they are relevant and close to our guidelines, they will be published. Even the critical ones.