• Shyan Davis Callingbull Coon was sentenced for a July 2015 robbery in Sicamous, which was followed by a police chase that ended in gunshots outside a Canoe residence. Coon had spent more than two-and-a-half years in jail. The sentence for his crimes was six years. The end result was he would serve a further two years and nine days, followed by three years’ probation.
• An unusually large dust devil was caught on video as it swept down Shuswap Avenue in Chase on April 24. “It was very large. It probably went up to 80 or 90 feet we figure,” said Todd Finn, who witnessed the towering funnel of dust along with his son Cole and his friend Marvin Knorr.
• Salmon Arm council received a design concept for upgrading the city’s recreation facility. Included in the concept was a 300-seat performing arts space and another with a multi-purpose auditorium. Phase 1 would include a new pool with a fitness centre on a second level overlooking the pool at an estimated cost of $38.4 million. Phase 2, with an estimated price tag of $5.5 million, would convert the existing pool into a gymnasium and multi-purpose rooms. Phase 3 would be a renovation of the multi-purpose auditorium at an approximate cost of $1.5 million, or converting the multi-purpose auditorium into a dedicated performing arts space at an estimated cost of $5.5 million.
• Gratitude and love were two words that come up repeatedly when Paul Derkach spoke about his life in the past month. Derkach is recovering after having been shot in the leg on the morning of Sunday, April 14 in the Salmon Arm Church of Christ. Derkach was trying to help his close friend Gord Parmenter who was fatally shot minutes earlier.
• Brianne Fester gets a lot of satisfaction seeing the green shoots of vegetables and flowers rising from the soil of the approximately two-acre plot she farms with her friend Mitch Ward. They call their farm Radical Bloom and harvested their first crops last year.
• B.C.’s Minister of Children and Family Development, was at the Tiny Tykes n Tots Childcare Centre in Salmon Arm May 22 to announce $70,485 for 12 new spaces at that centre (opened in March 2019), and another seven spaces for Sicamous’ Krystal’s Creative Kidz— that community’s first licensed child-care facility which was expected to open in June.
• Salmon Arm council agreed on May 13 to take $100,000 from an affordable housing reserve to help fund affordable rental housing at 250 Fifth Avenue SW.
• The Secwepemc Elders Sacred Fire was lit to stop treated sewage (biosolids) from being trucked to the Chase area from Kamloops for use at the Turtle Valley bison ranch. Part of an ongoing protest that started after the B.C. Supreme Court granted Arrow Transportation a court injunction to address a previous public roadblock that prevented Arrow trucks from accessing the ranch.
• More than 100 martial artists were in Salmon Arm trying to earn a spot in the USA World Championship. On May 25, the Shuswap Open Martial Arts Tournament was hosted for the ninth consecutive year by Salmon Arm’s Provincial Martial Arts Karate and Kickboxing. The tournament brought competitors from Salmon Arm, Sicamous, Calgary, Lethbridge, Bieseker, Golden, Williams Lake, Kelowna and Kamloops.
