Red Deer 1913 — 2013 Create Celebrate Commemorate
PLAYING IN THE MUD
SHAKE THE LAKE Action sports and music take over Sylvan Lake A3
Mud Hero A7
CENTRAL ALBERTA’S DAILY NEWSPAPER
BREAKING NEWS ONLINE AT WWW.REDDEERADVOCATE.COM
MONDAY, AUG. 12, 2013
Beaming with pride Photo by MYLES FISH/Advocate staff
Drag queen Farrah Moan points to the crowd during a performance at The Vat on Saturday night as part of Central Alberta Pride festivities held over the weekend. Performing with Farrah Moan are Ruby Hymen (left) and Empress Argintine Haley-Dior.
CENTRAL ALBERTA PRIDE CELEBRATION HAD VERY POSITIVE RESPONSE FROM COMMUNITY BY MYLES FISH ADVOCATE STAFF On a dry, sunny weekend in Red Deer, the rainbow came out in a big way. Downtown, on the river, in the park, at the bar, and in church the rainbow flag was out over the weekend, accompanied by those revelling in the first formal Pride celebration for Central Alberta. “People were ready for it. We just had to make it happen,” said Jessica C. Quick. Central Alberta Pride got underway Friday with a proclamation signing with Mayor Morris Flewwelling and special events downtown. On Saturday, 16 people took to the Red Deer River, heading from Fort Normandeau to the McKenzie Trails area on a ‘Fruit Float.’ That evening, local comedy duo The Dirrty Show, with help from Calgary-based drag king and queen troupes, put on a raucously fun sold-out show at The Vat. A multi-faith service at Cronquist House followed on Sunday morning, and a family barbecue
wrapped up the event in the afternoon. For something that was organized in three months, it was a smashing success, said Jeff Prior, who was part of the organizing committee. “We’ve had a great response from the community, especially as this was the first planned whole weekend event we didn’t know what to expect, and it’s turned out very very positive. The turnout has been wonderful.” While the event helped to bring the local gay community together, many straight families came out in support and there was a diversity in the ages of those who came out. While Central Alberta Pride members did march in the Westerner Days parade, Prior said there was not enough time this year to organize one of their own. But with the positive community response seen this year, he said 2014 can be much bigger. “That (the community response) gave us confidence. With the success of this weekend, certainly next year we plan to have a parade and to make it a full-week event as opposed to just a weekend,” explained Prior.
To begin the work moving forward and to establish a more permanent presence, the group is going to officially register as a society, and will hold an Annual General Meeting on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Cronquist House. A collection taken up at Sunday’s multi-faith service garnered $325 which will go towards Camp fYrefly, an Edmonton-based camp for LGBTQ youth. It is a camp Quick went to this summer where, despite her “heart of ice,” she ended up crying on the last day. “It really made a difference in a lot of people’s lives, I think,” she said. “They can go back to their families, go back to their friends and say ‘I’m proud of who I am and I’m ok with it.’” At the camp, there were a number of workshops, from one on human rights to one teaching how to ‘do drag.’ The camp was started in 2004 by two educators at the University of Alberta and now operates near Calgary and in Saskatchewan as well. mfish@reddeeradvocate.com
Program gets women to reach for the clouds BY MYLES FISH ADVOCATE STAFF Sara and Amy Vellieux got in some “serious training” by way of the Calaway Park roller coaster before they eschewed sleeping in to make the drive up from Calgary to the Innisfail Airport on Saturday for a different kind of flying through the air. The trip to Innisfail did not merely take the girls 200 feet up in the air as Sara first guessed though. Rather, the girls each had their turn looking down on Central Alberta from 2,000 feet up in the cockpit of a glider plane. “I looked in amazement at the world below,” explained a smiling Sara, 11, once back on the ground. “Being up there just gives you an entirely new aspect of life.” Though it was their first time soaring, the adventure had an instant impact on both girls. When asked if they would like to spend their whole lives flying if they could, the ‘Yes!’es were as emphatic as they were quick. Good thing too, because getting girls gung-ho about the sport of gliding and
PLEASE RECYCLE
flying in general was the goal at the airport on Saturday, where the second annual Chics Take Flight event was held. Flights in the Central Alberta Gliding Club’s glider planes were offered to all comers, with a special emphasis on getting females interested in flying. Valerie Deschamps first strapped into the cockpit of a glider five years ago because she wanted to spend more time with her husband, whose own interest in glider planes meant he was spending most of his weekends for six months of the year at the airport. It was a three-and-a-half hour flight in a two-seat training glider 18,500 feet up over the Rocky Mountains with clouds forming right around the aircraft that gave her the gliding bug, a bug that has taken her to the presidency of the Central Alberta Gliding Club. Gliding, or soaring, is done in aircraft designed to fly without an engine. The planes get in the air by winching or by being towed by an engined craft, and then pilots use their skill to study the clouds and find rising columns of air which can enable them to stay aloft for hours.
Please see CHICS on Page A2
WEATHER
INDEX
30% chance of thundershowers
Two sections Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 Business. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A8,A9 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A5 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B8-B10 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B11 Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B7 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1-B6
FORECAST ON A2
Photo by MYLES FISH/Advocate staff
Leo Deschamps (second from right) points out some cockpit details to Alyssa Blair before her first ever flight in a glider on Saturday at the Chics Take Flight event at the Innisfail Airport. Alyssa’s father Dave and brother Mark look on at left. CANADA
WORLD
BROTHERS REMEMBERED
PAIR SEEMED OUT OF PLACE
Two brothers who were tragically killed by a python while they slept at a friend’s home were remembered Saturday for how they touched other during their short lives A2
The horseback riders who encountered a missing California teen and her abductor said Sunday that “red flags” went up because the pair seemed out of place and ill-equipped fore the Idaho wilderness A6