106th Year - Week 33 PM 40007014
CELEB SIGHTINGS Charity hockey and golf dominate weekend of sports.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
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100th wraps up By Nolan Kelly Smithers/Interior News
SPORTS/A9
CADETS SAILING Three Smithers teens spent three weeks at sea.
COMMUNITY/A14
CENTENNIAL IN PICS Smithers was busy over Homecoming week.
COMMUNITY/A16 & 17
INSIDE
OUR TOWN A15 LETTERS A7 SPORTS A9 COMMUNITY A14 THREE RIVERS B1 CLASSIFIEDS B4
Smithers wrapped up homecoming week in style on Saturday afternoon, with a parade down Main Street and closing ceremonies complete with music, BBQ and a few speeches by the people who made the celebration possible. It was the final event of a week-long cornucopia that showcased Smithers’ culture and heritage from the past 100 years. The parade featured horse-drawn carriages, kids on bikes and a collection of old cars from every era over the past century. It began on Main Street and finished at Central Park, right before the closing ceremonies, where a few hundred Smithereens came out for one last homecoming week party. Centennial Committee member David McKenzie opened the ceremonies with a special presentation, honouring all of the hard work that committee chair Gladys Atrill has put in over the past twoplus years. “She is the greatest person in the world,” McKenzie said, of Atrill. See CENT on A3
MAIN STREET FIRE A member of the Smithers Volunteer Fire Department gestures in front of the burned out wreckage of Hometown Furniture early on the morning of Aug. 7. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Ryan Jensen photo
Fire levels Main St. business By Ryan Jensen Smithers/Interior News
Two Smithers businesses are picking up the pieces after an early morning fire destroyed their buildings on Aug. 7. The blaze tore through the 1000 block of Main Street at about 4 a.m, burning Hometown Furniture to the
ground and partially destroying Perry and Co. Law Office next door. Taryn Lowe, her daughter Megan and son Sebastian were on duty the night of the fire, as volunteer security guards, keeping an eye on the sound equipment at Bovill Square. The evening was otherwise quiet, Taryn said, the only
thing noteworthy was the aromatic smell of fresh bread baking coming across the street from Paul’s Bakery. “To stay awake, I had been walking up and down the street all night and looking at all the pictures in the windows of Perry and Co. and we also looked at which beds we wanted [at Hometown
Furniture],” she said. Megan said at first she thought noises coming from behind Hometown Furniture were coming from the nearby railway tracks. “We were watching the sunrise and I heard a popping sound, kind of like opening a champagne bottle,” she said. “It wasn’t a huge explosion or anything. A couple
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of seconds later, it happened again. That’s when I looked up and saw smoke over the building. I couldn’t see the fire but I could see the glow from the fire.” Megan yelled to her mother, called 911, then the family ran over to the Broadway Place shelter to alert the people there. See FIRE on A2
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