The Swan Valley Credit Union (SVCU) capped off last week with their annual Beef on a Bun fundraiser on Friday (July 8). Patrons could choose to drive through, walk up or sit down to enjoy their meal with a record setting 700 meals served - including 168 free meals to Prairie Mountain Health employees as thanks for their efforts toward our community’s health. Proceeds of $7,000 were split evenly between the Swan Valley Health Centre for a CT Scanner and the CMHA Enhanced Community Mobilization Program/Meet off Main.

The Swan River Royals played host to the Baseball Manitoba 15U (Zone 2) Provincial Championship last weekend (July 8-10) with games happening in the Swan River Legion Park. 

Two Dauphin minor baseball teams were competing in Baseball Manitoba Provincial Tournaments this past weekend.

In Winkler, above the local 13U team was in tough losing three straight games, 15-4 to the Winkler Giants, 19-5 to Glenboro and 14-4 to Russell.

In Swan River, Dauphin’s 15U side opened  the tournament with a 14-4 win over Niverville before dropping a 12-0 decision to Virden.

The team missed the playoff round after losing to Manitou 12-1.

Dauphin Farmer’s Market got a late start  to the season this past week, although participation by vendors was minimal, with only two booths set up.

Market co-ordinator Joyce Huska says although she was expecting more vendors for opening day, the weather as of late has market gardens well behind schedule. 

Anyone interested in joining the group as a vendor can contact Huska at 204-548-2244.

The market will run every Friday in the parking lot across from the Dauphin Active Living Centre until Sept. 25.

With the registration period for those seeking council seats in the Oct. 26 general municipal election opening last week, Kirk Dawson has been busy.

The Senior Election Official for the City of Dauphin and the Rural Municipality of Dauphin said inquiries from prospective candidates and requests for registration packages have been brisk.

“There is tons of interest. (In the City) We’ve already got five registered and none of those are incumbents,” Dawson said. “We’ve had a few other inquiries beyond that. So for the first week basically, it’s under a week actually, it’s been very active.”

At this point, registered candidates for city council include Joe Houston, Ted Rea, Michael Winter, Carter Luke and Sharon Riehl while the mayorality is being contested by David Bosiak and Kerri Riehl.

In the RM two candidates have registered with incumbent councillor Tom Gibbs entering the race for reeve while incumbent reeve Ron Ryz has registered to contest for a council seat.

“Again there are a couple of other packages out, where we’re waiting for the registrations,” Dawson added.

Prospective candidates will have an opportunity to get a better feel for the job of an elected official when the City and RM hold prospective candidates forums, at the RM of Dauphin Office, July 13, at 7 p.m. for rural candidates and at City Hall, July 14, at 7 p.m. for city candidates.

At each forum municipal staff will lay out what is involved in being a councillor in terms of duties and time commitments while the two governments have partnered to bring in former Association of Manitoba Municipalities executive director Joe Masi as a keynote speaker each night.

“He’s been around politics for a long time and he’s going to be coming out and talking about what makes good councils and what doesn’t,” Dawson said. “It’s for anybody that’s considering running, to give them a little better perspective on what it might look like if they did put their name forward.”

While he waits for other registration packages to be returned Dawson is busy preparing for polling day. Currently he is hiring voting officials and assistant voting officials. About 30 people will be needed to assist with the city election while another 10 are required to help out in the RM process.

“These are the people that work at the polls on election day and the advanced polls.” he said, adding he already has an extensive list of interested applicants.

Anyone interested in getting on that list can contact city hall at 204-622-3200 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

“We’ll probably start phoning next week. We have a list of the people in the past and I’ve got several other people that have mentioned their names, but I can always take more names. It’s sort of a first come, first serve thing,” Dawson said. “We’ll certainly get their names down and as they go down the list we’ll make sure we consider them.”

The nomination period for both head of council and council positions runs Sept. 14 to 20 with Sept. 21 as the withdrawal deadline.

Advance polling runs Oct. 3 to 21, and election day is Oct. 26, with polls open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

With the beautiful weather and the strong support from sponsors and the public, it is evident to Kevin Boese the return of the Gilbert Plains- Grandview Agricultural Society’s Fair and Rodeo was meant to be.

The society president said considering the event has not been held for two years, he could not be more pleased with the result.

“I think it went really, really well. The gates were busy. It was well attended, the stands were full and we had beautiful weather the entire time,” Boese said. “Everything went very smoothly.”

The two years off did present some minor challenges for organizers as some minor details went unaddressed.

“Considering that we haven’t had a fair for two years we had kind of forgotten how to run one, but in the end everything went very smoothly,” he said. “The beer gardens were full, the sun was hot and everybody had a great time.”

Participation in the rodeo was tremendous, Boese added, with more than 200 contestants registered, along with 18 chuckwagons and 13 chariots. That was a nice surprise for Boese, who worried the cost of travel might be too much for some competitors.

“With the high gas prices that we’ve been having I was a bit concerned about people driving and showing up,” he said. “But it didn’t seem too offensive. I noticed that a bunch of guys were carpooling together and they made it work.”

The results of the chuckwagon and chariot races is available on the Manitoba Professional Chuckwagon and Chariot Association website while rodeo results will be available soon on the Heartland Rodeo Association website, Boese said. On the fair side of the equation things went well with the trade show and craft show both proving to be popular stops. Also popular was the Show and Shine Car Show in the arena and the Manitoba Junior Hockey League champion Dauphin Kings booth which saw players displaying the Turnbull Cup and posing for pictures with fans.

Other fair highlights included the light horse events and kids activities centred around the petting zoo.

Boese said plans are to grow the fair side of weekend in the coming years.

“It was a great way to start out but it’ll definitely be better and maybe arranged a little bit better, so it’s very good for next year,” Boese said, adding the time away made organizers a little rusty, but things worked out in the end. “There was just little things that we maybe kind of forgot to do and just made it a little bit more difficult on the volunteers to try and kind of step up and do things on the go that we forgot. But we powered it through and it went very well.”

Like other events which have returned following the pandemic, securing volunteers was somewhat of a concern heading in, but the people involved made it work, Boese said.

“We definitely could have used a few more volunteers, But boy oh boy the ones that showed up, did they ever work hard to get stuff done,” he said adding dedication to, and support for the event is what makes it work “Everything just went very well thanks to all the volunteers and everybody that supported us and all the great sponsorships. We have a huge team of the sponsorships that we rely on throughout the Parkland and we just couldn’t do it without them either.”

That kind of support invigorates organizers, Boese said, and they are already back at work planning for next year.

“I already sent out a group message this morning about writing down ideas to get bigger and different for next year, so it’s fresh in our minds,” he said, adding the success this year shows organizers that people want to see the event continue.

“The stands were packed full both days. We had great attendance, zero complaints about any of that. It was very well attended.”

After their scheduled celebration was rained out the weekend before, Waywayseecappo First Nation held their second annual Gay Pride parade on June 29th just in time to end off Gay Pride month.

The brightly colored floats carrying residents of all ages, made their way through the business district in Waywayseecappo and onto Hwy 45 for a short loop back. 

The parade was followed by a barbeque and dance.

More in this week's Banner!

The Major Pratt School graduation class of 2022

Activities in the area included pancake breakfasts in Minitonas and Benito, baseball and slo-pitch, live music, a car show, a picnic-in-the-park at Swan River Legion Park, fireworks and plenty more fun for all.

The Swan Valley celebrated Canada Day on Friday (July 1), marking Canada`s 155th anniversary of Confederation.