The week that was: Highs and lows, winds of change, winds of destruction and tragedy

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on October 20, 2017.

The winds of change surged through Medicine Hat this week.

An election campaign that many people felt was lacking in initiative, announcements and debates ended up being a nail-biting evening for some of the candidates when the results started rolling in Monday night.

No matter what you thought of the election campaign we certainly had many candidates to choose from. No matter what your opinions were of the candidates and whether or not you voted they should be commended for running. They gave all voters options.

It takes a lot of energy and expense to launch a campaign and sustain that level of involvement throughout the election. If it was easy then no doubt more people would be jumping in. It is especially hard when you have expended all that energy only to fall short when it came to the total number of votes required to be elected.

In many cases candidates made a strong impression on Hatters. Their name recognition will continue in the community and perhaps these candidates will try again next election.

After the election we know this: There are plenty of people who feel passionately about our community. Perhaps their energy and ideas can be harnessed to build a better Medicine Hat even though they are not on council. Even if they do not have an opportunity to contribute in a formal way all it takes is one person to make a difference. There are many opportunities to observe a need and address that need.

Within 24 hours the change on council had taken a back seat to the windstorm that made short work of many mature trees in our community. The mighty blue spruce trees that looked beautiful and tall and strong simple keeled over, pulling their roots out of the ground. They were no match for the wind.

While we were dealing with power outages and trees falling over it was much more dangerous for the communities dealing with grass fires. Broadcasts were constantly interrupted with alerts for yet another community that needed to evacuate on Tuesday evening.

There was tremendous support from so many volunteers and businesses to deal with the situation.

We are unlikely to ever forget the volunteer fire fighter and prominent rancher, James Hargrave, who died after helping to address the fire near Hilda and Burstall.

Fortunately winds of change come and go but we should never forget the people who play key roles sometimes expending enormous energy to see change, or fight a fire to save lives, ranches, farms and homes. These are the people who deserve our gratitude this week.

(Gillian Slade is a News reporter. To comment on this and other editorials, go to https://www.medicinehatnews.com/opinions or call her at 403-528-8635.)

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