Noteworthy: Stampede only made possible by volunteers

By Bryuce Penton on July 23, 2025.

It’s a staggering number. The Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede said it utilizes the efforts of 800 volunteers to make the annual summer extravaganza such a success.

Action starts today and runs through Sunday.

The event’s website lists 27 different committees where volunteers are needed, which averages out to around 30 each. Some use more, some need fewer. Committees organizing the Queen competition, the night shows, the rodeo and kiddies day are just four of the areas where volunteers are required.

The midway opens Wednesday, while the annual parade will wind through downtown streets Thursday morning. The night show entertainment, again, is top notch, with country stars Doc Walker and Rent to Own taking to the stage Wednesday; Tim and the Glory Boys on Thursday; and Crash Test Dummies with Wide Mouth Mason headlining on Saturday.

Canada’s military personnel will be honoured Thursday, and the always entertaining professional rodeo takes the spotlight Thursday at 5 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 1:30 p.m. Kiddies Day is Friday, with free admission to the grounds for those 12 and under.

Whatever your favourite event at the Exhibition and Stampede, you’ll be sure to bump into a volunteer or two . or 15. It wouldn’t hurt to give them a hearty thank you.

â€¢ There’s no guarantee Hatters will know the results of the Oct. 20 municipal election by the end of the day on Oct. 20.

An Alberta law passed last October calls for elimination of the electronic tabulators formerly used to count the ballots. All ballots will now be counted by hand. And that means possible delays.

How it will play out in Medicine Hat is hard to tell.

The city’s chief electoral officer Andres Cardona says his office is hiring 380 workers to run the election, the “lion’s share” to handle the counting after voting has ended for the day. Those people don’t come cheap. Cardona, who said the number of polling locations is being reduced to help save some money, estimates a municipal election bill to reach $400,000 – a city expense, he said. That’s about twice what was spent in 2017, when the electronic tabulation was in effect. The 2021 election was an anomaly due to Covid-19, when the city used a few truckloads of Lysol to protect its citizens and costs skyrocketed..

Edmonton city clerk Aileen Giesbrecht said her city will be hiring between 4,000 and 5,000 people to run the election, which will include hours and hours of painstakingly hand-counting of ballots. She said some preliminary results will be available that night, and most unofficial results by Tuesday, but the official results won’t be known until three days later.

Cardona said the hand-counting will be more difficult in Medicine Hat because of the at-large election of councillors. In Calgary, for instance, the various wards declare only one winner each. Medicine Hat elects eight. Plus the mayor. Plus seven trustees on the public school board and five on the Catholic board. That’s a lot of counting.

If you’ve voted in other elections in the last few years and your voting list information hasn’t changed, you’re good to go on Oct. 20. If, however, you are a new voter, or have recently moved, you may have to go online and register to vote by Aug. 15. If you don’t register, a valid ID can still be the only verification you need to exercise your right to vote.

Use of the electronic equipment was not necessarily a problem, said a provincial government official. But hand-counting the ballots offers more in the way of public confidence in legality and accuracy of the vote, he said.

Short snappers: Headline in the Beaverton.com: “Canada halts export of wildfire smoke, keeps it for domestic consumption.” â€¦ What a dope: The President of the United States said he wants Cleveland’s baseball team and Washington’s football team to change their names back to Indians and Redskins. Next up: The horse and buggy to replace motorized vehicles? Bully Boy said he would halt a proposed new stadium deal for Washington unless the franchise went back to the ‘Redskins’â€¦ Vancouver comedy writer Torben Rolfsen took a shot at Medicine Hat recently in his weekly Sport Market radio show: He poked our city with a sarcastic comment about Gavin McKenna’s NCAA defection: “It had to be (a lot of money) to move from Medicine Hat to the cultural backwater of State College, PA.”â€¦ Mark the date: Aug. 26 is when when Starbucks will resurrect the Pumpkin Spice Latte. So you know fall is on the way.