The spotlight was on Norquay one day last week for the community’s annual Salute to Norquay.
Held September 27, the event included a barbecue held at Bell Park, a fundraising pie-and-coffee event at the NICE Centre and representatives of about a dozen community organizations telling listeners of a Yorkton radio station all about what they do.
A mobile unit from CJGX Radio of Yorkton broadcast live from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and each hour about four representatives of community groups were invited to talk about their groups, said Laura Dahl, an organizer of the event which was a project of the Norquay Chamber of Commerce.
Among the on-air speakers were: Mayor Don Tower; Jeremi Korpusik, who talked about the curling club; Ruth Demetrick, who talked about the Communiplex board and the 4-H club; Elena Gustafson, a representative of the Norquay School’s student representative council; Derek Howard, a member of the board of the NICE Centre; Jim Predinchuk, a member of the volunteer fire department; Kevin Ebert, who talked about the chamber of commerce; Delphine Howard, who promoted the Active Aging exercise group; Nicole Korpusik, who discussed skating and hockey and the Nighthawks female hockey team, and Donna Lulashnyk, who talked about the Norquay horticulture club and its activities.
“We’ve been having such an event each year for quite some time,” Dahl said, explaining that in previous years it had been a salute to farmers, but for the past three years, it had been changed to the Salute to Norquay.
The barbecue itself raised $1,300, Dahl said. Half that amount is to be donated to the Communplex, and the other half, to the group that has taken on the task of beautifying Norquay’s Main Street.
That’s the group that was responsible for creating the flowerbed on the old truck parked along the street, Dahl said. The focus is on Main Street and the committee is looking forward to receiving funding in order to purchase trees.
Also held during the day was a pie-and-coffee fundraiser at the NICE Centre, she said. Over $200 was raised to help the family of Chelsa Heskin of Preeceville, whose grandparents live in Norquay. Suffering seizures, Heskin, 18 months of age, is being taken to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for a consultation.