Click on photos to enlarge;New trophies were provided for competition by school children marching to Tiny and Tay fair in Midland Friday. Penetang Protestant Public School won the urban class and S.S. 21, Tiny, (MacDonald’s School) won the rural division. Left to right are fair director Nels Jones, Clarence Cloke, principal of the Penetang school, Mrs. Viola Martin, S.S. No. 21 Tiny, and Arthur Gardiner, fair president.

The always popular Ferris wheel was again a favourite for children attending children’s day at the Midland Fall Fair. 

Pupils of S.S. 21 Tiny (MacDonald’s School) won the marching contest for rural schools held in connection with children’s day at the Tiny Tay fall fair. S.S. 21 serves a large area between Wyebridge and Wyevale. 

Ellsworth Collins of Wyebridge copped top honors in the bacon carcass competition at Midland fair. He is pictured here with the prize-winning carcasses, each of which won an ‘A’ grading in the outstanding exhibit. 

Ellsworth Collins of Wyebridge won the $12 prize for the best exhibit in the bacon carcass competition at Midland Fall Fair Saturday. All other winners in the competition were Grade A carcasses, and judge Les Allan of the Department of Agriculture in Barrie said the display was the best ever shown here. Purpose of the competition is to encourage the production of more and leaner bacon type hogs acceptable to the Canadian consumer. The Tiny and Tay Agricultural Society, assisted by the provincial Department of Agriculture and First Co-Operative Packers, Barrie, offer the competition to any bona fide hog producer. Winner of the $10 second prize was John Rumble of Hillsdale, and C. M. Carscadden of Stroud copped the third prize of $8. Winners of $5 prizes were Earl Jones, Midland R.R. 1; Roy Edwards, Vasey; Harry Slessor, Hawkestone; Mrs. Tom Blair, Wyebridge; G. D. Sproule, Stroud; Charles D’Aoust, Perkinsfield; and Irwin Gardiner, Wyebridge.

First such club formed in Ontario, Midland 4-H Strawberry Club sponsored this exhibit at Tiny and Tay fair in Midland last week. Pretty Barbara Shaw of Wyebridge is seen above with some of the plants on display. The club had 15 members in its first year. 

Champions all are these three boys and one girl, members of Vasey 4-H calf club. They were present with their prize year-old calves at Tiny Tay Fair in Midland Friday. Left to right are Blaine Edwards, reserve champion, beef calves; Pauline Robinson, reserve champion dairy calves; Bob Rawson, grand champion dairy and Lloyd Curry, grand champion beef. 

Not much escaped the attention of Eden Armstrong of Armitage, heavy horse judge at the Midland Fall Fair. With him is Everett Marshall of Midland, chairman of the heavy horse competition. 

“Why do they do it?”, muses Mrs. Charles Shaw, as she looks over a collection of hats, sweaters, sunglasses and other articles left in her Big Red Rooster restaurant at Elmvale during the summer. One of the oddest articles was a bag full of bingo chips! 

• Midland Free Press headline of Wednesday, September 17, 1958; Ask Area Municipalities Back $300,000 Addition. Municipalities supporting the Midland-Penetang District High School are being asked this week to approve a 14-room, $300,000. Addition to the million dollar structure on Hugel Ave. Opened only two years ago, the modern district high school is already feeling the strain of overcrowding. Eight hundred and twenty-nine students are now registered.
• The question of supporting the proposed addition to Midland-Penetang District High School went before the first municipal council Monday night — and met its first public opposition. At a meeting in Perkinsfield, Tiny Township Deputy-reeve Eldege Quesnelle moved support of the $512,000 (gross cost before grants) undertaking. But he failed to find a seconder, and the motion failed to come to a vote. Councillors Normand Marchand and Etienne Marchildon were most vocal in their opposition to the proposal. Mr. Marchand said he felt Penetang should have kept its own high school in the first place, instead of entering into the district school. Another factor to be considered, he said, was the rumor that a continuation school for Penetang is under consideration. Mr. Marchildon queried the accuracy of the prediction of the number of students expected in the future. “When they built the school, they told us it would be okay for 10 years. Here it’s been only two years and they want an addition. How do we know those smart guys aren’t going to be wrong again?” he queried. The councilor cited Elmvale District High School, where he said the number of future students had been overestimated, causing rooms to lie idle.
• County Herald headline of Friday, September 19, 1958; Town Officials Explore New Slum Clearance Plan. Midland, municipal officials will explore the possibility of obtaining provincial aid for slum clearance in the town under the new policy set down by Premier Leslie M. Frost Wednesday. The Ontario premier announced that the provincial government would contribute 25 percent toward the cost to municipalities of acquiring land before redevelopment of depressed areas. “We now feel it is a reasonable area for us to enter because of the importance of public housing enterprises,” said Premier Frost. The change in government thinking means that with the federal contribution of 50 percent a municipality will pay only 25 percent of the cost of land acquisition. Until now the province’s only contribution to housing developments has been on the basis of so much per unit for buildings erected, it was stated.
• Midland Curling Club can proceed with plans to commence construction of an addition to the curling rink this fall. At a meeting Monday, Sept. 8, Midland council gave its approval to a recommendation from the parks commission that the club be granted a 25-year lease on the building. Under the new lease, the club is to maintain the interior and exterior of the existing building and the addition it hopes to complete this fall. As well the club is to pay an annual rent of $500, and the insurance premium on the addition. The parks commission agreed to pay the insurance premium on the existing building and to maintain the wooden floor installed each spring when the ice is removed from the rink, as the club uses the building roughly about six months a year. The current lease expires in 1962. Alderman Douglas Haig, who represented the curlers and refrained from voting on the issue, said the agreement will bring a net profit to the municipality. He said the club was anxious to have a decision on the lease so it could proceed with the construction of the addition and have it completed by the start of the curling season. He said the club directors were opposed to purchasing the building, erected in 1919 through funds provided by the town, Tiny and Tay Agricultural Society and citizens because they felt council would be setting a dangerous precedent. Since the building’s completion 39 years ago, various leasing arrangements had been made with the club and in the original lease the club was to have the rink without any charge whatsoever, he said. The club, a non-profit organization, has, “well fulfilled its pledges” and is one of few clubs in Ontario that has provided these facilities at so low a cost to members, Mr. Haig said. Since the one-storey brick addition entails a considerable expenditure; club directors wanted a secure lease. He assured council that ownership of the addition, designed to complement the present building, would be vested in the town.
• COLDWATER—Wilcox Sheppard, associate professor of physiology, University of Tennessee School of Medicine, Memphis, Tennessee, and his wife are visiting his parents, Mr. and Mrs. R. S. Sheppard, Reinbird Street, Coldwater. Professor Sheppard teaches two physiology courses each year, to approximately 250 medical students and 125 dental students. Coldwater residents, in general, take pride in the fact that a student who attended public and secondary schools in this village has advanced to the point in his professional field where his findings have received international recognition. He has been the co-author of about 100 publications and contributed a chapter in a recently issued compendium prepared by the Atomic Energy Commission of the United States, for use at the second Geneva Conference, meeting in Geneva on the peaceful uses of atomic energy.
• Ten Years Ago This Week – 1948 – Unless drastic cuts in consumption were effected immediately, Midland consumers were to have daily power cut-offs. The situation was created by a general power shortage throughout Ontario. Hydro officials in Barrie told the Midland utilities commission that a further 10 percent cut from the town’s previous low quota would be made. * * * Farmers in the Barrie district had won the first round in their battle to keep the municipality from using the town square for other purposes than a farmer’s market. An injunction restraining the municipality from putting the square to other use was upheld by an Ontario Supreme Court justice. * * * Cold, cloudy weather plagued both Tiny and Tay Agricultural Society’s fall fair and the Christian Island Indian fair. * * * George Doucett, minister of highways, officially opened the new North River bridge. The structure replaced one destroyed in 1947 by an over-loaded vehicle. * * * St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Coldwater, was preparing to celebrate its 50^th anniversary. First minutes of a congregational meeting were dated June 24, 1898. Rev. Geo. Arnold presided over the meeting and secretary was Dr. J. A. Harvie. * * * Two Penetang fishermen Tommy Thompson and Godfrey Trilsbeck, spotted the 20-foot white oak rudder of a ship while fishing near Minnicog. They towed it behind their 28-foot launch to Penetang. It was believed to be the rudder of the three-masted schooner J. C. Woodruff, which ran aground and was burned on Whale Back Shoal more than 50 years previously.
• As an escape from the civic reception, handshaking and other rigors (often boring in the extreme) of a Royal tour, the Georgian Bay Development Association is investigating the possibility of extending an invitation to Queen Elizabeth II to tour the Georgian Bay by boat during her Canadian tour next summer. The decision to issue the invitation was made at a recent meeting of the directors of the GBDA. One of several such associations formed in Ontario in recent years, the Georgian Bay Association is also one of the largest in terms of area. It embraces 55 member municipalities from the Counties of Bruce, Dufferin, Grey and Simcoe and the Districts of Muskoka and Parry Sound. Its sphere of influence includes any subject for the advancement of the area in the fields of industry, tourism, and agriculture. “We feel that a cruise in Georgian Bay Waters would be a relaxation and inspiration to the Royal Family after so many arduous civic receptions in the southern part of the province,” said Neville Keefe, general manager of the association. Mr. Keefe said it “would be a shame if the royal yacht, visiting Canada’s inland lakes for the first time, “should not be routed to the best waters we have to display the beauties of her Canadian Dominions.”
• Jerome Gignac, president of Penetang General Hospital Board, said this week the board is somewhat concerned about one group of people in particular, so far as the new hospital insurance scheme is concerned. “We believe that many recipients of old age pensions do not realize they will not be automatically covered under the insurance scheme,” he said. According to the chairman, people of 70 years and over who are receiving the pension must pass a means test before they will be automatically covered. Anyone who cannot pass the test must enroll in the standard way. Those persons under 70 receiving old age assistance, since they must pass the means test to receive the pension, will be covered under the scheme without any further application on their own part, he said.
• A 9,000 square foot warehouse north-west of the existing Midland Footwear plant on Elizabeth Street E. is to be started this week.
• Members of Midland Public Schools Board, at their first fall meeting, last- Friday night, evidenced a desire to keep a firm hand and a watchful eye on matters under their control. Noting an increase of four teachers in the number wishing to direct extra-curricular sports (for which extra pay is given); they decided 12 directors would be too much for the present budget. Further, they will ask for a monthly report on sports activities from the chief director; containing the proposed program, expenditures and a breakdown of what each teacher is doing.
• Eldon Fallis, 24, of Toronto, formerly of Midland area, died in St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, yesterday two hours after he was hit on the head by a brick that fell from the 12th floor of a building under construction at Bay and Temperance Streets. Mr. Fallis, a truck driver, had made a delivery in the area and was putting a tarpaulin over the back of the truck when the brick fell.
• Father of four children, Gordon Perryman, 40, was killed Wednesday morning in a fall from the roof of a building under construction on the southern outskirts of Coldwater. A carpenter employed in building a small industry on the east side of Highway 12 for Dennis Athron of Waubaushene, Mr. Perryman had been working on the roof and dropped 13 feet to the ground when a facing board on which his foot was braced, gave way. He struck his head and died instantly. (Even our most basic safety procedures of today would have prevented both of these accidents.)
• You think you have troubles? Shed a tear for this chap, “Mr. X”, who underwent the following harrowing experience during the men’s field day at Midland Golf and Country Club Sunday. Mr. X wasn’t doing too badly until he came to the long 5th hole. There’s an out-of-bounds fence along the right side of the fairway and Mr. X drove four balls over it before he got off the tee. That meant ten shots before he even got started. More trouble lay ahead. Enroute to the green Mr. X put another ball over the fence and lost still another. By the time he finally holed out he had used up 19 strokes, 12 of them on penalties! And you think you have troubles!
• Two Great Lakes shipping companies have signed a new agreement with the Seafarers International Union for a five percent wage increase retroactive to June this year, with an additional five percent effective next season. The agreement was signed Wednesday by Hal C. Banks, Canadian SIU head, and officials of Upper Lakes and St. Lawrence Transportation Company and N. M. Paterson and Sons Limited. Crew members will also get time-and-a-half for Sunday work.
• Planning board member Cecil Moreton of Midland has suggested that the town should give serious consideration to acquiring land for a municipal parking lot. Mr. Moreton contends there is land available in the central part of the municipality which is ideally situated. It is readily accessible, could provide space for a substantial number of cars, is close to the main business section and, he feels, could be obtained at a fairly reasonable price.
• Editorial – In a little more than a week’s time, the Free Press will observe the 76th anniversary of its founding, for it was on Sept 27, 1882, that the first issue of the Midland Free Press was published by Peter J. Ryan. Actually, its roots go deeper than that for Mr. Ryan purchased The Argosy that year and changed the paper’s name to the Free Press. The Argosy, published by Reeve Lorenzo McFarlane, was founded in 1875. The Penetanguishene Herald, which was incorporated with this newspaper in 1937, was established by the late A. C. Osborne in 1876. It would be interesting to know how many North Simcoe citizens will be celebrating their 76th birthday on or about the same day as this newspaper.