Charlotte Helston

SPALLUMCHEEN - The B.C. Coroners Service has confirmed the identity of a man who died in a motor vehicle incident in Spallumcheen, near Armstrong on May 30, 2013 when, for reasons unknown, his vehicle tumbled off a 30 foot embankment. The man is David Victor Genschorek, 59, from Armstrong. Genschorek was discovered deceased on the...

VERNON — Cops for Kids, along with the Armstrong Kin Club and Boston Pizza Vernon will be sending otherwise law abiding citizens to the slammer this Friday in the name of helping children. Suspects will be arrested by off-duty police and taken to Boston Pizza where they will be tried by the presiding judge and...

VERNON — The City of Vernon has hit the jackpot. Lake City Casino presented a $5,424 cheque to the city Monday towards fireworks for this year's Canada Day celebration. Vernon Mayor Rob Sawatzky said the occasion is a great local event supported through partners like Lake City Casino, the Department of Canadian Heritage, numerous other...

VERNON — In the words of RCMP spokesperson Gord Molendyk, getting a speeding ticket is not fun. Getting your vehicle impounded is even worse. Especially if you're from out of town. Molendyk says officers caught two vehicles speeding through a construction zone on Highway 97 last week. "(The) vehicles were impounded after the drivers were...

COLDSTREAM — It was dominoes after a Coldstream man rear-ended a Lumby woman on Highway 6 last Friday, eventually causing a messy four vehicle accident requiring the jaws of life. Around 3:40 p.m. May 31 a vehicle was east bound in the process of stopping legally in traffic and preparing to turn left from Hwy...

A wild animal has taken up residence in the unlikeliest of Vernon places: Walmart. Staff report a duck checked into a plant rack in the garden centre about three weeks ago. Shortly after, they noticed six eggs tucked beneath her feathers. The garden centre's department manager Shirley Curzon says the duck made a memorable first...

LUMBY — While impaired drivers cruise the roads in Lumby, cougars—the wild kind—have also been on the loose. On May 27 a rancher on Sigalet Road, north of Lumby, reported a cougar killing his sheep and subsequently being spotted just meters from his house.    RCMP say cougar sightings are on the rise in the...

In a moment of panic, a Lumby grandmother acted on instinct and jumped into a raging river behind her seven-year-old grandson. Lumby RCMP Cpl. Henry Proce says the boy was swept into the Shuswap River just below the falls May 26. "The boy was pulled from the swift water by his grandmother who was subsequently...

For a few moments, Vernon muralist Michelle Loughery felt a shred of the entrapment and helplessness that were a daily reality for her Ukrainian ancestors. Raised up ten feet, at eye level with the face she was painting, Loughery's forklift stopped working. "I'm stuck up there, and for that split second, I had this sense...

The body of a man presumed drowned in Shuswap Lake has been discovered. Salmon Arm RCMP and Search and Rescue gave up the search May 6, but just over a week later on May 13, 59-year-old John Poole, of Calgary, was found dead in the lake.   Poole travelled without his family to their cabin in...

TRIAL CONTINUES IN REGIONAL DISTRICT CONTAMINATED WATER CASE After a four month interlude, the Regional District of the North Okanagan is back in court facing multiple charges pertaining to contaminated well water that resulted in a do not drink advisory for thousands of Coldstream residents. Last summer, the District of Coldstream and Pan-O-Ramic Farms owner...

If you want to volunteer your time at a local Vernon school, you now have to pay to do so. The City of Vernon has upped the fee for getting a criminal record check, which is often mandatory for working with children. Non-profits and schools used to get the checks for free, but now the...

14-20 MINUTE RESPONSE TIME NOT GOOD ENOUGH Concerns of inadequate emergency protection have resurfaced in a Vernon community. The roughly 200-person community of Canadian Lakeview Estates, located at the end of Tronson Road has been asking the city for improved firefighting resources since 2010. They say emergency  response time is unreasonable at between 14-20 minutes,...

A Vernon housing development has grown to three storeys tall from two and a half storeys, despite strong opposition from some members of the neighbourhood.  It was a full house in council chambers Monday when residents were given a last chance to speak their minds about the height increase. The multi-family residential development proposed by...

Vernon is hoping to open doors in the community by handing out the key to free internet access. In a few months, free public Wi-Fi will be available in approximately 23 locations in the City of Vernon and across the North Okanagan. The signal will blanket various parks and recreation centers, as well as the...

The B.C. Coroners Service has confirmed the identities of two men who died following a boating incident at Kalamalka Lake on May 21, 2013. The two men were Fredrick Basil Marshall, aged 50, and Albert James Castanelli, aged 47. Both were from Vernon. Marshall and Castanelli were on a camping trip on the east side...

An out of town driver scrambled out the window of his car and fled after crashing and rolling his vehicle in a residential Vernon neighbourhood last night. People were out walking and cycling when the 1994 green Eagle Talon flipped at 43 Street and 24 Avenue around 7 p.m.  "Witnesses report he was swerving, then...

It was no simple robbery, according to the lawyers in 37-year-old Jay Gerald Rhem's trial.

MERCEDES FRASER KILLED RIDING BIKE The driver of a car that struck and killed a 17-year-old cyclist may have fallen asleep and made no attempt to brake or swerve to avoid hitting the girl, according to a B.C. Coroners report released this week. Coroner Patrick Duncan says Fraser died of blunt force trauma after she...

Vernon received about a millimeter of rain per hour yesterday. Preliminary data from Environment Canada says 24.5 mm of rain fell Wednesday and 15.8 on Tuesday. That's a lot considering the third and fourth highest days for precipitation were 1.2 mm and 0.3. Every other day in May has yielded zero. Total precipitation for the...

According to Vernon Search and Rescue, the men found dead in Kalamalka Lake Wednesday morning would only have lasted 45 minutes in the water before succumbing to hypothermia. Search manager Leigh Pearson suspects drowning was the primary cause of death, but says the cold lake temperature was likely a secondary factor. Eventually, a coroner's report...