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Lumby
Inquest hears of chaos at mill after Lumby teen found caught in conveyor belt
VERNON - A coroner’s inquest into the death of a Lumby teen began Monday with tearful testimony from the mill worker’s mother, who described him as kind, determined and full of life. Bradley Haslam, 18, died June 15 after getting caught in a conveyer belt at Tolko’s planer mill in Lavington. The Charles Bloom Secondary...
Demobilization of Lumby flood response taking months
VERNON - Cleaning up the aftermath of the Okanagan’s largest flood protection response doesn’t happen overnight, it takes months. North Okanagan Emergency Management crews are still demobilizing gabion baskets—bags filled with gravel and used for dyking—from Lumby. The gabions were deployed at the beginning of May as part of Operation Duteau, a partnership with the...
Lumby officer crashes police vehicle
CHERRYVILLE - A Lumby RCMP officer is probably feeling lucky after he survived driving his squad vehicle off the road, rolling it and hitting a tree Sunday night. The officer was on his way to investigate a report of a possible impaired driver when the accident happened at about 10:30 p.m Sept. 28. He was...
If you see this actor around the North Okanagan, be sure to call him ‘sir’
VERNON - The stars are aligning for Hollywood’s return to the North Okanagan. Okanagan film commissioner Jon Summerland says it’s looking like the Hollywood movie Go With Me, based on a best-selling book, will be filmed in the region. Oscar winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins has already signed on to star in the thriller. “We’ve...
Baby, three others taken to hospital after rollover near Vernon
VERNON – The hunt is on for the driver of a car who may have caused a rollover on Highway 6 between Vernon and Lumby Friday afternoon. Four people, including an infant, were taken to Vernon Jubilee Hospital with minor injuries after the car they were in ended up on its roof in the ditch,...
Return to the wild: Okanagan bear doesn’t look back
VERNON - From the top of a power pole, to a rehabilitation shelter, Polaris the black bear has had quite a journey in her young life, and now she’ll be continuing her adventures in the wild. The year-and-a-half old black bear found perched on a power pole in Lumby last fall was taken in by...
Nakusp woman killed in Highway 6 crash
VERNON - Police believe a Nakusp woman was speeding when her SUV rolled into the ditch on Highway 6. The 52-year-old Nakusp woman died at the scene while a 15-year-old girl believed to be her daughter was moved to Vernon Jubilee Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The accident happened Sunday about 9 a.m. roughly 41...
Body recovered from truck submerged since June
VERNON – After waiting a month and a half for the Shuswap River to calm the South East district dive team recovered the body of a man whose truck plunged into the water. The 1994 Ford truck sank in the river on the evening of June 14. A witness said the driver veered off the...
Divers to scour river for sunken truck and missing person
VERNON - Dive teams will attempt to recover a vehicle that plunged into the Shuswap River last month. A search for the vehicle and its registered owner — a Lumby man who is declared missing — was put off mid-June because the water was too deep and too fast for the RCMP dive team to...
Lumby fire chief requests residents display addresses following mobile home blaze
LUMBY - Lumby firefighters ran into a snag Saturday responding to a report of a house fire; none of the properties had address signs. Without house numbers on rural Albers Road, off Mabel Lake Road in Lumby, crews had a harder time finding their destination. Lumby fire chief Tony Clayton says it only cost them...
New dates for inquest into Lumby teen’s death
VERNON – The inquest into the death of a Lumby teen in an industrial accident at the Lavington planer mill over a year ago will be held this fall. The B.C. Coroners Service had originally planned to hold the inquest into Bradley Haslam’s death this past spring, but new information forced the coroners service to...
Sugar Lake wildfire triples in size
VERNON - A wildfire that was an estimated 33 hectares in size over the weekend tripled overnight. Fire information officer Melissa Klassen says the lightning-caused fire raging just north of Sugar Lake is now burning 107 hectares of timber. While the fire grew Sunday night, Klassen says the latest figure is the most accurate because...
UPDATE: Forest fire near Sugar Lake growing
LUMBY – A forest fire is burning just north of Sugar Lake has grown from 4 to 33 hectares but isn’t a threat to any communities or structures. Fire information officer Melissa Klassen says the blaze north west of Lumby is burning in heavy spruce. Two tanker groups from the air base in Kamloops dropped...
Vernon and area communities to spend latest provincial grants as needed
VERNON - Vernon and surrounding towns are getting a million bucks from the province to put towards some essential community services and each muncipality gets to decide how to spend it. The $1 million bump will be divided between Vernon, Lumby, Enderby and the North Okanagan Regional District and is part of almost $74 million...
Canada Day water skiing mishap claims Coldstream woman’s life
LUMBY – A 46-year-old Coldstream woman is dead after a water skiing accident on Sugar Lake on Canada Day. Lumby RCMP say they received a report at about 6:15 p.m. on July 1 about an unconscious woman. The victim had been water skiing with her husband driving the boat and family members acting as spotters....
Organized thieves busy in Lumby and Cherryville
LUMBY – Thieves in Lumby and Cherryville are targeting auto parts and ATV’s. RCMP have been busy over the past few weeks investigating a number of stolen ATV’s. The latest were a pair of brand new Polaris Razors were taken from a garage on Birch Road in Lumby on June 8. “These thefts are organized...
Grow-op at notorious Lumby home shut down by RCMP
LUMBY – A child is in the care of social services after being found during a raid on a marijuana grow operation in Lumby. RCMP raided two homes in the 2000-block of Mountainview Avenue on June 23. Police also executed a search warrant at the first home in 2011 and found a grow-op at that...
Lumby shooter charged with murder
LUMBY – Murder charges have been laid against the man suspected of shooting a Vernon teacher to death before turning the gun on himself in a rural part of Lumby last week. Howard Everett of Lumby is still in hospital after the body of a 51-year-old woman was found at a home in the 300...
Search for submerged truck and possible occupants postponed due to safety concerns
VERNON - It could be weeks before dive teams can safely search for a submerged truck and the missing person who might be inside it. RCMP spokesperson Gord Molendyk says it’s too dangerous to send divers into fast-moving Shuswap River where a truck reportedly plunged into it. A witness told police the truck went off...
Medicinal marijuana company to set roots in Lumby
LUMBY - The Village of Lumby is open for a once outlawed business and at least one company is highly interested. True Leaf Medicine Inc., chaired by former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt, is waiting for full approval from Health Canada to open a marijuana production facility in Lumby. The municipality recently passed legislation allowing medical...
Former Lumby councillor seeks federal role
VERNON - A former Lumby councillor is vying for the Conservative nomination in the next federal election. Janet Green, who sat on Lumby council from 2009-11, will officially announce her candidacy at a press conference Tuesday at 11 a.m. at the Village Green Hotel. Colin Mayes, three-term MP for the Okanagan-Shuswap, will not be seeking...
Two Lumby teens arrested in connection with stolen truck
VERNON – RCMP have charged two men in connection with a stolen Dodge pickup truck from Lumby. The truck was reported stolen from the Lumby arena parking lot on May 29. Police received two separate reports of the truck, sighted at a Vernon Tim Horton’s and of a suspicious vehicle of the same make and model...
Former B.C. premier to chair Lumby-based marijuana facility
LUMBY - A company chaired by a former B.C. premier has applied to grow and distribute medical marijuana from a facility in Lumby. True Leaf Medicine Inc. has submitted an application to Health Canada to operate the facility under the federal government’s new rules for the system, which came into effect April 1. Mike Harcourt,...
Sweet gesture helped firefighters tackle weekend blaze
LUMBY - A long night of firefighting became a little easier through the generosity of a Lumby restauranteur. Around a dozen members of the Lumby volunteer fire department were called to Shuswap Avenue around 10 p.m. Sunday to battle a fire in a machine shop. It was well after most shops closed, and the firefighters...