Diane Rogers

Bev McKay says putting her mother in a nursing home was the worst experience of her life. It was more than the normal guilt and grieving over a parent’s loss of independence. It was the lack of quality care in the rural institution, said McKay, whose mother died in 1998 after four years in the […] Read more

Taking services to rural districts would help farm women deal with the stress that is causing them health problems. A study done by two University of Regina researchers made several suggestions: Mobile health services such as the mammogram van. More use of nurse practitioners. Local centres to supply services such as health, counseling, child care, […] Read more

A woman who worked on the farm women’s roles study says the federal government should act on the report. Lil Sabiston, a farmer from Kelliher, Sask., said some of the trade agreements Ottawa has signed emphasize farm families, yet the government “won’t take responsibility for it.” Federal farm aid programs worsen the problem because “they’re […] Read more

COUTTS, Alta. – When the RCMP came to investigate Colleen Bianchi’s run-over mailbox, she sent her son Dusten to meet them. Even the police can get lost looking for a particular spot on the gravel roads that wind through the steep coulees and around the hills of this borderland country. Airborne dust tracks a vehicle […] Read more

MAYMONT, Sask. – Lorrie Bett was awake at 5 a.m. May 4 and had dragged her sisters out of bed so she could hit the road by 6:30. She is in the first month of a walk to raise awareness and money for Parkinson’s disease. Bett, who has the disease, plans an 1,880 kilometre walk […] Read more

BUFFALO, Alta. – Alberta’s dry spring isn’t bothering the Jaques family. Arthur and Heather are pumping water from the nearby Red Deer River into a lake that sits in front of their unfinished dream house. Water from “Jaques Lake” will help irrigate 1,400 acres of sunflowers, durum and perennial ryegrass this summer. They are also […] Read more

There is one disappointed teenager and a set of angry parents in the Maidstone, Sask., area. The 14-year-old girl was kicked out of her 4-H club last month because of a rule on attendance. Her parents say the rule is too strict but provincial 4-H officials say they cannot interfere with club autonomy. Whitney Weston […] Read more

Women run their businesses in a different way, says Ann Coombs, a Vancouver author who has led a consulting business for more than two decades. Women tend to be natural collaborators, she told a session at last week’s Pan-Western Conference for Women Entrepreneurs. The conference, held in Saskatoon and sponsored by a federal government agency, […] Read more

Ted Cooper has had an idea in his head for 16 years that needs a champion, and preferably one with money. The industrial designer from Saskatoon wants to change the way tourism is marketed in Saskatchewan. Instead of the seasonal information centres at the provincial borders on the Yellowhead and Trans-Canada highways, he wants standardized […] Read more

Nobody goes to the doctor complaining of farm stress, says a psychologist who has worked in the field for more than a decade. “People come with headaches, depression, anxiety and relationship issues,” said Nikki Gerrard of the Saskatoon Health District. If health providers are not aware of or don’t ask the patient about agricultural troubles, […] Read more