by PAUL RAYNER

With at least some inspiration coming from the community to the west, Ninga is planning to celebrate 125 years of history.

Plans are coming together and committees created to make July 7 & 8 a special time in the village. According to Gloria Unrau, one of the event organizers, it is part of an overall celebration of 125 years in the RM of Turtle Mountain. The municipality, including its constituent communities of Killarney, Ninga and Holmfield, are having separate though linked events. She said the larger town of Killarney will be going for a full four days, and each one is trying to work together to some degree.

“We are going to try to have all of us on the advertising,” Unrau explained, “and trying to not coincide with each other’s major events.”

One of the inspirations for the planned 2007 event is the success their neighbours had in 2006 with their Homegrown Reunion.

“Everybody is gearing up for the celebrations and we want to keep up with Boissevain. We got some ideas from their celebrations, here and there, some good ideas.”

So far, they have laid out a few of the events planned for the weekend. It all is planned to start at 1 p.m. on Saturday, with a cold plate lunch, a school and church reunion, speeches from town fathers, horse drawn tours around the town and cemetery and a craft and flea market. They are looking at a petting zoo, and pet farm, kareoke and large BBQ supper as well.

Sunday is planned to have a cowboy church service, and an amateur horse show.

Some of the events are a little tentative, but Unrau said about three-quarer of it is fairly settled. For example, they have contracted the Red Coats, who recreate the old days of the NorthWest Mounted Police to entertain. As well, another part of the history of the area, the Metis, will be represented by the Cherry Creek chapter of the MMF.

“We want to honour all parts of our history,” Unrau said.

As well, they have a baseball tournament planned. Although open to everyone, she said the Sunday event might be of special interest to families from the area, whether they are currently living there or not.

“This could be a good event for any families, people with lots of brothers and sisters. There used to be a few big families here, so hopefully some of them will put in teams.”

They are also debating a beard and mustache contest, although they would like a fair number of entries before they commit to it.

“This is really in the planning stages right now,” Unrau stated. ‘It is hard to get everything together too early. There might be more than what we have now. We want to get the right people on the right committees.”

The meeting held on January 23 was to help get this process going. Unrau said a good number of people came out, and committees are starting to take shape. Decorating, food, a commemorative newspaper – all of these items have to have people take charge of them. Due to their strong involvement in the community, through committees dealing with such areas as the Presbyterian Church or community hall, this should not pose too much of a problem.

“It is really a thriving little community. We hope to tap into those people who do things to keep it going.”

To enhance the tours, there will be signs around the town to show where everything once was. Unrau said they already have someone in place to give the tour who remembers Ninga back in the day where there were stores, several churches and grain elevators.

“Ninga was once bigger that Killarney or Boissevain,” she stated, “those tours should be interesting for people who visit.”

As with most such celebrations, one of the big reasons for the effort is to bring people back together. A recent example of this was the 100th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church, which Unrau said brought many back and she hopes the 125th does the same.

“In the past the celebrations have brought a lot of people back. You are always surprised about how many people used to live here. It is like a big family reunion. It is the biggest reason to do this, to bring people back.”

Another community meeting is planned for February 20, to keep the ball rolling. Unrau feels this type of event is a highly important celebration for any community.

“It keeps the younger generations informed about what the older generations did,” she explained. ‘To show them that without (the older generations) they would not be here. When you go forward, you want to look at what has gone before.”