A former Drumheller man is making waves in mixed martial arts after competing in the National Amateur Championship.
    Many in the valley will remember Dylan Schellenberg on the ice. He was drafted by the Kootenay Ice in the 2008 Bantam Draft and played almost three seasons for the Drumheller Dragons. Now in Lethbridge, about four years ago he began training in MMA.
    On April 10, he competed in Day One of the National Championship in the middleweight category and defeated Shawn Sitthikoun with a guillotine choke at 2:35 of the second round.
    This was his first time back in the ring in almost three years after recovering from injuries that required a number of surgeries.
    “I threw myself back in a tournament format and went from there,” said Schellenberg.
    This victory put him into the final to face Mark Mosure.
    “I got in there with a great competitor with Mark Mosure and he was a better man on that night,” said Schellenberg.
    He said it was a competitive first round, and the second started out the same.
    “It was tit-for-tat for both of us and then it got into some really heavy wrestling and he had top pressure on me I just couldn’t get out from underneath and he got the win with a TKO,” said Schellenberg.
    Despite the loss, it was a step forward in his career.
    “It felt great to get back in there. There was a little bit of cage rust, but I felt great to be there, it was where I belong,” he said.
    He is back at it training and looking forward to more opportunities.
    “There is a card coming up next month I have my name in for, so hopefully I get in and there are few more things coming up in the fall,” he said.
    He said depending on how things go, he may have an opportunity to compete at the Worlds in the 180-pound weight class. The competition would be in Bahrain.
    He says Alberta has a strong MMA community.
    “You have a bunch of great guys especially in the amateur rank coming up and they are really hungry and doing everything they can to get to the next level,” he said. There is a great relationship between all the gyms.”
    Schellenberg trains at the Canadian Martial Arts Centre in Lethbridge.

Photo courtesy AM to PM Photography

    In representing the Drumheller-Stettler Constituency, MLA-elect Nathan Horner will need some bigger shoes, because of the bigger footprint of the riding.
    Prior to the election, the Electoral Boundaries     Commission redistributed electoral ridings to bring them inline population wise. What this means is the Drumheller-Stettler riding encompasses 36,584 square kilometres. This is more than half the size of New Brunswick.
    Horner understands the challenges of distance.
    “I think it might be one of the worst ridings in Alberta for getting around,” he tells the Mail. “It has some common themes throughout, but actual travel is going to be horrendous.”
    He said the MLA orientation begins on April 24, and he will be learning more about how to represent the riding, but he says they are looking at better ways to locate staff offices that will help have a presence in more communities.
    “We are probably going to have to tweak the structure from what it is now, as far as physical offices or if we are going to have a travelling set up for office space, a little more flexible with a little less overhead,” he said.

       While it makes travel more time consuming, it is also a reality of living in rural Alberta.
        “Where we grew up it was always an hour to anything in any direction, that part hasn’t changed,” he said. “It’s part of it, but I know it is something we need to keep the Electoral Boundary Commission aware of, that we do have to be mindful of the footprint too, not just the population.”
    Outgoing MLA Rick Strankman knows all too well the distances. Even before the redistribution, Drumheller-Stettler was vast.
        ‘It’s like Belgium,” he said.
    “With the inclusion of the MD of Provost, driving from Drumheller to Provost is three hours one way,” he said.
    Strankman said in his experience the legislature usually sat about 75 days a year. While this left time to work within the constituency, it is still difficult to be everywhere.
    “A lot of people just don’t understand the distances. I would get frustrated when people would say I don’t show up at the counties or the towns. That is why I would have our weekly commentaries, and at the bottom of each one of those is contact information to at least try and have some communication,” he said
    He is concerned that with the decline of population, ridings are going to keep growing. That is why he feels growing the population through economic development is important.