few businesses downtown had busy holidays this season, saying many people shopped local instead of spending all their Christmas dough in the city or online.
    Since the downtown plaza opened this summer and downtown businesses were encouraged to extend their operating hours, there has a been a push in the community for people to shop local and to support Drumheller business. The message seems to be getting across says Natural Light Photography’s Darryl Reid, who says this year was probably his busiest December ever.
    “It was a combination of things. We’ve developed clientele, expanded our product line, but the new location downtown was the main thing,” he says. The business moved downtown this year from Greentree Mall.
    Larry Wasmann at Tug’s Pop Culture and Sports says sales were “up slightly from the year before.”
    “The week before Christmas saved my bacon. My store is known as a stocking stuffer store.”
    He says while his numbers are up he still regularly has customers who believe they can get the same items cheaper in cities like Calgary or by shopping at Crossiron Mills, but much of the time it’s not actually the case.
    “They think you can get items cheaper in Calgary, but you can’t. But they go to Calgary and see it there at the same price I have it here, but since they’re in Calgary already they buy it there. I don’t know how to fight it, especially around Christmas time.”
    Darryl Reid, who sits on the business advisory committee, says they are working at ways to show people shopping local doesn’t mean higher expenses.
    “One of the things the business advisory committee is working on is how to get people to shop locally. We want people dealing with local licensed businesses. We saw that clientele were making a conscious decision to shop locally for Christmas. It’s like making a decision to eat better. It’s what’s best for our community,” he says.

Hope College will be moving in a new direction with new leadership. This comes after Paul Andrew announced he would be stepping away as chair after five years of service.
Hope College is undergoing more changes as it works to officially adopt its new moniker Badlands Community College. Andrew was a big part of the post-secondary school’s growth and survival. Under his leadership, there was a transition to a new structure, adoption of programs and three physical moves.
In that time he has seen 14 students graduate from its array of offerings and there are currently eight students studying at the institution.
“We need some new people to step up and take this on,” said Andrew.
Executive Director Dave Watson is grateful for Andrew’s service.
“It was a tough time, but he kept it going,” said Watson. He hopes they are able to find someone to fill the positions.
“One of the most important positions in the school is the chair and it is going to be vacant January 1, and we need to find someone who is willing to take on that really important role.”
“We want some new blood to define our future. We would like some new people on the board through the name transition so they become the Badlands Community College Board,” said Watson.