News Headlines

Swimming instructor Mark Cairns, left, kept a watchful eye on Jonathan Fehr, 9, as he made his way across the shallow end of the pool during the Learn to Swim day for children and youth of the Mennonite community held at the Ontario Police College northeast of Aylmer on Saturday afternoon, July 25. Elgin County…

This year’s Rotten Road Ride, the 10th annual organized by Dave Green Custom Cycle of Malahide, involved 380 motorcycles, up from 280 on a rainy day a year ago. Participants this year braved sweltering weather to ride to Aylmer, Langton, Port Rowan, Port Burwell and Port Bruce before returning to the College Line business for…

An estimated 2,200 participants on 1,500 motorcycles started the 25th annual Big Balls Dice Run from Springwater Conservation Area to Port Burwell and back, Saturday, July 4. This year’s event attracted a record number, which organizer Doug Lounsbury attributed to great weather and a great cause. In the last nine years, not including this one,…

A fire destroyed a home on Warren Street in Aylmer on the late morning of Friday, June 26. While no details were immediately available from the Aylmer Fire Department, Roy Robinson, a next door neighbour, said he was mowing his back yard at about 11 a.m. when he saw smoke come out of the back…

Bayham Deputy Mayor Tom Southwick, left, and Malahide Mayor David Mennill, right, used a cross-cut saw on a log during a competition at the annual Edison Fest in Vienna, Saturday, June 6. Several Elgin County councillors turned out to participate in a celebrity contest won by Bayham Councillor Wayne Casier and Southwold Mayor Grant Jones…

Aylmer councillors at their Monday, June 1 meeting sent the draft 2015 East Elgin Community Complex budget back to the facility’s Ad Hoc Committee to find a further $40,000 to $50,000 in savings. That was despite that committee, whose only voting members are the mayors of Aylmer and Malahide, just last week voting to send…

Ontario Minister of Community and Social Services Helena Jaczek received a round of applause from the over 100 attendees at a funding announcement for Violence Against Women Services Elgin County held at Princess Avenue Playhouse in St. Thomas on Thursday, May 21. Minister Jaczek told the crowd the provincial government was providing $1.93-million towards the…

United Way of Elgin-St. Thomas raised only 73 percent of its $600,000 goal in its most recent fundraising campaign, and and a two-month emergency effort that followed just $11,400 of its $100,000 target. But at the annual general meeting of the fundraising cooperative Monday, May 4, in St. Thomas, President James Todd and Vice-President Michelle Boyce…

Aylmer Rotary Club hopes to dispatch three to five “ShelterBoxes” overseas to provide victims of a devastating earthquake in Nepal with a temporary home. The boxes contain a six to eight person tent, a stove that can use many types of fuel, blankets, water purification kits, tools, cooking utensils and, to distract traumatized youngsters, a…

Vegetation such as shrubs and grasses represents such a clear and present danger that Central Elgin is going to start mowing roadsides from fencerow to fencerow. Councillors voted 5-1 on Monday, April 20, to approve a new policy to cut vegetation the full width of every municipal and county road within Central Elgin, half to…