Eighty Years Ago
July 8, 1937
• Closure of Glen Valley and East Langley Elementary schools by the school board meant busing 27 students to Fort Langley. At the same time, Lochiel School was to be re-opened to alleviate overcrowding in the southern part of the municipality.
Seventy Years Ago
July 10, 1947
• A special meeting of the Langley Amateur Athletic Association failed to come to a decision on the proposed purchase of land adjacent to Athletic Park. Another special meeting was called to discuss it.
• At another public meeting, consideration was given to forming a ladies auxiliary to Langley Memorial Hospital.
Sixty Years Ago
July 4, 1957
• Two Vancouver men left Langley airport for Penticton, but never arrived. Their plane was believed downed in the mountains near Hope.
• Bill Brandow was installed as 1957-58 Lions president.
• Langley City council agreed to pay half the cost of Langley’s float in the PNE parade. Although not a condition of cost-sharing, council suggested that work on the float should be undertaken by a local organization.
Fifty Years Ago
July 6, 1967
• Property owners in the Murrayville street-lighting district turned down a proposal to remove the $10 upper limit on lighting charges for their area.
• The Pioneer Days award went to the Royal Bank for being the best-dressed bank in town. Three stores also received certificates: Duckworth’s, Langley Five Cents to a Dollar, and Arnold & Quigley.
• Burglars broke into a Milner garage and stole tools for a safe-cracking job at Super Valu. A first attempt to crack the safe was foiled by a burglar alarm. When the burglars finally got around to blowing the safe, their explosive charge sealed it, instead of opening it. It took professional safe openers several hours to open the strongbox the next morning.
Forty Years Ago
July 6, 1977
• Three Langley school teachers were reprimanded for entering licensed premises with underage students, and in one case, for allowing a student to kiss a teacher at a dance.
• Township Mayor George Driediger announcement that a referendum would be held, to seek public approval for construction of an indoor swimming pool, caused a flare-up of ill feelings between the City and Township. City Mayor Bob Duckworth complained that he should have been consulted first, but Driediger said the pool would be a “Township-only” project.
Thirty Years Ago
July 8, 1987
• Township council called for a halt to development of the Salmon River Uplands area until a community plan was finalized.
• Township council approved a recommendation that Langley School Board provide students with annual instruction “on mannerisms and approaches relating to common sense behaviour when around strange dogs.”
• B.C. Lieutenant Governor Robert G. Rogers presented Exemplary Service Awards to 11 Langley firefighters.
Twenty Years Ago
July 4, 1997
• Grade 12 management students at Walnut Grove Secondary won the B.C. Junior Achievement Award for their highly successful Planet Grove cafe.
• The Vicwood proposal for 200th Street and Zero Avenue, one of Langley Township’s most controversial development plans ever, was back before council for first and second bylaw readings. Council had voted to keep Vicwood from going to public hearing a year earlier. This time, council allowed the hearing to proceed.
• GVRD chair George Puil wanted to force Surrey to build a waste transfer station that it had abandoned in the face of uproarious protests from Cloverdale and Langley residents.