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MERRITT HERALD FREE
THURSDAY, MAY 22, 2014 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
HIGH FIVES Dual Olympian Clara Hughes high-fived students from Merritt Secondary outside the school as she headed out of Merritt for Kelowna on May 21 for the next leg of her 110-day crossCanada bike tour. Hughes, a medallist in both speed skating and mountain biking, is cycling across Canada in support of Bell Canada’s Let’s Talk campaign, which aims to break down the stigma around mental health issues. During her stop in Merritt, Hughes spoke at an event hosted by Nicola Family Therapy at the Civic Centre on Tuesday evening about her experience with depression and her family history with mental illness. On Wednesday, she gave a presentation to Merritt Secondary School with fellow Olympian Ina-Yoko Tuetenberg of Germany, who also dealt with depression. The riders have about 4,500 kilometres left to go on their 12,000 kilometre cross-Canada journey before they arrive in Ottawa on Canada Day. Hughes said she is encouraged by the support she’s received for the cause in each of the communities she’s visited so far, noting Merritt was no exception. Emily Wessel/Herald
TOTA, city narrowing down tagline options By Michael Potestio THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
A new tagline for the city to replace the highly criticized slogan “Country with attitude” is close to being revealed. After public outcry over the previously approved tagline, the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA) and Terra Firma Digital Arts — the organizations working with the city to devel-
op its new brand — took feedback from the public and came up with three new tagline options. The organizations released a survey listing the options “Country inspired,” “Country with spirit” and “Proud to be country” for members of the public to rank in order of preference. From those options, there are two clear front-runners and one consensus number two pick, community development specialist Simone Carlysle-Smith said.
In all, 125 people took the survey, 16 of whom submitted paper copies. Carlysle-Smith said the survey results showed support for all three options. “And when we asked the question ‘None of the above,’ the majority of people did support the three options,” Carlysle-Smith said. She said they are using the survey results as a gauge for which direction to take, and not necessarily looking at which tagline got the
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most votes because there was no way to stop people from voting multiple times. Two of the three alternate taglines are ideas that came from the branding open house back in March, she said. She also said the tagline “Country inspired” was ranked highly as second choice. “Interestingly, that one was ranked quite high for second choice, but the other two were ranked
higher for first choice, so we know we can move in a certain direction,” Carlysle-Smith said. Two more open houses on the branding were held May 12 and 13, which fewer than 50 people attended between the two days. At the open houses, CarlysleSmith revealed highway signage concepts for the three teepee signs around Merritt.
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