This has been a remarkable year in Didsbury and the 27th annual Fuel-A-Palooza – also known as Show 'n Shine – was the tipping point for this community’s future growth and development.
The Cambridge dictionary defines tipping point as “the time at which a change or an effect cannot be stopped.”
There has been, as the dictionary says, “a series of small changes or incidents significant enough to cause a larger, more important change.”
The Show 'n Shine weekend was the most recent tipping point for Didsbury.
It’s not the first one since Jacob Yost Shantz, a successful Ontario farmer, businessman and a Dominion immigration agent, stepped off the train below the butte in July 1893. He dug a water well and constructed the town’s first building – the immigration shed.
Shantz returned the next year with Mennonite settlers to establish farms, homes and families here.
There have been many tipping points since in Didsbury’s history.
The 2019 Show 'n Shine is important because the town has just had a couple of bad years because of the collapse of the oil and natural gas business.
The exact moment of the tipping point was when the owner of the 1,000th car to participate in the show, backed to a parking space and raised its hood.
We will never know the exact number of vehicles in the show because the owners of the final 120 or more cars and trucks arrived late and didn’t bother to register, but people in the know are saying about 970 officially registered, and 1,100 if you include those who just lifted the hood.
Two new businesses opened their doors on the weekend – Cowtown Brewing Company, a microbrewery, and Modern Mercantile, a collectibles and antique store created by the prairie girls of Beehive Vintage
A third, Weatherby’s Wreaths, started a new phase as a full-time shop with Patricia Weatherby’s retirement from Air Canada.
It takes a village to reach a tipping point in rural Alberta and it has taken a series of smaller changes led by many people to reach Didsbury’s tipping point.
Didsbury’s smaller changes include the coming of the legal marijuana business to the town and to Mountain View County. Cannabis production companies in Olds say they are now the biggest employers collectively in that town.
Nonetheless, if the marijuana business stabilizes, our district will have more than its fair share of joint jobs.
Carstairs’ growth and development are positive for Didsbury although it is often spoken of as competitive.
The stronger the Crossfield to Olds corridor becomes, the brighter Didsbury’s future will be.
In Didsbury, a new town council and an improved chamber of commerce have been preludes to a tipping point of growth and development.
The election of a new provincial government that pledged to cut tax and recalibrate spending will contribute to Didsbury’s tipping point.
Economic development requires continuous improvement and we have some way to go in that regard. However, Didsbury is better prepared to grow now than it has been for some time.
The downtown full of more than 1,000 vintage cars and 15,000 visitors on Mother’s Day weekend speaks well for our future.
– Frank Dabbs is a veteran political and business journalist and author
