Eighty Years Ago

January 7, 1932

. Teachers agreed to the school board's request that they take a ten per cent cut in salaries because of the Depression-related financial hardship faced by the district.

. Alf Toon nosed out Gordon Bishop to win a turkey during a tournament in Sam Brown's Billiards Hall.

Seventy Years Ago

January 8, 1942

. Reeve (mayor) Alex Hope announced that a committee headed by New Westminster Mayor Hume was travelling to Ottawa to request that no commercial fishing licences be granted to Japanese Canadians, and that all Japanese Canadian men of military service age be interned away from the coast.

. Reeve Hope told council that Brookswood's Air Raid Protection Service was getting well organized.

Sixty Years Ago

January 10, 1952

. Langley Memorial Hospital asked Langley municipal council for a $10,000 grant to offset a deficit incurred by the B.C. Hospital Insur-ance scheme which was implemented just three months after the hospital opened.

. Langley's 98 teachers received an average $3,000 per year salary increase.

Fifty Years Ago

January 11, 1962

. Building activity in Langley through 1961 had dropped ten per cent below that of the previous year. Construction permits valued at $2,421,474 had been issued in 1961, compared with $2,696,918 in 1960.

Thirty Years Ago

January 6, 1982

. The Aldergrove Motorcycle Association and its president were on trial for manslaughter, a result of the drowning deaths of three boys a year and a half earlier. The boys had fallen into a water-filled pit at the race track. The Crown prosecutor alleged that the association had failed to guard the pit adequately.

Twenty Years Ago

January 8, 1992

. Former Langley Township mayor Elford Nundal died of cancer. He was 72.

. After what seemed to some to be endless debate over the merits of motocross racing, Township council voted to shut down the race track at Jackman Park in South Aldergrove.

. Langley RCMP detachment head Insp. Dave Mortimer offered to try to keep both the Block Watch and school liaison programs going if City council would pay for one more officer. Mortimer said he was willing to let one patrol shift run one man short to staff one of the two programs. Both programs were on the ropes when council refused to provide the two officers needed to staff them.

. Police reported that a 25-year-old woman was abducted and raped by two men as she went to take out her trash on New Year's Eve.

. Grade Crescent residents threatened legal action to reverse City council's approval of a nine-home subdivision in their area.

. A poll of Fraser Valley residents overwhelmingly agreed with "right-to-die" legislation proposed by local MP Bob Wenman.

Ten Years Ago

January 8, 2002

. Aldergrove and Brookswood both fell prey to vandals. In Aldergrove, the target was the Langley Quarter Midget Association's race track, while the Brookswood Secondary Bobcats found that their house pole - the school's sporting symbol - had been torched.

January 11, 2002

. Langley's last remaining stripping venue switched its focus. The Alder Inn was turned into a sports bar, leaving those interested in adult-oriented dancers to look elsewhere.

. Salvation Army got Township council's approval to re-develop its 56-acre property at 86th Avenue and 200th Street.