parade highlights weekend festivities the homecoming weekend began with the excitement of the parade main st was cleared the music began and the people gathered 79 floats were entered naking it a great success following the parade the opening ceremonies were held in w park lamont tilden was acting as mc and his first presen tation was rev j hamilton who led a prayer of thanks for bringing stouffville safely through its first 100 years chairman of the centennial committee keith sutherland v expressed his appreciation to nose who helped to organize the weekend and went on to say that the weekend was a time to renew old acquaintances and friendships he said an event like this helps us to preserve our memories and look forward to the future stouffvilles centennial queen michelle morley and councillor june button cut the ribbon which officially began the centennial weekend v seven month old timothy macdonald was presented with a plaque commemorating him as the centennial baby his birthdate was january 3 making him the first baby born in 1977 mrs roy moyer and harry stouffer were presented with plaques as they are the oldest direct decendants of abraham stouffer the mayor of uxbridge gord davie congratulated stouffville on its one hundredth birthday and presented mayor gordon ratcliff with two books the historical atlas of ontario county reprint of the 1877 edition and the history of the county of ontario by leo a johnson june button was prepared to present the former reeves from 1959 to the present with small plaques com memorating them as being part of stouffvilles centennial history however there were a couple of embarassing moments for mrs button when two of the expected four reeves did not turn up garland lehman and winfred timbers werent present to receive their plaques but to her relief ken wagg and ken laushway were wht riiune vol 90 no 9 whitchurchstouffville july 7 1977 20 cents u pages visitors turned up front far and near the two registration books which were used at the cen- tennial homecoming weekend are filled with signatures from places as far away as south africa and tucson arizona perhaps 100 years from now iwhen stouffville holds its bi centennial the books will be on display and stouffville residents can look through them and see signatures from their ancesters among others from many dif ferent places all over the world it was estimated that there are approximately 15000 people registered but there were not mute that many signatures some people misunderstood the instructions which were to sign only one name to a line there were registries from miami florida manchester england antigonish nova scotia pinemount manitoba montreal edmonton stettler alberta cornwall p e i california and stirlingshire scotland just to mention a few see it all again cable 10 richmond hill will air filmed excerpts of homecoming weekend ac tivities tonight at 7 p m 300 attend new library opens two fisted cookie grabber twoandahalf year old jimmy macaioney was caught red- handed with both little fists thrust deep into the cookie jars however jimmy wont be getting much of a treat as both jars were filled with sand jimmy was taking part in the centennial paraderiding on the senior citizens float and thoroughly enjoyed himself by tossing handfuls of sand at unwary spectators more parade pictures page 9 keith bolender council holds the line on spending stouffville mem- bers of town council made good fpn their election promises last meek and kept local tax in creases to a minimum the tax levy this year will only go up an average of about 6 5 per cent less than the rate of inflation this means that a householder living in town and assessed at 20000 will pay roughly 42 more this year if he is a public school supporter the industrial commercial property owner will be assessed about 47 more if he is a public school supporter separate school supporters on farm and residential land will only pay another 18 while owners of industrial commercial land will be charged another 21 those living in the former townships of whitchurch and markham will pay a few dollars less since they are not assessed for the sewer levy mayor gord ratcliff commended council on keeping the budget down council worked hard to keep it to the minimum he said councillor bill kamps returned the compliment the mayor worked hard to keep the purse strings tight and still gave us enough money to play its apparently gord ness is a firm believer in the old maxim the whole worlds a stage the photographer was sneaking around trying to get a picture of gord looking austere and dignified bat all to no avail immediately on spotting the camera gord spontaneously went into a song and dance routine the picture was taken following tfie official opening of the library john montgomery around with he said jokingly the council then went on to express horror at the bite the educational budget was taking more than 60 per cent of the taxes now go to elementary and secondary school boards and education costs account for 34 of the tax increase for public school supporters the total budget requisition is 3474534 and 1130626 of that goes to the elementary school board 955632 to the secondary school boards 476820 to the region and 911456 to the town the biggest item in the town budget is public works which totals 831000 this is an in crease of almost 400000 over last year mainly due to the rebuilding of hwy 47 but no junior kindergarten for york aurora there will be no junior kindergarten program introduced into york region public schools in the near future the proposal for the program was defeated monday night after york county board of education trustees once more repeated the arguments both in favor of and against such a plan leading the session was vaughan trustee donald cameron who argued that the program would be expensive and extensive and that other areas in the boards care needed the money more arguing on behalf of the program was separate school trustee john stephens who spoke about the need to take special care of children in their early years quoting at length from educational treatises mr stephens concluded that the money when compared with a recentlyintroduced life skills program was not an unreasonable sum trustee doreen quirk who said she had agonized over the decision produced a detailed chart weighing all pros and cons of the system mrs quirk concluded by recommending that the program be shelved for the present time and the boards effort got into helping parents set up their own nurseries in agreement with the dissenting trustees were fellow members dorothy zajac harry bowes william laird john denison norman weller and margaret coburn regional and provincial grants will cover the cost of about half of the public works projects recreation and community services will cost about 414000 public protection which in cludes the fire department and animal control 152000 sanitation and waste 135000 financial and capital 72000 and planning 46000 stouffville the official opening of the new library performed before a large crowd friday afternoon went off without a hitch although there was considerable fear the spectators might get soaked as a thunderstorm appeared im minent although it never materialized between 250 and 300 people turned out for the opening of the 360000 structure most stayed for refreshments and the open house afterwards library board chairman jim sanders said the library was an especially appropriate centennial project as the library like the town itself has been in operation for a hundred years mr sanders thanked the library board members for the high quality of library service and observed the board was building on a century of achievement the library development committee came in for praise from mr sanders also he thanked them for raising over 100000 70000 of it locally toward the project mr sanders said that council had been very patient with the board and he observed that the town had provided the land and obtained the deben tures he said council had well represented the interests of the community next speaker was an official from the ministry of culture and recreation who said the library again this year would be eligible for wintario grants archie stouffer who had been secretary to the library board m the 1920s when the last library was built said it was an honour to be there to bridge the gap between the old library board and the new one mr stouffer who now lives in pembroke was of the opinion the library represents the general trend of the community at this time councillor june button who represents ward 5 where- the library is located spoke on behalf of council and she was followed by centennial com mittee chairman keith sutherland mr sutherland said the committee had unanimously endorsed the library as the centennial project because they felt we needed something more concrete than parties and the homecoming weekend he announced that a plaque from the ministry of culture and recreation to commemorate the original stouffer homestead will be placed on the library property in october larry and bob latcham unveiled portraits of their parents mr and mrs art latcham which are to be hung in the library the latcham foundation donated 35000 to the library mayor gordon ratcliff and the architect dr eugene janiss set the date stone in place and rev jl carder closed the ceremonies with an invocation mr carder prayed the building would lead to more creative living three hospitalized after car runs main street traffic light stouffville three people were taken to hospital following a saturday night traffic accident at main st and the 9th line according to york regional police a north bound vehicle ran the stop sign at mam st and struck a car belonging to vernon hoover the hoover car went out of control and rammed a car belonging to the oneill funeral home the oneill car which was parked in polly mintons driveway was knocked into a second car also belonging to the funeral home john patience 24 of toronto has been charged with impaired driving mr patience was treated in hospital for a sprained hand and cut head jean gallagher of scarborough a passenger in the patience car was treated for minor injuries as was mr hoover mr hoover of st isadora ont had 3500 damage to his car the patience car suffered 1200 damage and it is estimated repairs to the oneill vehicles will be 1500 and 2500 respectively claremont men killed in accident two claremont men were killed early saturday morning when their motorcycle veered off the roadway on a severe curve on highway 47 took off six guideposts and a sign and threw the riders to the ditch opp at whitby said robert mayne 29 and randall timms 18 both of claremont were westbound on highway 47 three miles west of uxbridge at 125 a m when the accident oc curred al junkin left and herb hisey send their section of log crashing to the ground in the log sawing contest saturday the event part of the homecoming weekend activities was well at tended by expert critics but participants were not too numerous critics in the crowd criticized the height of the log the sharpness of the saw and the style of the contestants santa stolen during heatwave stouffville it may be a little premature to be thinking about christmas in the middle of summer but some light fingered individual in a pickup truck obviously believed in getting an early start jim giliiland who lives on the aurora side rd discovered early last week that someone had made off with his eight foot tall four foot wide wooden santa claus mr giliiland who termed the theft the ripoff of the century was understandably upset about the missing st nick he and his father built it about 20 years ago and he was hoping to one day pass it on to his child if he has one its sort of a memento of my father and i doing something together he says the santa had been taken from his post in front of the giliiland property where he had done duty as a sort of guide the house is not visible from the road so when we expected visitors we put out the santa he sort of marked the property explained mr giliiland he wonders if perhaps the person who took it assumed that there was no house back there maybe someone figured some clown had left a santa by the side of the road he could have passed it for two days and decided to take it home said mr giliiland he reported the theft to the it police but didnt get much sympathy when i said id like to report a stolen santa claus they hung up on me laughed mr giliiland h however he is quite serious about recovering the santa and is even offering a reward ex cept to the crook to get it back wxh y sart st santa clauses it just shows theres nothing sacred anymore commented mr giliiland t