Dear Editor:
I would like to quickly respond to Dan Telekis letter titled Sheep need our help in the February 8th edition of The Pioneer. I would caption this as Setting the record straight, part two.
I certainly appreciated the clarification provided by Dan and agree with his concern over our desired protection for the sheep in the Radium area. His response was well written; however, there is an error.
I have to correct the author when he stated, I could not but take exception to Mr. Shehovacs cavalier rendition of how one sheep caused a catastrophic blemish on his beloved truck.
The author will have to go back to the January 4th Pioneer paper and he will see that I did not author the police report, nor was it my rendition. It was a playful act of revenge and, I must say, some embellishment by Cpl. Grant Simpson.
In my writeups, I often poke fun at his goaltending problems. I will at times poke fun at other predicaments the constables find themselves in. As Grant was responsible for the write up that week, he and Cst. Tim Harper, who co-authored and co-conspired on that particular report, saw a window of opportunity to strike a blow back at me on behalf of all the members at the detachment whom I have poked fun at over the years. Good on them for striking back when the opportunity was there. That will teach me to take holidays!
At the time the report was written up, we did not know the sheep had expired. When the accident took place, I was quite relieved when it got up and ran off. We have a townhouse in Radium, and as Radium residents, we view the sheep as our sheep.
There was a Jeers about the incident, and I did confirm with The Pioneer that in that section, the policy is to not name a specific person unless it is clear that it is a tongue-in-cheek type Jeers where the humour would be clearly recognized.
You can certainly get the Jeers out without naming the person or business, so that person or business would get the message. Personally, my style is to put my name on anything I author.
Writing with a sense of humour is a risk I often take, and I try to be mindful of it when I write about anecdotes involving police, family, hockey, and other situations Ive been a part of.
Staff Sergeant Marko Shehovac
Columbia Valley RCMP
