Playing around with newspapers to prove a point

Davidson, Saskatchewan is a small town situated a little more than 100 kilometers southeast of Saskatoon.  Although it only has about a thousands residents, it has some big city pride in its local paper, The Davidson Leader.

For this year’s summer celebration – called ‘Davidson Days’ – the newspaper capitalized on their community’s affinity for the publication.  So, they decided to build a float composed exclusively out of copies of the Leader.

The publication’s entire staff helped contribute. That includes Leanne Read, Holly LePoudre, Tara de Ryk and Dianne Murfitt.

“I am fortunate to have a creative-minded staff and we are not afraid to express ourselves or look ridiculous,” says publisher de Ryk.

“We feed off each other’s ideas and try to out-do each other in the craziness of the idea and then we figure out how we can make it work. We all get along and work well together, which is very important because doing something like this, although hard work, has to be viewed as fun.”

The publication says the idea for the float was intended to make a larger statement, de Ryk says.

“We’re the local newspaper and we’re real. We are in your community with our physical presence and we put work and effort into the community and in everything we do.”

This year is not the first year the newspaper has put its creative impulses to the test. For last year’s Canada 150, staff built a float that had an ‘Oh! Canada’ theme loaded with Canadian stereotypes including a giant beaver.

Do you like what you see? You can check out more photos from the event on our Facebook page.