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Amazing indeed

We’ve been hearing about the Amazing Race coming to town for a couple of months now, and while we never believed the actual U.S.

We’ve been hearing about the Amazing Race coming to town for a couple of months now, and while we never believed the actual U.S. production (or even the Canadian one) would visit our community, what actually happened last weekend was at least as impressive as any reality TV show.

Centralized entirely within the borders of the Town of Westlock, organizer Wendy Lister’s hard work and enthusiasm for the game paid off with massive buy-in from residents and accomplished many of the same goals as the original reality TV show — using your brain, your body and your attitude towards trying new and impossible things, to accomplish goals with a partner and learn a little something about the world around you.

We all know how difficult it is to get 50 people to come out for any type of event in this day and age and the fact that 48 people signed up to play really is amazing. That, along with the local businesses and organizations that played along and opened themselves up to the contestants, for nothing more than the chance to participate in something new and unique to the town.

Lister and those she recruited to help her out should be saluted. The sheer scale of the organization required and the footwork involved is more than commendable. We can only hope that if there is a second edition it will be twice as popular.

The Westlock area really has a penchant for putting on unique and memorable events. We should be proud. Many towns struggle to differentiate themselves from other similar communities and we’re doing a great job of setting ourselves apart.

Almost every town has some kind of summer fair or celebration of community pride and Westlock does those very well, but it’s the events that aren’t so common that will draw the community together and draw interest from around the region and maybe further.

It’s not only the Amazing Race last weekend, but the Accessibility Challenge in August and the Elvis festival. The RCMP Musical Ride also visited town this summer. If you need more evidence, there’s a country/hip hop concert happening this weekend. For real. It’s certainly a first-of-its kind event in Westlock and we would suspect across a long stretch of the prairies.

And people keep saying there’s nothing to do in Westlock. Indeed.

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