It’s amazing what motivated people can do when they have a good idea.
Cases in point: the Blue Suede Music Festival and the BellZ Edge hockey camp.
The masterminds behind these relatively new ventures are Trudy Taphorn and Gord Bell.
For Taphorn, a love of Elvis led her to organize a small festival six years ago on her Busby-area farm that would celebrate The King of Rock & Roll.
That single idea culminated in last weekend’s festival that featured 15 tribute artists performing three sets daily in front of nearly 4,000 people at the Busby Sports Grounds. Keeping community at the forefront, admission to the festival has been a food bank donation for the past five years, with all the proceeds going to the Westlock, Barrhead and Morinville banks. Suffice it to say the event may be too much of success and is bordering on having outgrown its Busby home.
Meanwhile, Bell has spent much of his adult life as a hockey player — his impressive resume spans stints at the college, university and pro ranks.
Last summer Bell launched his own hockey camp in Westlock, dubbed BellZ Edge. A modest success in Year 1, this year’s version saw 124 young skaters put in close to six hours of work daily on and off the ice. The culmination was Saturday night’s tilt between camp instructors and members of the Westlock Warriors senior ‘AA’ team which played to a huge crowd. And as a special treat, Arizona Coyotes centre and Westlock-area native Kyle Chipchura also took to the ice — his first chance to skate at the Rotary Spirit Centre.
Regardless of whether your kid plays hockey, or if you’re an Elvis fan, the fact remains these two individuals, through their own sheer will and determination, have brought new, exciting events to the Westlock area.
Bell and Taphorn are not unique, as others have made their dreams a reality and have enriched the community — events like the Motorcycle Ride for STARS, the Flatbush Rocks concerts and the ongoing Rotary Dinner Theatre are but a few examples.
But it’s refreshing that in a time when people look for excuses why new ideas won’t work, these folks find ways not only to make it work, but to succeed beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.
For that they deserves kudos from the community.
