Standard is a village located in the southern part of the province of Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It is situated within the County of Wheatland

Wheatland County, Alberta

Wheatland County is a municipal district in south-central Alberta, Canada, east of Calgary.It is located in Census Division 5. The municipal seat is the Town of Strathmore.-Demographics:...

, approximately 80 kilometres (49.7 mi) east of the city of Calgary. The Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

 tracks pass south of the village. The village was originally settled by Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 immigrants. Standard's economy is based on the surrounding farming community and the energy industry, with a number of oil and gas rigs in operation in the vicinity. Chief employers include Agrium Liquid Fertilizer, which operates a manufacturing plant, and the Husky Oil

Husky Energy

Husky Energy Inc. is a large integrated Canadian energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. Husky's foundation is in Western Canada, where it has extensive conventional oil and natural gas assets, significant heavy oil production and a range of midstream and downstream operations, including...

 Plant.

Demographics

In 2006, Standard had a population of 380 living in 154 dwellings

House

A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...

, a 2.3% decrease from 2001. The village has a land area of 2.34 km² (0.903479051106532 sq mi) and a population density

Population density

Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 of 162.5 /km2.

Athletics

Standard is well known for its 1A Girls Volleyball Team the "Standard Rams" winning seven 1A Provincial Titles in a row. Standard continues to dominate in Alberta Volleyball.

The murder of Kelly Cook

Standard is known in Alberta for the tragic abduction and murder of one of its residents, 15-year-old Kelly Cook, in 1981. The Grade 10 student regularly babysat for townsfolk, and on the morning of April 22, 1981, she received a phone call from a man who identified himself as Bill Christensen. He asked her to babysit for him that evening. Although she did not know the caller, she agreed, as 'Christensen' was a common surname in the area and crime was virtually unknown in the village, with residents routinely leaving their doors unlocked. The caller arranged to pick Kelly up that evening and drive her to his residence. At 8:30 that evening, a car pulled up in front of the house where she lived with her parents and siblings. The driver did not leave his car, and Kelly walked out of her house and climbed into the automobile's front passenger seat. The car then immediately drove off. A few hours later, her anxious parents, concerned that Kelly had not called or returned home, called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...

. A massive local search was launched but yielded almost no clues. Two months after her abduction, on June 28, her badly decomposed body was discovered in Chin Lakes, southeast of her hometown of Standard. The case caught the public's attention like few other murder cases because it was so unusual, with the killer actually picking up his victim at her house while her mother watched through the window. Despite the publicity generated by this murder case, and a $100,000 reward offered by the Village of Standard for information leading to the arrest of Kelly's killer, the case currently remains unsolved.

External links

• Alberta first profile of Standard