Johnny J. Jarvis

In 1979 the Town of Ponoka, Alberta, turned 75. It sits in the Battle River valley of central Alberta, about 95 kilometres south of Edmonton and 60 kilometres north of Red Deer. The town grew from an old railway stop known as Siding 14 and was incorporated on October 15, 1904. For the anniversary, Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 66, chartered in Ponoka in May 1928, sponsored a contest to find the town a theme song. The winner was ‘Ponoka Proud’, written by Johnny J. Jarvis with Ray Cooper.

Jarvis took the song an hour north to Machine Shop Studios in Edmonton, where Ken Stockton and Lou Earl produced and arranged it. Boomtown Records issued it as a 7-inch single, catalogue number BT-7905, with the Legion branch credited as publisher. Jarvis sang lead, backed by Mike Harney, Lou Earl and Ken Stockton, with Earl and Stockton adding harmony vocals.

For the flip side Jarvis wrote ‘Ponoka Stampede’, a salute to the event that has defined the town for most of its life. The first Ponoka Stampede ran in 1936 as a two-day rodeo, carnival and sports day over the July 1 holiday, managed by George MacKeddie, who had won the 1922 Alberta Bronc Busting Championship riding with wrists broken the day before. Chuckwagon racing arrived in 1941, and as early as 1959 the two-day show drew a record crowd of 28,000.

-Robert Williston