This week’s edition comes straight to you from November in the year 2000, and will be delivered in two parts.

It was a happening time for the city – here’s what was making news in the pages of The Daily Advertiser.

Unemployment figures released on Sunday show a marked decrease in the number of Riverina residents looking for work. Riverina Regional Development Board executive officer Peter Dale said the decrease in unemployment was positive, but needed to be considered in context, as the figures highlight some of the problems Riverina centres have with skills shortages. 

Wagga Hotelier’s Association president Greg Williams declared drinking games aren’t common in the city’s hotels, following the Union Club Hotel being fined $8000 after a patron ended up in hospital after a night of drinking games.

A Griffith man has pleaded guilty to starting a fire that caused at least $500,000 damage to Yenda Public School.

A Sturt Highway city icon is back on the market, with the Gumly Post Office Store set to go to auction in December.

Wagga is in danger of losing a voice on the Group Nine board after Brian Wilson declared he won’t seek re-election at the annual general meeting. His resignation – due to his workload – could leave Wagga without a representative on the board for the first time.

A Wagga father and son are preparing for a joint operation next week which is set to change both their lives forever. Ken Foster, 59, and his son David, 23, will be wheeled into the transplant theatre so Ken can donate his kidney to David. About six surgeons will be involved in the complicated procedure. 

An 18-year-old inmate at the Tamworth Correction Centre has died almost six years to the day after he was accused of a brutal Wagga murder. 

St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church will celebrate 130 years since the construction of the current building at the corner of Cross and Church streets.

Forty teachers from all over southern NSW are marking HSC 2 Unit/3 Unit English papers in the Bob Osborne Skills Centre in Fernleigh Road this week. The markers are grading 8500 responses to the reading question for the English paper, which is based on a passage from a Janet Frame novel.

NSW Tennis Association senior vice-president Stephen Gibson officially opened the Jim Elphick Tennis Centre. He is one of four guest speakers paying tribute to Mr Elphick, an icon of the Wagga Tennis Association since he moved to Wagga in the early 1950s.

A train driver is being hailed a hero after dragging a man from a burning truck which had burst into flames after crashing into a wheat train at Rennie, in the southern Riverina. The train and five wagons were derailed when the 1988 Kenworth prime mover slammed into the train at a level crossing on the Riverina Highway. The driver escaped with fractured ribs, a fractured shoulder blade, cuts and some burns.

Who’s stealing Wagga’s exotic cats? Owners of exotic breed cats have been warned to keep a close eye on their pets after about a dozen of the animals disappeared in Wagga in the past week alone. 

Griffith secretary Fiona Beverley had reason to celebrate after successfully moving to have the Riverina Football League presentation evening shifted from midweek to a Friday night.

Wagga will keep the Group Nine grand final next year but could lose the staging rights to the Weissel Medal night. Prompted by a letter from Tumut, which was tabled at the annual meeting, the general committee agreed to throw the region’s rugby league night of nights “open to tender.”