70 Years of Growth: M.D. of Taber Anniversary

The Challenge

The Municipal District of Taber turned seventy in 2024.

Seventy years since incorporation. Seventy years since the transition from coal mining to agriculture. Seventy years of building something most people can’t see.

Because that’s the problem with rural prosperity. It’s huge, but it’s invisible.

The M.D. of Taber covers massive territory. Forty-four percent of the local workforce is in agriculture. The region produces internationally recognized Taber corn, processes potatoes for major brands, and operates the largest sugar beet factory in Western Canada. An $815 million investment in irrigation expansion is underway. Eighty thousand new acres coming online.

But you can’t see any of that from the highway.

You can’t see it in a council chambers. You can’t show it in an annual report. And if people can’t see it, they assume you’re small. Sleepy. Stuck in the past.

The M.D. needed to mark this milestone with something that would make the scale visible. Something that would honour the past while claiming the future. Something that would work for long-time farming families and twenty-seven-year-olds deciding whether to stay or leave.

They needed to show what seventy years of transformation actually looks like.

The Solution

We produced a documentary-style anniversary video anchored by Reeve Tamara Miyanaga.

The challenge was scope. How do you capture a municipal district? It’s not a town with a main street you can walk down. It’s hundreds of square kilometres of farmland, irrigation infrastructure, processing facilities, and scattered communities.

The answer was altitude.

We deployed our Lethbridge Drone division to shoot the district from above. Slow, sweeping passes over centre-pivot irrigation systems. Aerial views of the Rogers Sugar factory. Wide shots of the Horsefly Regional Emergency Spillway, a massive flood-protection project most residents have never seen completed.

The drone footage solved the visualization problem. Ground-level shots show fields. Aerial shots show empire.

But scale alone isn’t enough. We needed the human story.

Reeve Miyanaga provided that. She speaks directly to camera about the district’s evolution, its agricultural dominance, its “humble beginnings” and future ambitions. The script follows a classic arc: past, present, future.

Then she does something most municipal leaders don’t do. She talks about gender.

“As the first female Reeve initially I didn’t want to factor that but I also recognize that in our municipality we have half females and it was time to ensure that their voices were heard… women are working in agriculture… having that opportunity to work together as a partnership and have different perspectives I think makes the municipality stronger.”

It’s a moment of candor that transforms the entire piece. Suddenly this isn’t just a heritage video. It’s a statement about who gets to lead, who gets heard, and what the future of rural Alberta looks like.

We cut between Miyanaga’s address and the aerial footage, creating a visual dialogue between leadership and land. Her words provide the vision. The landscape provides the proof.

The production took place during Southern Alberta’s notoriously windy season. We’ve flown drones in minus-forty-six wind chills. We’ve shot through equipment failures and logistics crises. The wind doesn’t stop the work. It just raises the bar.

The colour grade emphasized vibrant greens and warm earth tones. We wanted the land to look fertile, prosperous, alive. The “Savour the Flavour” campaign theme ran through the visuals. This isn’t just where food is grown. It’s where quality is grown.

The Result

The video premiered at two community BBQ celebrations during the district’s 70th anniversary week in June 2024.

It anchored the broader “Savour the Flavour” campaign, which included the events, a custom merchandise shop (with proceeds going to charity), and a sustained social media push. The video became the emotional core. The thing that made people want to buy the hoodie.

But the real impact was rhetorical.

For years, the M.D. had struggled with perception. People saw “rural” and assumed “declining.” They saw “agriculture” and assumed “low-tech.” The video reset those assumptions.

The aerial shots showed industrial scale. The infrastructure footage showed investment. Miyanaga’s address showed inclusive, strategic leadership. The whole package said: We’re not just surviving. We’re building.

The gender narrative resonated beyond the district. Rural women in agriculture across the province saw themselves reflected in a municipal message for the first time. The video validated the “farm partner” role women have always played but rarely been credited for.

Internally, the video gave the council and administration a shared narrative. The abstract strategic priorities—“Growth, Change, and People”—became visible. It’s harder to resist a vision you can see.

Externally, the video became a tool for investor relations. Economic development officers could now show the scale of the irrigation infrastructure, the processing capacity, the proximity to transportation corridors. The M.D. could compete visually with urban centres that have been doing place branding for decades.

The municipality is now exploring an annual “State of the District” video series, moving away from text-heavy annual reports toward this cinematic format.

That’s what this project taught us.

Rural doesn’t mean small. It means you need altitude to see the whole picture.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it. The M.D. of Taber isn’t just celebrating seventy years. They’re staking their claim on the next seventy.

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