FEW voices spoke against the move to take Grantown back to Moray when the 'Herald' sampled local opinion this week.
Spearheading the campaign to return Grantown to its traditional homeland is local historian, Mr George Dixon, who says the townspeople and those in the surrounding areas would be better off in Moray.
The question will be publicly debated at this month's Grantown Community Council meeting on January 20 in the town's council buildings when the public are invited to attend.
Badenoch and Strathspey District Council will also examine the "quit" suggestion a week later on January 29, at a meeting at the Coylumbridge Hotel.
In the 'Herald's" small sample of local opinion the majority of voices spoke in favour of Grantown returning to Moray.
"Grantown would be better served by returning to the fold in Moray," said Mr Ian McPherson, of Greenhill. "I feel the tail is wagging the dog at present - the tail being Kingussie and the dog Grantown.
"We have traditionally considered the Kingussie area to be charming, but rather unsophisticated, where an outlandish game called shinty is played.
Detective work on trophy trail
GAMES organisers have drawn a blank in a six months search for a valuable missing trophy.
The quest has taken them through old programmes, newspaper files and records to Falkirk, where the trail has gone cold.
The missing 38 year-old oak-mounted bronze shield was last awarded by Abernethy Highland Games Association in the mid-1950s.
Its disappearance was not discovered until Nethy Bridge minister, the Rev Jim MacEwan, saw a photograph of it in a book on Celtic art.
Since then, games' secretary, Mr Michael George, has scoured the association's record books and newspaper libraries to trace the last winners of the shield.
"The last known whereabouts of the shield was in 1955 when the Camelon Pipe Band from Falkirk won it.
"I have been in touch with officials of the band, but they have been unable to help me trace the trophy.
Now Mr George hopes to circulate bands in that area to see if anyone can shed some light.
In 1948 the games association commissioned Mr George Bain of the Celtic School of Art at Drumnadrochit to produce a trophy for annual competition by amateur pipe bands.
Games records show that the trophy was presented each year up until about 1956 when it went missing.
Cast in bronze and mounted on oak, the shield incorporates motifs of various periods of symbolising friendship, wisdom, brotherhood and eternity.
Rowdies call the tune over dance
ROWDIES have forced Highland Games organisers to abandon a traditional end-of-event dance.
It follows incidents in August at Nethybridge Hotel following Abernethy Highland Games.
The dance attracted one of its largest-ever attendances and because of overcrowding and concern for safety, management and games' officials decided to close the doors.
Secretary Michael George said: "This unfortunately was not the view taken by those refused admission and resulted in members of the committee being subjected to great verbal abuse.
"In view of these unfortunate incidents, it is with regret that it has been decided that the association will no longer hold a dance after the games."
The decision was reported at a poorly-attended annual meeting of the games association, which heard that its funds have increased by £750 during the year.
Hard hit industry looks to future
THE Chernobyl disaster, and the oil slump, have both taken their toll on the prospects for local industry in the year ahead.
Although there are no outstanding forecasts for 1987, local businessmen are optimistic about the future, and where one door may have closed they are working to open others.
Much has been done and has still to be done to consolidate and confirm the places of local businesses in national an international markets.
Some of the hardest hit in 1986 were oil-related businesses when oil prices plummeted to an all-time low.
One such business was MacKellar Engineering in Grantown where a considerable part of the work is tied to the oil industry.
But although managing director Mr Duncan MacKellar has predicted a "low key 1987" he aims to continue with his present level of staff and is ardently exploring other avenues for the company.
"We are looking now into the leisure sector," Mr MacKellar told the 'Herald'.
"It might be able to increase our activities in marine equipment and there is the possibility we might go ahead with the building of a type of steel yacht.
"We are trying to diversify by looking at alternative products and I would hope to maintain our present 12-strong workforce of highly skilled engineering craftsmen."
The company, which has operated and expanded in Grantown since 1975, managed to carry themselves through great difficulties in 1986, having been particularly affected by the demise of Howard Doris in this region.
Cairngorm look to the future in jubilee
THE CAIRNGORM Chairlift Company celebrates its silver jubilee this year.
Twenty-five years after the first chairlift opened for skiers on Cairngorm, the company is turning over £2 million a year by providing facilities for one of the country's fasted growing sports.
The first chairlift opened on December 20, 1961, and 25 years on still more uplift facilities are being planned.
Early pioneers of what was then the Cairngorm Winter Sports Board included many familiar and distinguished names such as Major Archie Scott, Boyd Anderson, Jack Kerr Hunter, Carl Fuchs, Colin Sutton, Hugh Ross and Colonel Grant of Rothiemurchus.
They and many other were responsible for getting organised skiing off the ground on Cairngorm. They raised money locally and found private donors to meet the £42,000 cost of the first chairlift.
The company name changed in the 1960s to what we know today, as ski facilities rapidly expanded on the hill throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
The land on which development took place was originally owned by the Forestry Commission, who gave it to the Highlands and Islands Development Board specifically for the development of skiing.
Thirteen more lifts and tows were constructed over the next 20 years but on-slope amenities lagged far behind what they should have been, and it was not until the 1980s that they caught up with modern-day needs.
Restaurants and bars were developed, but the real crowning glory was the opening of the new £1,250,000 day lodge in October 1984.
Scottish accolade for adventurers
IT IS hardly surprising that a 19,000-mile bike trip and £55,000 for cancer research has brought the three adventurers of the Americas Cycling Expedition BBC Radio Scotland's "Scot of the Year" award.
The trio - Rona Simpson from Kincraig, Sophie Stirling from Stirling and Craig Swan from Glasgow, who are all 24-years-old - have received the award jointly.
Their wheeled adventure from south to north America not only broadened their horizons but raised over £55,000 for the Tenovus Institute for Cancer Research.
The 'Herald' followed the year-long trip from Punta Arenas in Chile to its conclusion in Anchorage in August last year by publishing excerpts form Rona's dairies sent back en route to her parents in Kincraig.
Cancer Research was an important project to all three Aberdeen University graduates but particularly to Rona whose father Dr Hugh Simpson leads a Glasgow team working to develop the Chrona Bra to help the early detection of breast cancer in women.
The Tenovus Institute is collaborating in this project and although based in Cardiff the three young Scots have been insistent that some of the money raised buys much needed equipment for Scotland.
Deirdre slides into top title
THE valley's top junior downhiller Deirdre Angella has taken her first British Junior Alpine combined title in Fulpmes, in Austria.
Deirdre, from Carrbridge, won the opening giant slalom of the vent in a time of 125.57 secs to give her a commanding position going into the slalom.
There were disputed results on the first day of the championships with reigning girl champion Clare de Pourtales and Nina Jones, both from Geneva, disqualified by gatekeepers.
But there was no dispute about the performance of 15-year-old Deirdre who was undisputed Scottish and British champion in the under 15s age group last year.
In the slalom Clare de Pourtales crashed in her second run and Nina Jones finished ahead of Deirdre.
But the Carrbridge girl, in her second year in the Scottish team, did enough to win the combined title.
