McCauley is home to a rising star on Canada’s comedy scene. Dan Taylor was a finalist in the Edmonton competition of SiriusXM’s Top Comic contest. “I was chosen from a bunch of video submissions to perform at a semifinal show at the Comic Strip, and then I moved forward out of that to the public voting stage,” says Taylor.

When the votes were in at the beginning of August, Taylor found out that he was the winner. Taylor will be heading to Toronto on September 25 for the national finals, but prior to that, on September 18, he will be opening for Russell Peters at Rexall Place. “Overwhelmed. Panicked. Excited,” is what Taylor says of his upcoming gig. Russell Peters is a really big deal, but the bigger thing was performing at Rexall. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.”

Taylor, a church pastor, definitely has years of experience speaking in public, but has been doing comedy as a more recent endeavour. “I’ve been public speaking for years, but I started performing comedy about two and a half years ago. I was doing church ministry full time and realized it was very easy to only be around people who believed exactly what I believed. So I went to the open mic at the Druid pub and I discovered that I was good at it and I liked it and sometimes people would give me lunch money for it and now here we are.”

For more about Dan and his comedy, check out his website at dantaylortalks.ca.