Other days

100 YEARS AGO Dec. 24, 1917

LEPANTO — Robbers blew the large safe in the Stuckey general store last night and secured $500 in currency, a small amount of silver and $200 worth of checks. Nitro glycerin was used in blowing the safe. Apparently the robbers were experts, as the force of the explosion failed to wake persons who were sleeping in homes across the street. The robbery was not discovered until Mr. Stuckey went to the store this morning. Officers in near-by towns were notified and the telegraph wires are being kept hot in an effort to catch the guilty persons.

50 YEARS AGO

Dec. 24, 1967

Joe Rollins, 72, of 917 Calhoun Street, was wounded at 10:46 a.m. Saturday when he was struck by a stray bullet during a brief gunfight which erupted at Gray’s Drive-In, at Sixth and Harrington Streets. Rollins said he was standing in front of Harrison’s Mobil Station, near the restaurant, when several youths began arguing in the drive-in parking lot. He said several shots were fired. Rollins was struck in the right shoulder by a .22-caliber bullet. He was taken to Arkansas Baptist Medical Center, where he was treated and released. 25 YEARS AGO

Dec. 24, 1992

A Helena-West Helena School District teacher accused of sexually molesting two pupils was properly fired, the state Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. In a unanimous decision, the court reversed a Phillips County Circuit Court ruling that found Ronald Davis had been denied due process during the school board’s termination proceedings. Davis was one of several West Helena teachers who chaperoned a group of third-and fourth-graders from Westside Elementary during a 1988 school field trip to Hot Springs.

10 YEARS AGO

Dec. 24, 2007 Having found success as a class-action attorney, Gene Cauley had been giving back to the community, but in drips and drabs, donating a few hundred or a thousand dollars here and there to schools and other organizations and donating space at his Little Rock shopping and office complex, Pavilion in the Park. Then he decided he wanted to do more. “It got to where the requests were coming to us so frequently that I thought, this is a significant amount of money over the course of the year that I want to start donating with some planning and forethought, and do some things that resonate with me,” he said. Cauley sold his law firm last year. A few months ago, he started a charitable foundation.