Other days

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 8, 1921

FLIPPIN — George W. Billings of this place has received the medal awarded him by the Carnegie Hero Commission for saving the life of Virginia Hayes about a year ago. Besides the medal he will receive $1,000. He expects to purchase a home. The day the accident happened Virgil Russell of Yellville, with several others, among whom was Virginia Hayes, the eight-year-old daughter of Lee Hayes and wife of Yellville, started across the railroad track here in an automobile in the face of an incoming train. Their view of the train was cut off by a string of box cars on the siding. Billings was standing on higher ground several hundred feet behind them, and saw their danger.

50 YEARS AGO Feb. 8, 1971

■ John Norman Warnock of Camden, attorney for the Watson Chapel School Board, announced Sunday night that the Board had agreed, with “great reluctant,” to comply with federal Judge Oren E. Harris’ order that the School District be completely desegregated by noon Thursday. Warnock released a statement at 9:40 p.m. Sunday which he said had been prepared by the Board at an earlier meeting.

25 YEARS AGO Feb. 8, 1996

FAYETTEVILLE — Throughout the 1990s, Fayetteville has been playing catch-up with growth that so far has outpaced the city’s ability to provide new roads, sewers and other needed improvements to the infrastructure. But that may be changing, Mayor Fred Hanna told the City Council in his state of the city address Tuesday night. Statistics supplied by the city’s staff, the Arkansas Home Builders Association and the Arkansas Bureau of Legislative Research appear to bear him out. City building permits issued last year totaled 670 — down by 5.8 percent from the 709 issued in 1994.

10 YEARS AGO Feb. 8, 2011

■ Muhammad Rasheed wants Little Rock to recognize the positive effect Annie Abrams, a 79-yearold community activist, has had on the capital city by renaming a section of 19th Street in her honor. Rasheed would like to do it while Abrams is alive and can feel appreciated by the recognition, but his request is at risk of being derailed by an ordinance making its way to city directors that would limit street name changes to individuals who have already died. “People are just coming out of the trough to name streets,” said City Director Erma Hendrix who last year asked for an ordinance specifying how an existing street’s name could be changed after back-to-back requests were made to rename roadways for living people.