Other days
100 YEARS AGO Dec. 29, 1921
HUNTSVILLE — All clad in flowing white robes, Joseph Childress, his family, and a few other faithful followers calmly awaited the end of the world on Christmas morning. For several years Childress has been preaching that a poisonous gas would first descend on crowded cities and ultimately penetrate every part of the habitable globe, destroying every vestige of human life… As the fateful hour drew near, the tremulous wails of some who had imbibed too much “moonshine” were heard in the valley below… As the hour wore away the “prophet” was left discredited and alone.
50 YEARS AGO Dec. 29, 1971
JONESBORO — A recreation center for Jonesboro young people will open soon. Police Chief Jim Hanley, Pete Mead, a Jonesboro contractor who was a professional boxer, and Mearl Henry, director of parks and playgrounds, are in charge of the project. “We hope to have a wide variety of recreational activities, ranging from boxing, tumbling, weight training, table tennis, shuffleboard, sauna baths and other body building activities,” Henry said. The boxing program will be under direction of Mead and Hanley, who was a boxer while in the Army.
25 YEARS AGO Dec. 29, 1996
HOPE — A 24-year-old Rosston man stopped to help a stranded motorist… he was struck and killed by another vehicle that ran into his car after hitting him, state police said. Charles Mitchell Jr., who was killed, was traveling west on Arkansas 32 near Hope when he noticed a van broken down on the other side of the road, Arkansas State Police said. The van driver, Glendell Clayton, had run out of gas, said State Trooper Darren Neal… As Mitchell and Clayton walked back to Mitchell’s car, he was sideswiped by an oncoming pickup truck, which ran into his car… Neal said no charges will be filed against the oncoming driver because Mitchell was walking in the roadway and his car was illegally parked.
10 YEARS AGO Dec. 29, 2011
HOT SPRINGS — The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts robotics team received three first-place awards at the Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology Robotics Competition. BEST Robotics is a competition for middle and high school teams, which are given six weeks to design, build and drive a robot to perform an assigned task… Winning the BEST award is considered the highest achievement any team in the competition can accomplish. The winner is determined by a combination of points from a display booth, a design process notebook and the robot’s performance. The ASMSA robot placed first in the robot performance competition. The team also won the most robust robot award, given to teams whose robots need little maintenance.