Other days

100 YEARS AGO

March 21, 1923

SEARCY — “I sure do have hard luck,” complained Bill Fletcher, when he was arrested Saturday night. “Work hard all week, and get into trouble every Saturday night,” and he refused to cheer up as officers sympathetically removed from his person the cause of his most recent trouble, a quart of hooch, to be used as “exhibit A” in his trial on a charge of transporting liquor. Some kind of jinx does seem to be pursuing Bill, as this is the fifth Saturday night that trouble has overtaken him. For four consecutive weekends, he has been in an auto accident — and always it is Bill’s car that lands in the ditch, never by any chance right side up… Fletcher, who works at the painter’s trade, was released on $150 bond.

50 YEARS AGO

March 21, 1973

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Pentagon employees stole $30,000 worth of knives, forks, spoons and other cafeteria utensils over a ninemonth period, officials said Monday… Many of the stolen utensils were found in the trash after workers apparently finished using them at their desks. The cafeterias are run by a private firm. The loss will be absorbed by higher lunch prices, not tax money.

25 YEARS AGO

March 21, 1998

■ A legislative committee learned Thursday that the state’s elected prosecutors hope the state will assume the task of paying deputy prosecutors, which could be a budgetary issue for the Legislature in 1999. The board of the Arkansas Prosecuting Attorneys Association decided at its February meeting to begin talking to legislators about shifting the responsibility for paying the deputies from the quorum courts to the state, the Joint Interim Committee on the Judiciary was told… In the 1997 legislative session, lawmakers decided the state would take over paying public defenders in Arkansas. One result, said Sen. Wayne Dowd, D-Texarkana, is that some public defenders are making more than some deputy prosecutors. Dowd asked McMahan to ensure that any plan for paying deputy prosecutors avoids creating unjustified pay disparities.

10 YEARS AGO

March 21, 2013

HEBER SPRINGS — Frequent visitors of the Cleburne County Library will have to find their way to a new location to check out their favorite titles. While its permanent building is being expanded and renovated, the library has temporarily relocated to 102 E. Main St. in Heber Springs. Zac Cothren, library director, said the building that now houses the temporary library is the former district court building… The library was closed for about a month while volunteers and library workers moved the almost 45,000 books from the old building to the temporary location… The library’s renovated facility, at 1010 W. Searcy St., will have 6,000 square feet of new space, in addition to the building’s original 5,000 square feet… The Mary Wold Memorial Library is scheduled to open in early 2014, Cothren said.