STORIES FROM THE PAST

50 years ago

“A travesty of justice — a plain case of condoning dishonesty.”

With these scathing words, Judge Mark Hebblethwaite dismissed a charge of issuing checks without funds in El Centro Justice Court yesterday.

Up for preliminary hearing was Robert C. Williams, 27, truck driver of Madera. He called himself “Colonel” but when asked of what (by this newspaper) would only say “of special service.”

Barbara Anne Bolt, bank officer, testified that Williams opened an account in the El Centro branch of the Bank of America June 23, 1966, with $200. The following day he paid in $74.45.

But by June 28 when a check came in for payment that Williams had written for $70.98 in Yellow Mart, June 23, the account was down to $44.86.

By June 29, when a check came in for $66.30 given to Valley Automotive and Diesel, June, 24, the account was down to $24.86, said Mrs. Bolt.

40 years ago

NILAND — Firemen, paramedics, a radio cracklin instructions from a doctor 20 miles away.

That was the setting Tuesday as paramedics performed the delicate operation of extracting a steering wheel column from the chest of Mrs. Vera Beaden Glover, 65, Lancaster.

Her car had slammed into a canal bank on Highway 111 just south of here.

It took nearly an hour to remove the column from her chest and Mrs. Gover from her wrecked car. She was conscious and without medication throughout the ordeal.

“She was a very brave lady,” said Brawley Fireman Oliver Presley. “She never stopped talking.”

She was in guarded condition today in Pioneers Memorial Hospital after surgery Tuesday afternoon to assess and repair the damage.

The steering wheel column had torn into her chest through the rib cage and into the lung cavity.

30 years ago

The Imperial Irrigation District’s stalled attempts to transfer water may soon be underway again after the agency’s board of directors Tuesday night agreed on a broad statement of goals it will pursue in any negotiations.

The board unanimously accepted the “Principles of Water Negotiations,” prepared by directors Bill Condit and Lester Bornt, and scheduled a hearing for 8 p.m. April 28 to receive public comment on the statement.

Bornt and Condit comprise the board’s water transfer committee, which was appointed in January to combine the sometimes conflicting ideas of the individual directors onto a single position on the water transfer.