STORIES FROM THE PAST

50 years ago

Calexico’s newest supermarket, the $500,000 A& P Store at Second and Heber Avenue, is scheduled for its grand opening tomorrow morning.

The food chain’s latest retail store, styled along contemporary architectural lines, covers 15,000 square feet and has six automatic checkout counters. At these checkout points, the cashier empties the customer’s basket.

Frank More no associated with A& P for 19 years and manager of the former A& P Store at Second Street and Rockwood Avenue, takes over as manager of the newest store. Other key figures in the new market operation are Ray Lopez, assistant manager; Angelo Garcia, meat department head, and Richard Felix, produce department manager.

40 years ago

MEXICALI — National leaders of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) will meet here Sunday at a hastily called convention at which they are expected to officially designate Roberto de la Madrid, formerly of Calexico, as the new PRI candidate for governor of Baja California.

De la Madrid, in his mid-50s, will fill a vacancy created Tuesday night when Gen. Hermenegildo Cuenca Diaz, 80, died of an apparent heart attack at his home in Tijuana.

Born in Calexico, de la Madrid currently serves as the head of the National Lottery in Mexico City, and is one of two federal senators representing Baja in the capital.

20 years ago

For many Brawley residents, the small family-owned Johnny’s-Neighborhood Grocery at 490 D St. is an institution. It’s the place where students from Brawley Union High and Barbara Worth Junior High schools have congregated for decades. But as any student past or present would tell you, it’s not because it was the “cool” place to be. It was because of the store’s namesake, Johnny Palomino.

Palomino treated all of his stores patrons with respect and created a comfortable, family environment, customers interviewed today said.

Palomino died Tuesday in Pioneers Memorial Hospital in Brawley after a five-year battle with diabetes and failing health. He was 66 years old.

“Johnny’s was a place where my dad was always there to greet someone,” said Palomino’s daughter Leticia Mendez, 34, of Brawley.