STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
Journeying into San Diego County, the Brawley Wildcats put the finishing touches on the 1967 nonleague season tonight, playing the Bonita Vista Barons at Chula Vista.
Coaches Hal McNaughton and Jack Gifford have a 2-0 record going for them, with victories over Coachella and Indio. The Barons lost to Calexico but upended Elsinor, 41-7, last week.
Brawley’s last visit to Chula Vista came in 1953. The Wildcats dropped a 12-6 decision and the SCIF small schools title to Chula Vista.
“He has looked good in practice” was McNaughton’s pre-season comment about halfback Alex Mucino. Mucino, a 175-pound senior, is the big runner in Brawley’s offensive attack.
40 years ago
Over 200 years ago when the founding fathers “wrote the rules, the first one they wrote was the one that guaranteed people would always know what is happening.”
That was the way that Ben D. Martin, general manager of the California Newspaper Publishers Association, described the role of the press.
“If you hear a sire, a shot or a scream,” said Martin, “people want to know and need to know what is happening. Whatever the future brings, there will always be an inborn compelling desire to want to know.”
Martin, who has been general manager of CNPA for 15 years, spoke to the Kiwanis Club of El Centro Friday afternoon in conjunction with National Newspapers Week.
“The press has been accused by many of harassing Nixon out of office,” said Martin. “It happened again with Lance. But where would the country be if the press had ignored Watergate, Lance, Tammany Hall, Billie Sol Estes and Teapot Dome? Where would we be if the government had the power to suppress?”
30 years ago
A San Diego aeronautical firm’s proposal to use the old Holtville airstrip to test a newly developed remote control spy plane, or drone, has stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy over Combat Heritage Foundation’s lease of the county facility.
Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical’s proposal to lease space and runway use from Combat Heritage is on the Board of Supervisors’ agenda for Tuesday. Two supervisors already are issuing stinging criticism against the foundation and its $1 a year lease on the property and the county real property staff.
Said Supervisor Val Blume, “I am so upset with Combat Heritage. They misrepresented themselves. They are not supposed to be going out finding people to come in to build spy ships. That’s up to county government. And if the lease allows it, I will be upset with our real property staff.”
And Supervisor Jeanne Vogel, in whose district the airstrip lies, said she is dismayed because the board was kept in the dark about happenings at the county runway.