STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
Standing in the middle of a quiet Ward field, Joe Enserro found his eyes moist, but his saddened heart full of spirit.
His pride and joy, the Calexico Bulldogs, had dropped a 14-7 Imperial Valley League game to the Brawley Wildcats.
“My kids are tremendous,” Enserro said, “and I could not be more proud of them if they had won.”
Before the game, Joe said his boys “had to play football.” They did. Enserro remarked at halftime that the Wildcats were “bigger and had been beating our boys in the line.”
A small band of Bulldogs gave highly regarded Brawley all it wanted. Twenty-two players were available Friday morning. One, Cesar Luna, had an appendix operation the day of the game.
Enserro’s forces came up short but not on desire.
40 years ago
Imperial County took its fairness campaign to Los Angeles in a convoy of trucks, tractors and buses Saturday that caught the attention of major politicians and media gathered for a presidential speech at a Democratic fund-raising dinner.
The rally, which began with a barbecue and speeches at the Federal Building, was capped off with a tractor parade at the Century Plaza Hotel, four miles away. President Carter almost paid it a visit.
The president told an Associated Press reporter during the dinner, “I was going to go out and talk to them, but it got dark and they had to leave the streets when we got here.”
Presidential Press Secretary Jody Powell told this newspaper the possibility of a Carter visit with the farmers had been discussed during the plane trip to California.
30 years ago
Representatives of the Defense Department contractor considered opening a plant near the county airport were in the Valley again today getting information about the local work force straight from the horse’s mouth — some of the larger employers in the area.
And Bill Plaster, director of Regional Economic Development Inc., said he believes today’s visit, on the heels of a similar visit last week, is the last step before the county’s proposal is sent to the corporate headquarters for a decision by the first week in November.
And while the Defense Department contractor is heading toward a final decision, Plaster said REDI is already turning its sights to another firm that also insists on remaining nameless, but is considering opening a 65,000 square-foot factory making plastic injection molded items like dashboards and automatic coffee makers.
20 years ago
Calcot Ltd., one of the nation’s largest cotton marketing cooperatives, has sold its 35-year-old Imperial facility to an Imperial Valley hay marketer.
Drewry Farms of Imperial bought the 117-acre property and remaining 14 warehouse structures last week.
The purchase price was not disclosed, but Bakersfield-based Calcot has received the payment, according to Robert Norris, Calcot senior vice president of finance and administration.
“We’re very satisfied,” Norris said. “They were as pleased to buy it as we were to sell it.”
Drewry Farms will use the warehouses to compress and store hay, said Bryan Drewry, general manager of Drewry Farms, which is owned by his father, Huston.
The company is moving its Mount Signal-area operations to the Calcot site off Highway 86 in Imperial.
Drewry Farms stores and moves Bermuda grass, Sudan grass and alfalfa hay for export to Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The company initially will have the hay trucked from its site. Meanwhile, the company plans to add to the existing rail spur east of the Calcot warehouses to ship hay by rail within a year.