STORIES FROM THE PAST

50 years ago

As of this writing, the Desert Conference has killed the Imperial Valley College basketball program, beginning next year.

However, a little inconspicuous drama has taken place which still gives IVC hope of maintaining the quality of its basketball representatives.

Basically, this is what happened:

Two weeks ago Desert Conference college presidents enacted a rule which forces potential athletes to reside in the area one full year before being allowed to play for that local junior college.

This means that even a “bonafide change of residence” is not enough to ensure an athlete’s eligibility beginning in 1968. He must also live in the area a year and attend school there too.

The state code, on the other hand, stipulates that an athlete over 21 may be eligible after one semester at the junior college without a move into the district by his parents or guardian. A student under 21 is eligible upon the “bonafide change of residence” which means his parents must move into the district and stay there.

40 years ago

NILAND (AP) — The United States is dulling the thrust of smugglers by sharpening the skills of its customs agents in a mandatory guerrilla warfare course in the Southern California desert.

After three weeks of rigorous training, even normally chair-bound supervisors learn to run, crawl, fight and shoot back.

The desert games played out just south of the Chocolate Mountains where Gen. George S. Patton trained his tank and armored cavalry units for World War

II, are a reaction to the growing threat from smugglers and their sophisticated tactics in recent years.

“Smugglers are finding ways to get around us,” said Bob Lasher, assistant patrol director for the San Diego district. “The stuff continues to be brought in by aircraft and ships.”

In 1973, when the U.S. Customs Service started patrolling the Mexican border with Southern California, it seized 27,289 pounds of marijuana in six months.

30 years ago

Bottle and cans crashed to the floor, roads were closed and chimneys tumbled, but only about a dozen minor injuries were reported as a result of two strong earthquakes that shook the Imperial Valley Monday night and this morning.

Damage from the earthquakes, which registered 6.0 and 6.3 on the Richter scale, appears to be light in comparison to the 1979 Imperial Valley earthquake that destroyed the county Services Building and caused about $15 million in damage.

“Overall, we’ve been quite lucky,” said Assistant Chief Charles Beard of the El Centro Fire Department. “Minor is what we’ve been classifying it as.”

“This has been no demand at all,” Beard continued. “The other one we were really put to the wall on. That was a high stress one.”

Calexico was apparently the hardest hit by the temblor, which was centered near Westmorland.

Police in the border community closed all of the stores in the downtown area until they could be inspected by the fire department, and federal officials closed the Calexico Port of Entry pending an inspection by the General Services Administration.

20 years ago

Three suspected undocumented immigrants died and several more were injured when the van they were in blew a tire and rolled on Highway 111 near McCabe Road in the early morning hours Sunday.

The California Highway Patrol reported at least 20 people were packed into the van. Many of those inside were thrown from the wreckage as the van’s shell was battered. Those not injured seriously fled as law-enforcement officers and ambulances arrived at the scene.

The three people, who died, all apparently under 30, remained unidentified this morning. The three, two of whom were men, died of massive head injuries when they were thrown from the crowded van.