STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
Imperial Valley high school administrators were alerted this week to the possible existence of sex clubs among their students.
Calipatria School Superintendent James Stevens allegedly found a “sex constitution” to which the young participants pledge complete sexual freedom. He alerted Valley lawmen.
Stevens would not comment on the discovery today but Holtville Superintendent Gerald Beaman described it thusly:
“Apparently this is an agreement within the group to have sexual activities of any form with anybody in the group provided they are asked in a desirable manner.”
El Centro High School Superintendent Robert Stodola said he had been alerted to this situation Wednesday and had been told that clubs of this nature do exist in El Centro.
He said this reminded him of the “non-virgin clubs” which were infamous in high schools years go.
“We are starting our own investigation now, although we haven’t had much time to work on it,” Stodola said “We think it might be some older high school kids or post-high school boys who are contacting the younger high school girls.”
40 years ago
A story run in this newspaper 40 years ago can now be corrected, thanks to a letter from Harold Dickerson, 64, a former Calipatria police chief who now runs a fruit stand at the edge of town.
Dickerson saw a brief account of a shootout he had when he was a 24-year-old Westmorland patrolman. The item was in Saturday’s “Stories of the Past.”
Some of the facts were wrong in the 1937 account, such as his age. “Doggone it, I was 24 when the incident happened, not 27 like the story says,” explained Dickerson. “At the age of 27 I was police chief of Calipatria.”
Indeed, he was chief of police from 1940 to 1948. “Another thing,” Dickerson said. “The story says my right arm was torn by stray bullets. Well, I’ll tell you, those weren’t stray bullets. They were right on the mark. I knew the newspaper account was wrong but I was too sick at the time to do anything about it.”
Dickerson began his law enforcement career in 1934 when his father, Edward Dickerson, was Westmorland’s first police chief.
Javier Guerrero, an officer with the Brawley police, is writing a history of Westmorland’s Police Department for a post graduate history course. In it he talks about the exploits of Dickerson and his father.
30 years ago
A sequence of powerful earthquakes that rocked the Imperial Valley today and Monday night probably was caused by the same forces that created the Gulf of California between Baja California and mainland Mexico, scientists said.
“Certainly all the activity in the Imperial Valley and Mexicali Valley area is related to the opening of the Gulf of California,” said Tom Heaton, scientist in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Pasadena office.
The area has a history of sequences of earthquakes, sometimes without detectable main shocks, as Baja and the part of California north of the border move northwest past the rest of the continent.
Heaton said such oblique motion also causes Baja to move apart from mainland Mexico, a process that started to form the gulf 10 million years ago.
“The Imperial Valley would be part of the gulf if it were not for the (old) Colorado River delta, which forms a dam that keeps the Gulf of California out of the Imperial Valley,” Heaton said.
20 years ago
WESTMORLAND — Three Westmorland residents were arrested and a police officer suffered a broken nose following an altercation in a parking lot here Sunday afternoon.
The incident occurred about 1:30 p.m. when officers noticed a pickup driven by Bertha Perez, 30, of Westmorland entering the parking lot of the Westmorland Food Mart.
“We noticed she hit a parking pole,” said Westmorland police Officer Victor Paniagua. “We made contact with her and she showed signs of being under the influence.”
Perez was arrested, and while officers were checking the sobriety of the passenger, Josie Cocova, 32, when Cocova’s boyfriend, Ruben Cervantes, 35, arrived. Paniagua said Cervantes had parked his vehicle so it was blocking the entrance of the parking lot and was told on several occasions to leave, but refused.
Officer Kevin Odenbaugh then saw a knife on the front seat of Cervantes’ vehicle. The knife was confiscated and officers attempted to arrest Cervantes.
“He refused and punched Odengbaugh in the nose,” Paniagua said. “We had to use pepper spray and call for additional units.”
Cervantes was arrested on suspicion of interfering with a police officer, carrying a deadly weapon and assaulting a police officer and causing great bodily harm.