STORIES FROM THE PAST

50 years ago

Gov. Ronald Reagan plans to extend “hands across the border” to Arizona Gov. Jack R. Williams to bring peace between the two states, as well as other Western states, in the deadlocked Colorado River water controversy.

Reagan has asked his water experts to develop a position which can be used as a basis for negotiations with Arizona, the governor’s executive secretary William P. Clark Jr., told the fall convention of the Irrigation Districts Association (IDA) in Los Angeles.

IDA represents utilities that supply 75 percent of the state’s urban and rural water needs.

Clark said the current stalemate blocking a regional solution to the Southwest’s water problems is “the biggest and most harmful ... in the long and stormy history of the Colorado River.

40 years ago

“One of the few times my class is silent is when they are reading the newspaper,” commented Bill Burton, seventh grade teacher at Niland Elementary School.

His class is one of two currently involved in “Newspaper in the Classroom,” an expanded teaching program being offered to schools throughout Imperial Valley through the Imperial Valley Press and The Brawley News.

Mary Wendrick, eight grade instructor at Fremont School, Calipatria, has just completed a three-week unit with the paper. She said, “I really think it’s fantastic.”

The two schools became involved in the program when Dr. Eddie Ikard, superintendent of the Calipatria Unified School District, called Alex Gay, public relations director for the newspapers, and asked if this sort of program was available.

Gay had just completed a summer course on using the newspaper in the classroom and was setting up a program in the Valley.

Wendrick decided to use the course on a trial basis. She said, “It really worked out great. I wish we’d had more time to do it.”

30 years ago

Forget about six white horses.

If you want to be noticed, drive a team of big, heavy-footed Clydesdale horses down State Street in El Centro.

Little kids wave, old people pause...

“Even people coming out of a lawyer’s office and you know they weren’t in there for fun — when they look up and see Tom and Jerry, they smile,” said Jack Kirby, owner of the Cameo Buffet restaurant and Broken Spoke Country Club.

Tom and Jerry changed Kirby’s life.

But the parades, fun and smiles linked with El Centro’s famous team of Clydesdales may be over. Jerry is sick.

Saturday’s Christmas parade will probably be Jerry’s last appearance in El Centro.

He may get into harness with his brother, Tom, for three Calexico Christmas parade the following Saturday.

Or he may not.

“Calexico is touch and go,” said Kirby.

Jerry stands in the pasture with his head hanging low “but get him in a harness and he’s up and going.”