STORIES FROM THE PAST

50 years ago

An inquest was to be held this afternoon at Pioneers Memorial Hospital into the death of a San Diego teenager who was shot Sunday afternoon while dismantling a pistol in a desert area west of Ocotillo Wells in San Diego County.

The victim, Edwin Von Colvin, died at the hospital this morning of a bullet wound in the right side. He was rushed to the hospital by an ambulance which was met by a group of boys carrying Colvin in their arms along the highway.

Colvin and his friends were involved in practice shooting in the area before the incident; it was reported by Lt. Leonard Speer, chief deputy-coroner for Imperial County.

“We still don’t have the complete details of the shooting,” he said. “We hope to have the full details later in the day when the inquest convenes.”

Speer said that an estimated six boys were at the practice shooting.

Colvin, 17, reportedly was a student at a high school in Split Mountain area.

40 years ago

CALEXICO — A member of the Labor Department said Friday night in Calexico that treatment of undocumented workers in the United States may result in “a potential explosive civil rights story down the road.”

Charles Knapp, special assistant to Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall, addressed about 75 persons attending a two-day migrant alien worker symposium at the De Anza Hotel. The workshop is being presented by the Imperial Valley Campus of San Diego State University and is funded by a grant from the California Council for the Humanities in Public Policy.

Knapp outlined the Labor Department’s — and the Carter administrations — policy on undocumented workers.

He said people who enter the United States illegally may be exploited, paid low wages and not be subjected to health and safety standards that regulate American workers.

30 years ago

The Russian wheat aphid, a destructive pest in many grain-growing states, has been found for the first time in the Imperial Valley, California’s No. 1 grain-producing area, Eric T. Natwick, Imperial County — University of California farm adviser reported Thursday. The discovery, made in several fields near Mount Signal, was also the first sighting of the aphid in California, Natwick said.

Samples of the tiny pale green insect were taken Thursday to the Imperial County Agricultural Commissioner’s office where they will be forwarded to a California Department of Food and Agriculture lab in Sacramento for positive identification. Natwick said he is quite certain that what he saw was the Russian wheat aphid.

Actually Gene Gruenberg, pest control adviser at Dune Company of Imperial Valley, made the discovery and reported it to Natwick. The two men then visited a number of fields, several of which contained the aphid.

20 years ago

A House committee approved $21.7 billion in transportation funds last week with $10 million earmarked for building Highway 7 from Highway 98 seven miles to Interstate 8. The Building Efficient Surface Transportation and Equity Act funds for Highway 7 were requested by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine whose district includes Imperial County.

“This project will not only help facilitate economic growth in the Valley, but means less congestion and air pollution as well as better fuel economy for truckers and increased safety for the public,” Hunter said last week in a prepared statement.

Highway 7 begins at the Calexico East Port of Entry. The new port was built by the federal government and opened in December 1996. However, it lacks a major road connecting it to the interstate highway system, causing heavy traffic to be routed onto county roads and Calexico city streets.