STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
CALIPATRIA — Formal denial of the Rural Development Corp. plan to furnish afternoon supervision of kindergarten pupils at Fremont School here was voted Wednesday night by the Calipatria Unified School District Board of Trustees.
The action came following a special executive session by board members at which they discussed an answer drafted by County Counsel James H. Harmon.
It took the board a total of 15 minutes to discuss the matter and then vote on it in open session. Board members, on advice of Harmon, refused to discuss the RDC proposal at their regular meeting Monday.
The RDC proposal, made Monday in a letter sent board members and district Superintendent James Stevens, was that it would provide supervised recreation and daycare between the noon hour and the time of the regular school bus runs about 3:30 p.m. for the kindergartens.
Acceptance of the proposal by the board might have had the effect of canceling a lawsuit filed Jan. 14 by attorneys of California Rural Legal Assistance.
This suit, filed in El Centro Superior Court seeks to force the board to provide noon busing for kindergarten pupils or, in the alternative, furnish supervised recreation for them in the afternoon.
The letter, setting out reasons for denial of the RDC plans, was delivered to John Denvir, CRLA attorney, today.
It sets out two specific reasons for the denial:
1. “The board believes that keeping kindergarten students on campus for extended periods in the afternoon would be detrimental to the pupils’ welfare.
2. “The board feels the proposed recreation and daycare program would interfere with the district’s educational program.”
The Legislature requires that no kindergarten pupil shall be kept in school in any one day for more than four hours, exclusive of recesses.
40 years ago
A tape-recorded radar tracking of a small aircraft led searchers Tuesday afternoon to the wreckage of a twin-engine Cessna 421, nearly 31 hours after it had taken off from Brawley for a 20-minute flight to Palomar.
The widely scattered and fragmented wreckage was located six miles southeast of Lake Wohlford, near Escondido. Tuesday night, the San Diego County Coroner’s Office positively identified the body of its single occupant as pilot Floyd Kershner, 33, of Brawley.
The plane, owned by Brawley grower Stephen Elmore, had been the focus of a widespread search by the Civil Air Patrol after it was determined to be missing Monday afternoon.
Kershner had taken off from the Brawley Municipal Airport about 8 a.m. Monday for a short flight to Palomar for a routine maintenance check.
CAP Major Arlyn Van Atta said today the plane was located after officials had been able to detect a radar recording of a small aircraft flying from the Valley to the San Diego area.