Other days

100 YEARS AGO

Feb. 8, 1918

TEXARKANA — Robert Johns, who lives in the west end of the county, was convicted by a jury in the Bowie District Court on a charge of stealing a bale of cotton. He was given two years in the penitentiary. H. W. McCowan, a negro school teacher, charged with embezzlement, was placed on trial today. Frank Wright, a young white man of Texarkana, was convicted on Monday last on a charge of burglary and given two years.

50 YEARS AGO Feb. 8, 1968

PINE BLUFF — Prosecuting Attorney Joe Holmes of Pine Bluff said Wednesday that about six witnesses would be called to testify before the Lincoln County Grand Jury when it convenes Monday to consider, among other things, the three skeletons dug up recently at Cummins Prison Farm. The graves were opened last week by state Penitentiary Superintendent Thomas O. Murton, who was led to the site by a Negro convict. The inmate alleges that hundreds of graves of convicts who were beaten or shot to death are on the farm.

25 YEARS AGO Feb. 8, 1993

■ Drivers who use radar detectors to avoid speeding tickets will face a new challenge from a just-passed law authorizing police in Arkansas to use laser-beam devices for traffic control. But law enforcement officials conceded Wednesday that it would only be a matter of time before drivers who are determined to speed purchase laser detectors to counter the new speed guns. “Anyone who wastes money on a radar detector will try to figure out a way to beat it,” said Maj. Deloin Causey, commander of the Patrol Division of the Arkansas State Police.

10 YEARS AGO Feb. 8, 2008

■ A federal jury Thursday acquitted former Melbourne High School teacher Steven D. Mitchell, who was accused of taking a male student to Louisville, Ky., in October 2002 for the purpose of sexual contact. Earlier Thursday, at the request of defense attorney Tim Dudley of Little Rock, U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes dismissed four other charges that Mitchell faced. The judge found that insufficient evidence had been presented to support a charge of witness tampering. Prosecutors alleged that Mitchell had threatened to reveal embarrassing information about another male student if the boy reported that the teacher had asked him to expose himself.