Other days

100 YEARS AGO July 31, 1918

HOT SPRINGS– Monroe Bates, aged 27, and Henry Cleveland Bates, aged 25, sons of a mountaineer living in the most remote section of the county, who failed to register July 5, 1917, came in today and reported to the local board, saying that they had not heard about the war until they learned of the selective service law on registration day. “We hadn’t heard about the war until we were informed we had to go and register,” one of the boys said. “We didn’t register and later learned that we would be put in the government penitentiary for not registering, so we went to the woods and hid. We are glad we understand it now and are here to be sent to the army.”

50 YEARS AGO July 31, 1968

■ Senator J. William Fulbright appeared early today to be headed for a first-primary victory over Jim Johnson and two other candidates for the Democratic senatorial nomination. The junior senator, with 361 precincts uncounted, had piled up a 16,000 vote majority, and it increased with almost every new count. If he maintains it, as appeared likely, he will win renomination without a runoff.

25 YEARS AGO July 31, 1993

PINE BLUFF — The state Board of Correction officially adjourned for the last time at 3:45 p.m. Friday. It had existed since 1852. The five-member board will be replaced Aug. 13 by the seven-member Correction Resources Commission, created earlier this year by the Legislature. Three board members will serve on the new commission — Janis Walmsley of Batesville, Randall Williams of Pine Bluff and the Rev. Hezekiah Stewart Jr. of Little Rock. The commission will oversee now nonexistent departments — one handling community-based centers and parole functions and the other, existing prisons.

10 YEARS AGO July 31, 2008

■ An advocacy group for the developmentally disabled Wednesday urged Gov. Mike Beebe to grant clemency to death-row inmate Frank Williams Jr., saying the evidence is “overwhelming” that Williams is mentally retarded. The Arc Arkansas issued the plea in a letter to Beebe and the state Parole Board, which will hear arguments on Williams’ clemency petition Monday before making a recommendation to Beebe. “Mr. Williams’ family and educational histories provide overwhelming evidence of his mental retardation,” the group said in the letter, which adds that “there is abundant, credible and compelling evidence of his condition.” Williams was sentenced to death in February 1993, a month before the Arkansas law banning death sentences for the retarded was signed into law.