RECOLLECTIONS
50 Years Ago Pea Ridge Graphic Vol. 5 No. 38 Thursday, Sept. 17, 1970
For the second time in a 10-day period, a Pea Ridge couple learned that a member of their family was wounded in Vietnam. The second message arrived Saturday with the word that Arthur Stephens, 20, of Rogers, had been seriously wounded. He is a brother of Mrs. Larry Shrader of Pea Ridge. Larry is brotherin-law to Johnny Weston who was wounded in Vietnam Aug. 28.
Meeting in regularly scheduled monthly meeting Thursday, the Pea Ridge City Council appointed Harold Hurd as fire chief, voted to acquire a fire phone system to notify firemen outside the hearing range of the city’s siren, approved paying city bills, transferred $4,500 from the fire department’s savings account to the city fund and authorized a street light committee to establish new lights needed in the city.
Pea Ridge High School students and the students in the sixth- and fourthgrade rooms of the local elementary school will be given a one-day holiday Friday, Sept. 25, for the Benton County Fair. School principal DeWitt Tidwell said students in other grades will be excused to attend if their parents wish to take them. He said the school does not have enough buses to take all the students.
40 Years Ago Pea Ridge Graphic-Scene Vol. 15 No. 38 Wednesday, Sept. 17, 1980
A considerable number of citizens filled the City Council room at City Hall Thursday. They came to object to a zoning variance granted by the city’s Board of Adjustment allowing a second trailer home on a two-acre lot in the Medlin addition and to object further to the new sewer rates. Former mayor Cotton Carter presented a petition signed by two-thirds of the residents; the persons objecting were told the council was not the proper place to appeal their case which had to go to the circuit court.
Competition for municipal office has arisen in the past week. Joseph A. Ellington and Fred L. Sutton have turned in petitions for Ward 1, Position 2, and Paul is circulating a petition but has not yet turned it in. For Ward 2, Position 1, Billy Dryden and Carl J. Carter have turned in signed petitions. In Ward 2, Position 2, Charles Colton is the only candidate to date. For Ward 1, position 1, Joe Miletis and Alva Lee Johnson have turned in petitions. For clerk/recorder, Lee Otis Hall and Fred Peck are the indicated candidates.
The Pea Ridge City Park
Pavilion fund grew to $1,100.46 this week.
30 Years Ago Pea Ridge Country Times Vol. 25 No. 38 Thursday, Sept. 20, 1990
A letter, with support data challenging the U.S. Census Bureau’s preliminary head count in Pea Ridge, has been mailed to the bureau’s district office in Little Rock. The Census Bureau’s preliminary count listed the population of Pea Ridge at 1,443, a decrease of 45 persons since the 1980 census.
Businesses in Pea Ridge were expected to receive by today a letter requesting a donation to the new Pea
Pea Ridge United Fund. Bob Harp, chairman of the united Fund’s business division, said there are 45 businesses in Pea Ridge.
The acting president of the Pea Ridge Area Ministerial Alliance said the organization will sponsor a Thanksgiving service at the Pentecostal Holiness Church. Charlie Womack, acting president, said that the decision was made last week at a reorganizational meeting of the alliance held at First Baptist Church. Womack is pastor of First Baptist.
The area’s newest restaurant will hold an open house Saturday with prizes and free meals for some, owners Mary Rogers and Henry Durand said. Durand’s Dining Room is at the intersection of Arkansas Highway 72 and U.S. Highway 62.
20 Years Ago The TIMES of Northeast Benton County Vol. 35 No. 38 Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2000
The Big Sugar Golf Club is good to go after a Pea Ridge Planning Commission meeting Tuesday, Sept. 12. Pea Ridge Planners granted two variances in a subdivision ordinance and approved the preliminary plat for Tract A of a large-scale residential development in south Pea Ridge on Sugar Creek Road to be built by Sugar Creek LLC.
The Pea Ridge Fire Department received a grant of 200 smoke alarms to place in Pea Ridge homes.
The Pea Ridge United Fund recently announced that the 12th annual International Mule Jump will be held on Oct. 14 at the Pea Ridge City Park.
Ken Willis, a new member of the Pea Ridge Middle School staff, gets a kick out of teaching algebra to his eighth-grade students. Not surprising for a man who only a few years ago was getting his thrills by kicking footballs in the National Football League.
10 Years Ago The TIMES of Northeast Benton County Vol. 45 No. 38 Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010
Traffic began to flow on North Davis Street again Tuesday after city Street Department employees finished backfilling the surface along the curb south of the new drainage culvert.
Every weekend the two main intersections in town on Curtis Avenue are deluged with signs — yard and garage sale signs usually. Along the road sides throughout town, campaign signs have been placed. There is no city ordinance prohibiting signs in the city’s rights of way, but it is illegal to place signs in the state highway rights of way. Both fourway stop sign intersections are state highway rights of way.
Many of the young parents attending the array of community events in Pea Ridge — the Pea Ridge Fair, the Easter egg hunt and the Christmas parade — were not born when Dorothy Williams and nine other ladies chartered the Beta Alpha Sorority in town and began sponsoring the fair. For nearly half a century, the ladies of Beta Alpha Sorority worked behind the scenes to provide family activities for the community.