MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1993
A grass-roots proposal to buy 60 new police cars for personal and professional use by officers was presented to Mayor W.W. Herenton Thursday in response to recent killings throughout the city. Employees of Coletta Brewer & Company Inc. presented the idea, called “Operation Drive Out Crime,” in an effort to give more visibility to patrol cars. The approximately 60 cars would be paid for through $1 million in corporate and private donations. The plan, similar to programs in cities such as Jacksonville, Fla., proposes that patrol officers receive marked police cars as personal vehicles. The officers would treat them as company cars, while at the same time, trying to keep the patrol cars visible day and night.
50 years ago — 1968
LITTLE ROCK — Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller said Monday he intends to ask the Arkansas congressional delegation to use its influence to release federal highway funds for the construction of the Mississippi River bridge. “I don’t believe the President has the authority to cut off the trust funds for highway development,” the governor said.
75 years ago — 1943
“This Is the Army,” the picture made primarily to raise money for Army Emergency Relief, will get under way tonight at the Warner with a patriotic premiere. “People,” Howard Waugh, co-chairman of the Opening Night Committee with M.A. Lightman, declared, “are not buying a mere theater ticket tonight. They will be making an investment in the morale and the welfare of the men in the Army and these men’s families back at home, over whom they might be worrying if Army Emergency Relief were not on the job to care for them.”
100 years ago — 1918
All the children in the city have been asked to meet at Central High School Saturday to sing patriotic and modern war songs. These community sings enable children to participate in patriotic functions. They also prepare children for the time when our boys will be welcomed home from war with a swelling chorus.
125 years ago — 1893
A training school of the highest grade will be opened Sept. 13 at the Bethel Building on Adams by E.S. Werts and J.W.S. Rhea. Its object will be to prepare young boys to attend Yale, Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia. It will be known as the Memphis University School. Among its supporters are Col. W.F. Taylor, Carrington Mason and J.H. Martin.