MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1993
Despite perhaps the biggest family feud in Millington’s history, the International Goat Days Family Festival marches on today with events that are zany, strange, earthy and nostalgic. W.S. ‘Babe’ Howard, 67, is at the center of both the festival, at USA Stadium in Millington, and the feud, being fought in Shelby County Chancery Court. Like the festival he founded four years ago, the president and part-owner of Millington Telephone Co. is passionately old-fashioned. He seems driven to preserve, recall and memorialize the “good old days,” especially those of his Depression Era childhood. The independent phone company he and his two sisters inherited from their parents has reaped wealth for him, but he is a renowned giver in Millington and south Tipton County.
50 years ago — 1968
There’s a new organization in Memphis. It’s called the Memphis Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomenon and its purpose is to investigate those flying saucers people see or think they see, members of the Rotary Club were told yesterday. Kenneth E. Bryan, Weather Bureau agricultural meteorologist, said in an interview after the meeting that the Memphis organization was formed Friday and already has eight members. “There’s something out there,” Mr. Bryan told Rotarians. The main purpose of the committee is to check the validity of flying saucer reports and to bring the latest information to the public — not to hush it up, he said.
75 years ago — 1943
Spurred by the observance of “Salerno Day” in pubic schools and during the September 15 payday in numerous industrial plants manufacturing war materials, sales of bonds in the Third War Loan drive here passed the $10,000,000 mark yesterday, nearly a third of the way toward the $33,023,500 local quota, campaign officials estimated last night.
100 years ago — 1918
The uplift and care of unfortunate and fallen women will be the subject of a mass meeting this afternoon at the Chamber pf Commerce. Miss Murray and the National Committee for the Protection of Girls will share the speaker’s platform with Leslie Stratton and Robert Ellis. The program will mark the beginning of a citywide campaign to rescue scarlet women.
125 years ago — 1893
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Four hundred men, every one armed with a Winchester, passed through here last night en route to Weir City, Kan., where they will take the place of striking miners. They are determined to do so despite all hazards, and there are apt to be plenty of those. The men are amply supplied with provisions and ammunition and may well need the latter.