MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1996
No, it won’t be the College World Series, but it will have a familiar look. The allure of having its conference championship game televised has resulted in Conference USA adopting a CWS format for its postseason baseball tournament May 14-19 at Hattiesburg, Miss. The event will feature winners from two four-team pools meeting in the May 19 single-elimination title game that will be shown on the Prime Network beginning at 3 p.m. The winner earns an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. C-USA is the only conference using the CWS format. Normally, conference tournaments are double-elimination, one-bracket events from start to finish. Prime wanted the single-elimination championship game. C-USA’S two pools will be divided by their seedings. They will play double-elimination rounds. U of M coach Jeff Hopkins said league coaches had no trouble agreeing to the format because of the television exposure.
50 years ago — 1971
Thomas Harold Stiger, 20, sought by police in four robberies, was arrested quietly sitting in a barber’s chair March 18 after reports that he had threatened to kill the first policeman who approached him. Responding to an anonymous tip, four patrolmen entered a barbershop at Fourth and Calhoun, where they found Stiger getting a haircut. The man in the chair identified himself as “Harold Williams,” but the patrolmen recognized Stiger from a photograph they had brought along. Patrolman D.L. Smith said Stiger was “calm and cool” and did not resist.
75 years ago — 1946
Memphis State College, along with the University of Texas and Winthrop College of Rock Hill, N.C., was removed from probation and restored to full membership in the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, as that body closed its annual meeting at The Peabody. Restoration of Memphis State, which had been on probation since 1943, was recommended by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, of which Dr. Rufus Harris, president of Tulane University, is chairman.
100 years ago — 1921
JACKSON, Miss. – After the closing of arguments at 10 o’clock tonight in the fire insurance contempt proceedings brought by the receivers against certain fire insurance agents and L.B. Caldwell, secretary, Chancellor Stricker held all of the defendants to be in contempt of court. He allowed them 10 days in which to purge themselves on contempt by paying over to the receiver all funds in their hands belonging to the companies in the case of L.B. Caldwell, secretary of the Fire Insurance Agents’ Association.