MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1996
President Clinton, Wynonna Judd and Elizabeth Taylor all have Robert Patterson in common. Federal prosecutors say Patterson's peeks at the tax returns of celebrities such as Judd, Taylor, Clinton and Cybill Shepherd violate IRS internal policy and federal laws. Even some local well-knowns didn't escape the scrutiny of the former IRS employee. IRS computers linked the 38-year-old Patterson of Byhalia, Miss., to accessing tax information on Prince Mongo, TV weatherman Dave Brown, retired school board member and longtime NAACP executive secretary Maxine Smith, wrestler Jerry Lawler and Danny Owens, the former kingpin of adult entertainment in Memphis. Patterson, charged in a 70-count indictment, took the stand Tuesday to tell a jury why he was snooping. ''Names I saw in the newspapers. Names I heard on TV. I wasn't going in there with any malicious intent. I was just trying to teach myself,'' he said.
50 years ago — 1971
NASHVILLE – After five wars and more than a century, Tennessee's Confederate Pensions Board formally was abandoned Friday. The Volunteer State, which sent regiments to fight in the Civil War from Gettysburg to Atlanta, sent the board, which rules on the eligibility of applicants for the pensions, to a quiet death last week. Only two legislators rose to speak when the bill came to the floor of the Tennessee House. Gov. Winfield Dunn signed the abolition measure into law almost on the day of the ending of the Civil War 106 years ago, April 9. At the time of the signing there were 16 widows of Confederate veterans still receiving their $150 checks each month.
75 years ago — 1946
LOS ANGELES – Dr. William Giles Campbell, former university professor, emerged little more than a pauper Tuesday from his bitterly contested divorce battle with his wife, Emma. Under a property settlement which he signed because he "thought it best for all concerned" to end the case Mrs. Campbell received: the family's 10room home and its furnishings, various stocks and bonds, various insurance policies, a Cadillac automobile, alimony of $200 if she remains single or $100 a month if she remarries, the professor's office equipment, reference library and motion picture equipment he used in his lectures. The divorce battle was started by the professor with a suit in which he accused his wife of more than 50 acts of cruelty. She countered with a suit for separate maintenance in which she pictured him as a "campus Casanova."
100 years ago — 1921
NASHVILLE – The Tennessee Supreme Court today affirmed the action of Chief Justice D.L. Lunsden in issuing writs of certiorari and supersedeas in the woman's suffrage litigation last summer, as a result of which Gov. A.H. Roberts sent a certificate to Secretary of State Colby of the ratification of the 19th amendment to the United States constitution by the Legislature, following which the adoption of the amendment was proclaimed.