Other days
100 YEARS AGO July 24, 1918
Despite the statement that it was the most radical departure yet proposed, the Constitutional Convention yesterday afternoon, after an all-day debate, voted, 51-37, to submit a section of the new constitution doing away with the General Assembly as it has existed since Arkansas became a state, and providing one body to be known as the House of Delegates.
50 YEARS AGO July 24, 1968
Marion G. Ward, a Democratic candidate for Pulaski County judge, said Tuesday that an “overzealous” supporter of his apparently asked members of St. Theresa Catholic Church at 6311 Baseline Road to support him because he paved the church parking lot Saturday. Ward is the County Road Commissioner. Ward said he had “no apologies to make” for paving the parking lot and that he didn’t “do it for the vote.” Earl F. Yeargan, also a Democratic candidate for County judge, said Monday that two members of the Church complained to him that during Sunday morning mass someone put Ward’s campaign leaflets under the windshield wipers of members’ cars along with a note asking for support for Ward for “paving our parking lot.”
25 YEARS AGO July 24, 1993
A somber President Clinton returned to Arkansas on Friday, almost a week after a happier trip spent visiting with old friends. The President returned this time aboard Air Force One, a Boeing 747 jumbo jet, to say farewell to Deputy White House Counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr., his boyhood chum of 42 years who died Tuesday in a Virginia park, the victim of a self-inflicted gun shot wound. The president spoke about 10 minutes Friday at Foster’s funeral, eulogizing his friend before more than 450 mourners jammed into St. Andrew’s Catholic Cathedral.
10 YEARS AGO July 24, 2008
After two months of fostering a newborn baby who was abandoned by her biological mother, a Pulaski County couple has discovered that it cannot adopt her because the two are older than 40. The couple, using the names John Doe and Jane Doe, has filed a federal lawsuit charging that the over-40 policy of the state Department of Human Services, which has legal custody of the 4-month-old girl, is unconstitutional. In a hearing scheduled for today, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright will decide whether to grant the couple’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop the state from taking the child from their Little Rock home and placing her with a younger family while the constitutional issue is pending.