Other days
100 YEARS AGO Jan. 20, 1919 HOT SPRINGS — On February 15 the curtain will be rung down on the State Food Administration. All paid employees will be dropped from the pay roll on that date. Nothing but volunteer workers, including volunteer heads of departments, county food administrators and their committees will remain. The organization will be held intact in this manner ready to respond to any subsequent call that may be made by Herbert C. Hoover.
50 YEARS AGO
Jan. 20, 1969
WASHINGTON — The Arkansas booth was placed between the two most popular ones Sunday at the reception honoring governors of the 50 states. The governors’ fete was one of the highlights of the second round of Nixon inaugural activities, and thousands of Republicans and some Democratic notables squeezed into the ballroom of the Sheraton Park Hotel to shake hands with the state chiefs. … Governor and Mrs. Winthrop Rockefeller greeted hundreds of well-wishers in the Arkansas booth. The state booths were arranged alphabetically and Arkansas fell between Arizona and California, each with two of the most popular Republicans. … Senator Barry M. Goldwater was in one and Governor Ronald Reagan was in the other.
25 YEARS AGO
Jan. 20, 1994
FAYETTEVILLE — If Fayetteville’s new proposed school prayer policy is a cry for help to the U.S. Supreme Court, then a new Arkansas law may be part of the test. Using the state’s 1993 amendment to the Equal Access Act as legal justification, Fayetteville School Superintendent Winston Simpson said Wednesday he would recommend “student-initiated prayer” be allowed at graduation ceremonies and football games when the school board votes on a new prayer policy Tuesday night. Simpson added, however, that his recommendation is actually a cry for help because he would welcome a Supreme Court ruling that directly addresses student-initiated prayer. He wants to make school decisions on prayer policies clear.
10 YEARS AGO
Jan. 20, 2009
■ The Academics Plus Charter School in Maumelle held classes on the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Monday, a scheduling mistake that generated student protests and disciplinary actions. Jake Honea, the new superintendent of the 554-student school, said Monday that he didn’t realize until last Thursday that the schedule called for classes on the holiday. That was really too late, he said, to call in the school’s board of trustees to make a change, notify the Arkansas Department of Education and publicize plans for a day off to families. … On Friday, some of the high school students objected to the planned school day and to rumors that black students would be excused from classes while students of other races and ethnic groups would not. Sara Snyder, 16, a junior, said Monday that some students carried signs in protest with sayings such as “We are all black on the inside” and “MLK had a dream and Mr. Honea killed it.”