Other days
100 YEARS AGO
May 6, 1920
■ J.H. Blount (negro) of Helena, nominated for governor of Arkansas at the recent convention held by negro delegates after they had been incontinently thrust out of the regular convention by the predominating “lily white” element, will not be the candidate on the recognized Republican ticket. Secretary of State Tom J. Terral yesterday announced that after carefully investigating the claims of Blount and Wallace Townsend, the “lily white” candidate, he had decided that the nomination of Mr. Townsend was regular and that he would certify him as the Republican nominee within 60 days of the election as required by law.
50 YEARS AGO
May 6, 1970
HOT SPRINGS — The Black Orchid, a nightclub here, Monday night became the first club in Arkansas to offer a permanent topless dance act. Owner Derrel Sims said the two girls in the act are Pat Powell and Pat Stevens, both 22, who dance atop a small stage flanked by barber-striped poles. The girls begin their act in black see-through blouses but soon discard them in favor of a bikini and top. In time, the top also is shed.
25 YEARS AGO
May 6, 1995
■ Arkansas State Police say investigator Cpl. Russell Welch is incompetent and they want him out. They say Welch, once the agency’s lead investigator into drug smuggler Barry Seal and illegal activities at the Mena Airport, mysteriously lost his talents about three years ago. His investigative case load declined and he habitually missed appointments, disobeyed direct orders and got sloppy with records. “This is a simple case of a man not doing his job,” state police spokesman Wayne Jordan said Friday. Welch countered that his problems began in 1992 when President Clinton’s election turned the Mena case into an international media sensation and Welch into a reluctant celebrity. Some critics of Clinton suggest the Mena airport was an important link in the Nicaraguan Contra arms-supply network in the 1980s as well as a site for illegal drug shipments to the United States. One supervisor told Welch he was “paranoid about the Mena Airport,” Welch told Col. John Bailey, the state police director, in a letter in January.
10 YEARS AGO
May 6, 2010
■ The operator of a preschool and after-school program housed in a district elementary school must agree by today to pay the Pulaski County Special School District an overdue balance of $26,009 and give up the right — at least temporarily — to direct any expansion of her program. In the second special meeting in as many days about the Dedicating Resources to Excel All Minds, or D.R.E.A.M. program, the School Board voted 6-0 Wednesday in favor of a five-page contract that will require program director Jody Abernathy to meet certain conditions to maintain her existing program at Harris Elementary School. The contract also requires her to obtain district authorization to apply for grants to expand her program to other schools in Sherwood and Jacksonville.