Other days

100 YEARS AGO August 5, 1920

CONWAY — The Oliver Construction Company yesterday signed contracts for the construction of the Damascus, Vilonia and Palarm highways. M.W. Elkins and Gordon Peny of Little Rock signed contracts for the purchase of the bonds of the three districts, amounting to more than $1,000,000, paying $10,000 in cash to guarantee the performance of their contract.

50 YEARS AGO August 5, 1970

PINE BLUFF — The Watson Chapel School Board voted unanimously Monday night to reject the federal Health, Education and Welfare Department’s plan for desegregating the School District. Harris F. Mitchell, Board president, said he had notified Tom Kenrick, director of HEW’s Equal Education Opportunities Division, of the decision but not federal Judge Oren E. Harris of El Dorado.

25 YEARS AGO August 5, 1995

■ A sporting goods store employee was knocked unconscious Thursday by a man he caught trying to shoplift athletic shoes, Little Rock police reported. The man entered Champ’s Sports in University Mall around 4:30 p.m. Thursday, tried on a pair of Nike athletic shoes like the ones he was wearing and ran out of the store, police reported. An employee caught him and brought him back into the store. Thomas Pearce, 23, another employee, told the man to pay for the shoes or leave them in the store. The man took out a roll of bills, but as Pearce started to count the money, the man knocked him out and ran from the store with the money and the shoes. Pearce later received stitches [on his] mouth and nose stitches at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical and was released.

10 YEARS AGO August 5, 2010

■ James T. “Tony” Wood, the newly retired superintendent of the Searcy School District, is the new deputy commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education. Wood, 59, replaces Diana Julian, who retired from the position earlier this year. Before his 18 years as the Searcy superintendent, Wood worked one year as a deputy superintendent in the Little Rock School District and as principal in the Kensett district for six years. He began his 38-year career in education as a teacher in Beedeville and then Judsonia. Wood has a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s degree in education administration from Harding University. State Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell announced Wood’s appointment Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators in Little Rock. Kimbrell also announced that Susan Bonesteel will become the Education Department’s director of policy.