Other days

100 YEARS AGO March 27, 1922

OSCEOLA — Dr. J. H. Lunsford of Etowah, about 38 miles from Osceola, was acquitted yesterday by a jury in Circuit Court here of a charge of accepting stolen property. Dr. Lunsford was alleged to have accepted $1,480 from the former wife of another physician, a Dr. Beecher, which was said to have been stolen from the latter’s trunk after his death about a year ago. The woman, it is said, gave the money to Dr. Lunsford “to keep for her” until after Dr. Beecher’s estate was settled.

50 YEARS AGO March 27, 1972

FAYETTEVILLE — Dr. O. B. Hardison, Jr., director of the Folger Shakespeare Library at Washington, D.C., will present a free public lecture at the University of Arkansas main campus Thursday. Hardison will speak in Waterman Hall at 8 p.m. on the topic, “Shakespeare on Film: A Diminished Glory.” His talk is a part of the English department lecture series. Hardison formerly taught English and comparative literature at the University of Tennessee, Princeton University, and the University of North Carolina.

25 YEARS AGO March 27, 1997

WRIGHTSVILLE — Clad only in their long underwear, two state prison inmates escaped Wednesday and led authorities on a grueling seven-hour chase through the woods. After they were spotted by infrared heat-sensing devices on an Arkansas State Police helicopter, they were caught within minutes, officials said. Leslie Keene, 39, and Bennie Guy, 36, were “really muddy and scratched up” when officers apprehended them about 5:10 a.m. Wednesday, Department of Correction spokesman Dina Tyler said. … The inmates asked for permission to go to “pill call,” a time set aside for dispensing medication to inmates at the minimum-security prison. When the inmates didn’t show up, officers began “a head count” and found they were two inmates short. At 10:05 p.m., an “emergency head count” identified the missing inmates. Keene and Guy apparently shed their prison clothing behind Barracks 12 before they escaped sometime between 9:30 and 10:05 p.m. Tuesday. Officials discovered two 18-inch holes cut in the prison fence and tracked the escapees south toward Pine Bluff.

10 YEARS AGO March 27, 2012

■ Park Hill homeowners filled the North Little Rock City Council chambers Monday night and went home winners in a contentious debate over a proposed hillside cut that has taken almost two years to decide. City aldermen voted 8-0 against allowing First Pentecostal Church, 1401 Calvary Road along Interstate 40, to expand its parking lot by going beyond city regulations to cut into a tree-lined hillside that has houses along its top. The issue has been on the City Council’s agenda since November. The city Planning Commission approved the plan in July 2010, pending the council’s approval for any “major hillside cut.”