Other days

100 YEARS AGO

March 31, 1922

■ Heavy rains throughout the state for the last two days were accompanied by severe wind storms in southern Arkansas Wednesday night and yesterday afternoon, according to dispatches received by the Gazette last night. Prescott reported that the western end of the town suffered as the result of a severe windstorm late yesterday afternoon. Several buildings were blown down, but no casualties had been reported. Crossett reported that a small tornado struck there about 11 o’clock Wednesday night, partially wrecking five residences and destroying 15 barns and garages. A woman was injured, but not seriously. Passengers arriving on trains from the south last night reported that there had been severe windstorms north of Hope yesterday afternoon. They said that many trees had been blown down along the right of way but they saw no buildings that had been damaged.

50 YEARS AGO

March 31, 1972

■ The state of Arkansas paid off Thursday the last $5,288,620 of its highway debts. In so doing, it wrote finis to the famed politically-shrouded 1941 highway refunding bond issue; wiped out what amounted to a first mortgage on the state highway system, the system’s real estate and all motor vehicle and fuel revenues; and became one of the very few, if not the only one, of the 50 states without a direct debt to which the full faith and credit of the state is pledged. … The bonds were issued to keep the state from defaulting on previous bond issues, including a whopping refunding issue of 1934, and to obtain lower interest rates in what then was a favorable money market.

25 YEARS

AGO March 31, 1997

■ Several Arkansas catfish farmers are diving headfirst into what they see as a potentially deep market: carp. “Since the stocks of ocean fish like tuna are being depleted, we feel that carp offers an economically feasible, appealing alternative,” said Carl Jeffers. He owns Topcat Fishery in Portland, about 39 miles east of Crossett in southeastern Arkansas. Jeffers is not talking about common carp — the type sold in mainstream markets and restaurants across the country. He is referring to bighead carp. Larger and more prolific in mating cycles than common carp, the bighead variety has been a favorite for controlling weeds in ponds. Bigheads are also widely served on dinner tables in Asia, Jeffers said. … Researchers at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and the U.S. Department of Agriculture see a time when bighead carp will reach the same level of popularity here as in Asia. “There’s no question we can produce millions of pounds of these fish in Arkansas,” said Carole Engle, chairman of the aquaculture and fisheries department at the Pine Bluff campus. “The problem is in creating a widespread, high-volume market.”

10 YEARS AGO

March 31, 2012

CONWAY — Motorists who drive in circles trying to get to their destinations or rely on a GPS device for verbal directions might ask 11-year-old Christian Boekhout for help. On Friday, for the second consecutive year, the sixth-grader from Hot Springs won Arkansas’ Geographic Bee. “I was really really nervous,” said Christian, who grinned, shook his small fists and hit his knees in joy when he realized he had won. … The winning question for Christian was which landlocked African country harvests timber and floats it down the Ubandi River to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The correct answer was the Central African Republic.