Other days

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 25, 1924

■ The “Arkansas Progress Special,” the cotton demonstration train which will travel over the state on the Missouri Pacific railroad lines in the interest of “More and Better Cotton on Fewer Acres,” started from Little Rock on its 18 days’ tour last night. Special emphasis is being given to the germination of Arkansas-grown seed cotton. It is the assertion of agricultural specialists that ravages of the leaf worm have made much of the home grown seed unfit for planting.

50 YEARS AGO Feb. 25, 1974

■ The plan of a Christian organization called Athletes in Action to give presentations on drug abuse and spiritual guidance in junior and senior high schools in Pulaski County is being contested by parties contending that religious content of the programs would violate constitutional guarantees of separation of church and state. The criticism has caused the Little Rock School District to ask that religious content be deleted from the presentations in its schools, but administrators in the North Little Rock and Pulaski County School Districts said the programs, including “Christian testimonies” of professional athletes, would be presented in most of their schools.

25 YEARS AGO Feb. 25, 1999

■ Former Little Rock accountant H.G. “Jack” Frost Jr. stole $1.85 million from the Harvey and Bernice Jones Charitable Trust while managing the Springdale charity’s finances, a 71-count indictment alleged Wednesday. A federal grand jury in Little Rock charged Frost, who shared responsibility for the trust until 1997, with one count of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud, 62 counts of money laundering, three counts of filing false income tax returns, one count of making a false statement to a grand jury and one count of obstructing justice.

10 YEARS AGO Feb. 25, 2014

■ A juror whose Facebook posts during a trial prompted a judge in Pulaski County Circuit Court to overturn a North Little Rock man’s kidnapping conviction and life sentence was fined $500, the maximum, for contempt of court Monday. Circuit Judge Herb Wright gave Brittany Nicole Lewis of Little Rock the option of paying immediately or going to jail; she paid within the hour. Saying Lewis and fellow jurors had been warned against using social media during the December trial of Quinton Riley Jr., Wright cited her for criminal contempt of court, a sanction about the equivalent of a traffic ticket, for posting to Facebook directly from the jury room during the trial. … Lewis, represented by attorney Jason Kordsmeier, had admitted to using Facebook at a January hearing, in which she confirmed posting to her account to express her frustration at the pace of jury deliberations and proceedings. She also described her repugnance over some of the photographs that were used as evidence and stated that some of the testimony was upsetting.