Other days

100 YEARS AGO March 20, 1924

■ With the signing yesterday of the contract between the Inter-City Terminal Railway Company and the Broadway-Main Street Bridge Commission, and the first payment by the Inter-City Company of $25,000, the last formality necessary before laying street car tracks on the new bridge was concluded. The Inter-City company is ready with its forces and material to begin works on the tracks immediately, according to C. C. Kavanaugh, president of the company. It is planned to complete the work before May 22, the date scheduled for the bridge “opening” celebration.

50 YEARS AGO March 20, 1974

■ Robert S. McCord, 44, was named executive editor of the Arkansas Democrat today by Walter E. Hussman Jr., the publisher. As the head of the news and editorial departments, McCord succeeds Marcus B. George. George and C. S. Berry, the former publisher, were the principal owners of the newspaper when it was purchased by Hussman March 2. McCord has been associate editor and editor of the editorial page at the Democrat.

25 YEARS AGO March 20, 1999

■ The Little Rock Police Department will get another drug dog, and officer Mark Treece will get another canine partner — but the department’s only drug dog can never be replaced. Nero, an 8-year-old Czechoslovakian shepherd, died the morning of March 13, after a brief illness. Special investigations division Capt. Sam Williams said his division is putting together a package of preliminary information about the caliber of dogs available, how much a dog to fit the department’s needs will cost and what kind of training will be necessary for the dog and handler. “Certainly the people who worked around Nero will miss him, so he’s a lost resource,” Williams said. “It’s not like a lost tool.”

10 YEARS AGO March 20, 2014

■ The University of Arkansas System president will ask the board of trustees to establish a separate online university to offer degrees chiefly for older learners with families and jobs, according to a proposal trustees will discuss at a meeting today in Fort Smith. The first degree programs would be offered in the fall of next year. “We have spent the past year visiting with constituencies across the UA System and throughout Arkansas, and we’ve studied similar efforts in other states,” UA System President Donald Bobbitt said in a statement, also citing Gov. Mike Beebe’s goal to double the number of state residents with college degrees by 2025. “I believe creating an online university focused on adult learners is the best way for us to answer the board of trustees’ call to expand and coordinate online education in the UA System.” The board in 2012 passed a resolution for Bobbitt to grow online offerings, and the state has appropriated $2 million for the UA online efforts. … At the meeting, the board will consider the establishment of a process involving the system’s campuses to create a governance system for the university.