MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1996
Guitar great Memphis Minnie gets a much more fitting tribute this weekend than she does in James Dickerson's disreputable book, Goin' Back To Memphis. Sunday at noon in Walls, Miss., a memorial headstone will be erected at New Hope Baptist Church for the blues giant. The ceremony will be filmed by the BBC and is sponsored by the Mount Zion Memorial Fund. Incorporated in 1990 by New Jersey vintage guitar dealer, ex-social worker and fund director Skip Henderson, the nonprofit Mount Zion Memorial Fund was established to safeguard the memories, reputations and rights of deceased blues artists. The fund places proper gravestones and memorials, seeks out unpaid royalties for the musicians' families, pays off liens on rural churches where blues players are buried and helps preserve country cemeteries. The first memorial was for Robert Johnson at Mount Zion Church in Leflore County, hence the fund's name.
50 years ago — 1971
The right of the National Collegiate Athletic Association to limit football broadcasts will be tested in court today. Dr. Paul Sharp, president of the University of Oklahoma, and Tom Hanson, representing the NCAA, have been subpoenaed to appear before District Court Judge Robert Simms in Tulsa, Okla. What began last week as a legal effort to get live television coverage of last Saturday's Oklahoma-texas game has grown to a test of the NCAA threat of sanctions against the two schools, after the court had enjoined the NCAA from blacking out television in the area.
75 years ago — 1946
A tentative agreement for construction of concrete trestle and piers of the Arkansas approach of the new Mississippi River Bridge to cost $487,316, was
reached yesterday after a conference at Atlanta between representatives of the Federal Public Roads Administration, Tennessee and Arkansas State Highway commissions and the contractors.
100 years ago — 1921
Reports received by The Commercial Appeal indicate the South is now harvesting the biggest sweet potato crop in its history. The total yield is put at 21,000,000 bushels.
125 years ago — 1896
Memphis theatergoers had a rare treat last night in being able to witness the performance of Miss May Montedonico, a Memphis girl who left here two years ago to study in New York for a career on the stage. She is traveling with Rowland's Theatrical Company and has one of the production's starring roles.