MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1997
Crittenden County voters, encouraged by a promised reduction in property taxes, on Thursday approved a proposed sales tax to pay for operation of the new county jail already under construction. The unofficial total was 979 for and 694 against the sales tax. The tax will go into effect after the April 30, 1998, expiration of a current 1-cent sales tax funding construction of the $11 million jail on Afco Road in Marion. It will add 3⁄4 of a cent to sales taxes countywide.
50 years ago — 1972
In a “spare the rod and spoil the child” case, the Supreme Court refused yesterday to hear arguments that paddling public school students without parental permission is unconstitutional. Without comment, the justices turned down an appeal by two Dallas fathers and their sons who had unsuccessfully challenged the practice in
Texas as “cruel and unusual punishment.”
75 years ago — 1947
A $15,000,000 “dream” fair, with sweeping drives, modernistic buildings, soaring pylons, a planetarium, a huge arena, the whole grounds landscaped with terraces and walks and lagoons, was unfolded briefly before the directors of the Mid-south Fair Inc., yesterday at their annual meeting at the Gayoso. It was a tentative plan which H.S. Lewis, general superintendent of the Memphis Park Commission unveiled, so tentative, he explained, that it had never been considered as a project by the Park Commission, but was, at the present time, only an architect’s conception of what developments could be contained in the present grounds.
100 years ago — 1922
CHATTANOOGA – “The Veterinarians’ Position in Advance of Southern Livestock Industry,” by Dr. W.A. Barnette
of Greenwood, S.C., was the outstanding feature of the opening session of the sixth annual convention of the Southeastern States Veterinary Medical Association, which convened here today for a two-day session.
125 years ago — 1897
A quick-moving muscular man of about 55 years stood in front of the court house talking to a young woman yesterday morning, when another man, apparently 20 years younger, walked up to the couple. The trio conversed quietly a few moments, when by a sudden movement the men struck at each other, and then engaged in a fist fight. The older man knocked the younger one down three times. The young man struggled to his feet and renewed the fight after each knockdown. The combatants were not separated until they had been allowed to fight for fully 10 minutes. None of the parties would make any statement as to the cause of the trouble.