MID-SOUTH MEMORIES

25 years ago — 1998

Portable classrooms to help close the chasm between space needs and future construction will be on the Memphis Board of Education’s slate this evening. The board will be asked to approve buying 24 portable classrooms at a cost of $1 million. The board approved a similar $1 million purchase in December. School officials want to have all 48 portables ready when school starts in August.

50 years ago — 1973

The search for a permanent director for the Memphis-shelby County Planning Commission appears to be dragging, and the commissioners were reluctant yesterday to discuss their efforts. John J. Griesbaum stepped

down unexpectedly from the $20,500a-year job last Aug. 25 to become a vice president of the real estate and mortgage banking firm of Joyner, Heard and Jones Inc. Mr. Griesbaum resigned just two months after he was reappointed to a two-year term following several months of controversy over his attitude toward developers.

75 years ago — 1948

WASHINGTON – Army Signal Corps scientists are preparing to explore the surface of the moon with radar in an attempt to map its mountains, valleys and craters. They will use electronics, improvements which have been developed since Jan. 10, 1946, the day the Signal Corps electrified the nation by announcing it had made radar contact

with the moon. On that day a signal was beamed to the celestial body and it bounced back within 2.4 seconds to be received by scientists at the Evans Signal Laboratory, Belmar, N.J.

100 years ago — 1923

A 600-room hotel at the southeast corner of Second and Union, to cost $3,000,000 and a building for B. Lowenstein & Bros. Inc., on the present site of the Peabody Hotel at Monroe and Main, are early improvements for Memphis, announces R. Brinkley Snowden and A.L. Parker.

125 years ago — 1898

Final street parades of the 1898 Mardi Gras at Memphis, will be held this evening, featuring the pageant, “Mysterious 13.”

THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL FILES Leerin Campbell, left, has her makeup done Feb. 23, 2010, by Maggie Baker, who in turn has her hair done by Kayla Smith. Campbell and Smith were “bird girls” and Baker played Gertrude Mcfuzz, in Hernando High’s production of “Seussical the Musical.”