Looking Back with Lora Stull
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One Hundred
Years Ago
(From the Mount Ayr Record-News,Thursday, May 23, 1923.)
Diagonal to Offer Bonus-Attempt being Made to Defeat The Courthouse Proposition- In order that the people generally of the county may be informed regarding tactics employed in an effort to defeat the courthouse proposition, the article from the Diagonal Reporter is published herewith as follows:
“The people of Diagonal and the surrounding community are making preparations for strenuous efforts to remove the count seat of Ringgold county from its present location of Mount Ayr to Diagonal. Several mass meetings have been held this week and it seems to be the consensus of opinion that Diagonal is the proper place to build the proposed new courthouse when one is built.
The effort on the part of the people of the Diagonal community for the removal of the county seat to this city is a matter which has been given much thought. Committees have been appointed the past week to look after the matter of solicitation of funds which are to be turned over to the county treasurer for the express purpose of helping finance the construction of the new court house when one is built in Ringgold county (providing same is located in Diagonal, IA) and the committees are now hard at work.
It is too early to make an announcement of what will be accomplished by this drive, but it is certain that many thousands of dollars will be cheerfully subscribed for this purpose and that every honorable means will be exhausted to secure the location of the county capital at Diagonal.
Much dissatisfaction with the present county seat has been expressed over the entire county because of its almost inaccessible location at Mount Ayr and the taxpayers of the county feel that Diagonal is the proper place for the county seat.
Diagonal is easily accessible both by railroads and wagon roads and it is possible to get in and out of town either way both day and night and at almost anytime. This is not true of the present location, and when roads are bad during session of the district court it is next to impossible to get to Mount Ayr.
Diagonal Move Is Unfair: Dissecting the statements made in the forgoing article from the Diagonal Reporter, one is led to the conclusion that those responsible for the propaganda have been seized with an acute attack of excessive boosterists, and while their pride and patriotism is admirable, they failed to take into account the interests of the entire county of which they are apart.
At the outside it would seem that the proposal to re-locate the county seat instead of having been given “much thought”, as stated in the above article, bears the earmarks of a premature explosion, and in its results may record a disaster or a “fizzle”.
If it should succeed in the only purpose for which it could reasonably have been inaugurated at this time-that of defeating the proposed bond issue-they property owners of the county are the ones whose interests will be jeopardized.
The annual sale of poppies on Decoration Day will not be held this year by the Ladies’ Auxiliary to the American Legion because of the fact that the only available poppies are of German manufacture. The Auxiliary does not feel that it is appropriate to wear German made poppies in honor of our fallen heroes of who died at German hands.
Marriage: May 8, Amy Marshall and Ottis Dailey…Oval Bentley and Velma Hewitt were united in marriage this week.
Births: May 14, son, to Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Klejch.
Obituaries: Cynthia Elvira Pratt Nevill, Caroline Lighthill Biddle and Winnie Allen.
Seventy-Five
Years Ago
(From the Mount Ayr Record-News,Thursday, May 20, 1948.)
Three orange blinkers will be installed along Hwy 2 & 169 in Mount Ayr to warn motorists of the heavy pedestrian traffic along the highway near the Huggins Roller Rink.
Miss Jean Thompson and Betty Strange were named valedictorian and salutatorian respectively of the senior graduating class of 1948.
Births: May 15, a daughter, Marilyn, to Mr. and Mrs. Joe Robinson…March 30, twins, Lloyd and Marjorie, to Mr. and Mrs. Ennis Mickael.
Obituaries in this edition were: Walter J. Williams, Gussie Agnes Kelly Lowder, Kathryn Mosier Gass, and Lemmuel M. Liles.
Fifty Years Ago
(From the Mount Ayr Record-News,Thursday, May 24, 1973.)
The top ranking seniors of the 1973 class in Mount Ayr were announced this week, they are Lynn Keenan, valedictorian and David Henderson, salutatorian.
A new business will be opening its doors soon in Mount Ayr. Dennis Weaver of Omaha, NE has purchased the building at 108 E. Madison Street from Susan Timby Young of Des Moines and will open an air conditioning and refrigeration repair and installation service.
Martha Sickels Palmer of Decatur, IL and a 1961 graduate of Mount Ayr community high school has been awarded an undergraduate teaching assistantship at Illinois State University, Bloomington for 1973-74 school year. Mrs. Palmer’s appointment was to Art Education assistant.
David McDaniels of Redding, senior at Northwest Missouri Stare University, has been awarded an assistantship for graduate study in Physics for the 1973-74 academic year at University of Wisconsin.
Marriage: April 7, Carla Riggs and Barry Brown.
Births: May 15, a son, to Mr. and Mrs. Donald Brown…May 15, a daughter, Tiffany, to Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Pratt…May 3, a daughter, Janis, to Mr. and Mrs. Steve Jackson.
Obituaries in this edition were: John R. Bolinger, Mary Jane Stephens, Reuben H. Knight, Carroll Linden Higday, Mary L. Miller Fleming, George Raymond Nauman, Edward Earl Barnett, Cairo Manning, Matilda Jezek Zaruba, Dency Laura Young Rice, Alta Viola Nobles Mills and Leonard A. Sheil.
Twenty-Five
Years Ago
(From the Mount Ayr Record-News,Thursday, May 14, 1998.)
There will be a “changing of the guard” in coaching ranks at Mount Ayr community high school next year. Longtime head football and girls track coach, Dave Still, has resigned his coaching duties and longtime head girls softball coach, Mark Larsen, is giving up his responsibilities for that sport for the 1998-99 school year.
Six MACHS students will be participating in the Southwest Iowa Honor Marching Band when it marches at the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix, AZ January 1, 1999. Playing with the band will be Megan Petersohn, flute; Shannon Norris, alto saxaphone; Josh Rusk, alto saxaphone; Rachel Derscheid, trombone; Josh Smith, trombone; and Korbie Rinehart, cymbals.
A Maloy activist will be traveling to Iraq this week with a group called Iraq Sanctions Challenge to deliver humanitarian aid to citizens of Iraq.
Brian Terrell of Maloy will be taking part in the trip, which is an act of civil disobedience because United State’s law forbids citizens to deliver goods to Iraq.
Obituary in this edition was, Erma Josephine Slavik Fine.
Ten Years Ago
(From the Mount Ayr Record-News, Thursday, May 23, 2023.)
Mount Ayr community high school and Diagonal high school has announced their valedictorian and salutatorian for the 2013 graduating senior class: April Shields, Maggie Jennett (Mount Ayr), Heath Evans and Shad Haidsiak (Diagonal).
Raiders 20th at State Track, set 3 records. The records that fell were as follows: 4×800 relay, Kyle Dolecheck, Heath Evans, Erik Freed, and Noah Larsen, 8:11.14; 4×400 relay, Kyle Dolecheck, Jack Jones, Erik Freed, and Jacob Sobotka, 3:28.45; 1600, Noah Larsen ran a time of 3:44.57. Bringing home second in the high jumb was Braydee Poore, with a jump of 6’7”.
Obituaries in this edition were: Kathleen Amelia McGraw Burchett, Forrest Wayne Shields, and Clarance “Roy” Kennedy.