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October 31: Years Ago…
Years Ago

‘Years Ago’ is a compilation of newsy tidbits as published in the Crawford County Independent & Kickapoo Scout on this week ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or sixty years ago.

TEN YEARS AGO

OCTOBER 29, 2009 – A Jack-O Lantern perched on a bridge railing over the Kickapoo River welcomes all to Gas Mills. The Independent-Scout will again be open for Trick or Treat hours in Gays Mills from 4-7 p.m.  Later, we plan on putting our Jack-O-Lanterns on the bridge railing. Why not bring yours and join us for festivities after 7 p.m. on the bridge.

TWENTY YEARS AGO

OCTOBER 28, 1999 – The pumpkin people have returned to the halls of North Crawford Elementary School. The well-stuffed couple was created by Julie Kruizenga’s second grade class, which does this activity as part of their harvest unit. Each day, the class creates a new message for the pumpkin couple to greet students and staff… A poem by Rachel Jones, 12, of Seneca Schools, has been published in the 1999 edition of Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans. Rachel, who was 11 when she wrote the poem titled ‘Halloween Night Fright,’ is the daughter of Jerry and Alice Jones of Eastman.

THIRTY YEARS AGO

NOVEMBER 2, 1989 – Louie Tainter, Bell Center, recently removed a tool shed from his property, formerly the Opal Hayes estate, when he found an old gray tombstone. The gravestone was found upside down but the inscription was legible. It read: ‘Died, July 9, 1857, Aged 3 years;’ and ‘Died, March 26, 1865, Aged 5 years.’ There were no names.  Tainter says he doesn’t know whether there are burials at the site where he found the marker-but he doesn’t plan to look… A nationwide group called Bikes Not Bombs, with the aid of the Central America Support Group of Gays Mills, will send unwanted bicycles down to Nicaragua sometime this fall. Eight years of war and the destruction of Hurricane Joan have reduced Nicaragua to poverty with dire lack of means of transportation in order to get to work, the market, church or to receive medical help.

FORTY YEARS AGO

NOVEMBER 1, 1979 – A basketball league is being formed with officiated, regulated play in the Soldiers Grove elementary gymnasium. Games will be played on Sunday nights with the first season game being November 25. The group is seeking eight sponsored-teams of 10 players. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to join the North Crawford Men’s Basketball League… Vernon Roth, Town of Scott, received the Outstanding Cooperator Award of the Crawford County Soil and Water Conservation District dinner for his 40 years of conservation practices. He accepted a plaque from George Gottier, district conservationist.

FIFTY YEARS AGO

OCTOBER 30, 1969 – A/IC and Mrs. James Chellevold left this week bound for Offutt AFB, Omaha, Nebraska, where Airman Chellevold is to return to duty. He has just completed a 30-day leave after serving one year in Vietnam. Mrs. Chellevold is the former Sharon Sharp, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. LaVerne Sharp of rural Soldiers Grove; Airman Chellevold is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Chellevold of Gays Mills… Harry Lounsbury of LaFarge, Carl Hutchison of Bell Center, Willard Lawton of LaFarge, and Mrs. Carroll Hankins of Readstown were present at the membership meeting held this week at North Crawford Junior High Gym by the Kickapoo Valley Association.

SIXTY YEARS AGO

OCTOBER 29, 1959 – A premature winter wonderland greeted early Monday morning risers marking the Kickapoo’s first snowfall of the season. Coming a month ahead of last year’s first flakefall and pre-dating the season’s first killing frost, it followed on the heels of Friday and Saturday’s driving rainstorms which sent the Kickapoo over her banks and into valley pastures and unharvested cornfields. The slushy white melted rapidly–adding to the estimated three to five inches of rainfall over the weekend. Five times this year, the unpredictable Kickapoo has surged over her banks to inundate low-lying farmlands. Shall we talk watershed promotion?