Looking Backward 9.6.2012
25 Years Ago
September 3, 1987
Campers and horse trailers have already started arriving for the 29th annual Show & Celebration of the Missouri Fox Trotting Horse Breed Association that gets under way on Labor Day. Last year the 1986 World Champion Missouri Fox Trotter was Madam Sensation, owned by Spencer (Pop) Jenkins, of Sedalia. Probably the biggest change that has been made in the show schedule this year involves the addition of amateur classes, including stake classes on Saturday night. Also, 3-year-old horses will not be required to canter in the amateur classes this year.
Lester Adams, longtime postmaster at McClurg, in Taney County, was recognized by the U. S. Postal Service this week for 40 years of government service.
Reggie Johnson, 190-lb. senior running back is expected to be the workhorse out of the Bear backfield with senior John Beason and junior Eric Sallee to join him.
Zane Gray aced the number three 157-yard par 3 hole with a nine iron off the tee last Thursday.
Wayne and Flora Cockrell are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this Saturday, Sept. 5.
Two talented and well-known gospel groups from this area performed on the stage at Chapel Grove Gospel Music Park last Saturday night. This was the third and final program of the season at Chapel Grove, and an enthusiastic crowd was on hand for the singing. The groups were Jubilation, of Hollister, and Redeemed, of Ava.
RED BUD VILLAGE – Mr. and Mrs. Pete Kline and granddaughter, April, and their neighbor, Helen Hogan, called on Lillian Klineline Monday evening.
GOODHOPE –– Sunday the children of Mr. and Mrs. Bill Mathews enjoyed a barbecue with them at their home.
50 Years Ago
August 30, 1962
This month had less rainfall than any comparative August since 1953.
Junior Sagerser, 15, son of Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Sagerser of Elkhead, was presented a 10-weeks-old registered Jersey heifer calf after winning the junior judging contest Friday at the Douglas County Fair. The calf was presented by Clinton Maloney, manager of the Carnation Company plant in Ava.
Dry weather combined with above average temperatures was blamed for a drop in attendance at the 1962 Douglas County Fair.
Governor John M. Dalton Wednesday recommended that Douglas County be included as a drought disaster area, according to Representative Claude E. Gaulding who was in Jefferson City.
Mrs. Beulah Grabeel and her daughter, Rosalie, entertained dinner guests in their country home, Route 1, on two occasions during the month. On Sunday, Aug. 12, Mrs. Grabeel and her daughter had as dinner guests Mr. and Mrs. Sam Brixey, Mr. and Mrs. Claude Buchanan and Kelly Huffman, and at another Sunday dinner, the two entertained Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Nash of Springfield and the Rev. and Mrs. John Moles and daughters, Vicky and Judy of Ava.
A new pharmacist started work this week at the Norman Rexall Drug here, it is V. Rex Hickox, a native of West Plains.
Ronnie McKnight arrived in Ava Saturday, following his discharge from the United States Air Force on Friday, Aug. 24, at Travis Air Force Base, Calif.
Clifford J. Briggs, son of Mr. and Mrs. James Briggs, arrived from New York by plane Aug. 4 after receiving his Army discharge. He visited in the home of his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Barney Singleton and daughter, Wanda June, of Ava, and his uncles, Mr. and Mrs. C.O. Singleton and Mr. and Mrs. W. D. Singleton, and other relatives.
Visitors are coming from all over the area to the spacious auditorium of the First Baptist Church, Ava, to hear Dr. Hyman Appelman deliver his evangelistic sermons. Dr. Appelman, world renowned preacher who has returned here by popular request after conducting a two-week county-wide revival a year ago, speaks nightly at 7:45 and will continue through next Sunday.
Charles Campbell, basketball coach at Forsyth and son of Mr. and Mrs. Andy Campbell of Ava, ably mixes fishing with his high school duties. He placed fourth in the Missouri state fishing championship held last weekend on Bull Shoals, Table Rock and Taneycomo lakes.
The trafficway of the city square will get a new coat of blacktop starting the second week in September.
Bradleyville, no doubt, will dislike seeing their basketball coach move on to a larger school. However, Ray Gibson, who coached their team to the state Class S Championship last season, will be assistant basketball coach at Waynesville this coming season. Head coach will be Gerald Hedgpeth, former coach at Ava High and former assistant at the University of Missouri and Southwest Missouri State College.
75 Years Ago
September 2, 1937
Registration in Ava high school started Wednesday with ninety-four resident students enrolling for the coming school term.
Ava School students will find it a little more difficult to get into the school band this year than last, according to Roy E. Tharp, music instructor. Mr. Tharp has announced that all students who wish to try out for the band must pass a rigid examination.
This week the Herald is larger than before, containing seven columns of news on each page instead of six.
Automobile drivers of Ava and vicinity this week are making application for drivers licenses. First local person to make application was Mrs. Lena McClendon, whose application was filled out and notarized by B.E. Chinn Tuesday morning. All drivers in the state will be required to have licenses.
The fat men and the ladies played to a 16-to16 tie score in a softball game Wednesday night at the city park.
A local man, who is happy though married, states that he has found the proper formula. He says, “She goes her way, and I go her way.”
The marriage of Miss Helen Marie Thompson and Glen Irby was announced in Ava Saturday, the young couple married in Gainesville last June, but kept the marriage a secret until Saturday. Mr. Irby operates a milk truck for the Carnation Company.
Doyne Chance, Lindell and Marvin Downs, left Saturday evening for a tour of the western states.
Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Ross and son, Larry, Carl Patterson and two children, Virginia Lee and Jimmy, and Miss Betty Bedell, all of Springfield, were weekend house guests in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Spurlock and daughter, Miss Wilma.
Mr. and Mrs. Norman Wright who have been living in the Mrs. W.A. Clinkingbeard apartment moved Monday to an apartment in the W.I. Barker home. Mr. and Mrs. D. Boyd of Desoto, have moved to the Clinkingbeard apartment. Mr. Boyd is in Ava working in the interest of the National Automobile Association, an organization providing automobile road service and insurance. Mr. Boyd is working out of the local Chevrolet garage.
Dr. and Mrs. R.M. Norman and grandson, Bobby, returned to their home Sunday evening after being away for two weeks. The Normans and Mr. and Mrs. Ben Calloway and son, Mac, enjoyed a motor trip to Yellowstone National Park.
Three young women and their show manager must pay fines of $250 each and serve three months each in jail for putting on a strip tease dance in Howell County. The young women entered pleas of guilty at a special session of the Howell County circuit court Monday morning on charges of indecent exposure, and Judge Will H.D. Green, took their pleas.
100 Years Ago
September 5, 1912
The New Progressive or Roosevelt party held a mass meeting in Ava last Saturday afternoon for the purpose of electing delegates to the State Convention at St. Louis, Tuesday of this week; also to nominate a county ticket or endorse the one nominated by the regular Republicans at the August primary.
During a recent thunderstorm at Gainesville lightning struck the ground in the southwest corner of the courthouse square, followed the fencing, and almost instantly killed a horse belonging to Heck Gibson that was hitched to the rack, only a few feet from the fence. Several people of a hundred or more in the courthouse were severely shocked and all were so grateful for their escape that a purse of forty dollars was speedily made up and handed to Mr. Gibson as he was leaving afoot for his home six miles west of town.
Hogs are breaking in and destroying corn all around. Vote the stock law now, Democrats, Republicans, Bull Moose and Socialists.
Row Strong, Mansfield, brought over the insane man who escaped jail here last week. He was captured in Douglas County. While out he had nothing to eat for three days except a few apples and was so hungry then they made him sick.
The Frisco Company has a track-laying force at work in the vicinity of Mountain Grove this week replacing old rails with 85 pound ones. Some work has been done out toward Whetstone and the new rails already extend three or four miles eastward from this station. – Mtn. Grove Journal.
Missouri Grows Much Tobacco- Over Eleven Million Pounds Marketed in the State Last Year – Acreage is Yet Small. In 1911 Missouri marketed 11,340,305, which was nearly twice as much as was ever marketed in the state in any other year, according to a bulletin issued by Commissioner Austin Biggs, of the state bureau of labor statistics.
COLD SPRINGS –– At the home of Roe Hicks, occurred the marriage of their daughter Ethel, last Sunday at 3 o’clock to Barton McClellon of Champion. The young couple will make their home on a farm near Champion.
GIRDNER –– Range stock is breaking in to all the exposed farms destroying corn and feed. Now let us all vote to restrain hogs, sheep and goats and be good neighbors. Better for a man to take care of his own stock than guard all his neighbors’ stock.
Prof. Arnold and family of Mansfield were recently victims of ptomaine poisoning, but a couple of hours faithful work by the doctors saved them.
125 Years Ago
September 9, 1887
Douglas County is now making strides toward the front rank of the southern counties of South Missouri Ten years ago there were thousands of acres of good farming land lying vacant that are now occupied by a thriving and industrious people. It is true there is still some good land not yet entered, and many good farms that can be purchased at low prices. But we would give timely warning to all, that may have their faces turned toward Douglas County as a future home, that they must come at once if they desire to purchase land at a low price, or enter any of the good farming land still vacant. Immigration is constantly coming this way, and every day brings its new arrivals and those that come to stay, and make homes with us.
There is to be a county fair held near Ava on the 17th of this month, in which our farmers and merchants are taking a lively interest, which shows that the people are alive and awake to the advancement of the agricultural interests of Douglas County.
Unless one is wealthy there is no good in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
When it becomes possible, as Prof. Elisha Gray proposes it shall become, and very soon, too, to use the telautograph so that a telegraph message shall be reproduced in fac simile at the receiving end, reproducing every feature and peculiarity of the sender’s calligraphy, the use and value of the telegraph will be vastly increased and it will become a self-recording and indisputable means of business communication between far distant points.
“Train up a child in a the way he should go,” and keep a little ahead of him in the same way during the training, to be sure he goes.
PITH AND POINT –– A large head is a sign of brains, but a big head is a sign of folly. … Noah was doubtless the only man who has ever seen a full house on nothing but pairs. … It is true that doctors disagree, but they don’t disagree half so much as their medicines do. … There is not much danger of severe punishment in Chicago for stealing, if a thief only has presence of mind to steal enough. … The disturbance in the tobacco market has had no effect on the man who will sit on the front seat of a streetcar and smoke a spring onion.
The anatomist, Wenzel Gruber, celebrated recently the fortieth anniversary of his connection with the University of St. Petersburg. Prof. Gruber is 73 years of age, and a Bohemian by birth. He is one of the most popular teachers in the university, having had more than twenty thousand students. His activity is said to be marvelous. He completely reorganized the anatomical institute, and although delivering annually three hundred lectures, found time to write more than five hundred treatises and prepare numberless anatomical objects. He has dissected twenty thousand bodies. Prof. Grubber was recipient of extraordinary honors on his jubilee.
