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YESTERYEARS FOR THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2009

Thursday, March 5, 2009 10:18 AM CST

65 Years Ago

March 5, 1944

Mrs. H.C. Walker entertained the White Hall Senior basketball girls at dinner Thursday in her home on Sheridan Pike, in honor of their winning the county tournament championship.

Those girls on the team who were present are: Gladys Holifield, Betty Abbington, Juanita Shaw, Ina Ruth Smith, Helen Parks, Evelyn Carter, Violet Todd, Evvy Jane Walters, Bobby Oaks, Jo Ann McDougald and their coach, R.A. James.

Other guests of honor were Mrs. E.B. Carter, Miss W. Wilters, James Walker and Palmer Boast.

50 Years Ago

March 5, 1959

LITTLE ROCK — Twenty-one boys perished in a pre-dawn fire which destroyed the main dormitory of the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School at nearby Wrightsville today.

The doors of the big brick and frame building were locked, and windows were barred with heavy metal screens.

Sixty-eight boys were housed in the structure.

The bodies of 12 youths were piled in a corner where apparently they died in a vain attempt to break through a window.

Nine other bodies were found in the ruins.

Gov. Orval E. Faubus, who went immediately to the scene, declared it was inexcusable that doors were locked and no supervisor was on hand.

Officials suggested that a heavy electrical storm at the time may have caused the fire.

25 Years Ago

March 5, 1984

PALM SPRINGS, California — William Powell, the dapper, sophisticated leading man of scores of films during the 1930s and 1940s and the wisecracking detective in “The Thin Man” movie series, died today. He was 91.

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