Looking back...

10-20-40-100

YEARS AGO

100 YEARS AGO...

The Rockdale School Board issued instructions to the superintendent that he should admit no pupil for the ensuing term who had not been either vaccinated or produced a physician’s certificate to the effect that said pupil was believed to be immune from small pox by reason of a previous successful vaccination. School was to begin Sept 12.

After considerable dickering back and forth, it seemed quite probable that the Fritz Fuchs-Von Hagen proposition was withdrawn. At least that was the latest “dope” The Reporter had on the situation. Fuchs and his associates were negotiating a deal with the lessees of the Niehaus properties—A.B. Spencer of Crosbyton and W.B. Ferguson, who was almost a Rockdale man.

40 YEARS AGO...

New appraisal values compiled for two Cameron banks by chief appraiser Ed Wrinkle touched off a protest to the Milam County Appraisal District board of equalization, but the board unanimously upheld Wrinkle and adopted his figures for 1981 assessments.

Rockdale’s new Patterson Civic Center was to be the site of the third annual banquet of the local NAACP chapter. Rev. Barry A. Jackson, a Vietnam veteran, was set to be speaker.

Bob Sugg, project manager for Sandow Four at Alcoa’s Rockdale Works, was named works manager for smelting at Alcoa’s San Luis, Brazil operations. He was expected to move to his new job Nov. 1.

It had been seven years since the Taylor Ducks had defeated the Rockdale Tigers and the old rivals will go at it again in Taylor’s Memorial Stadium.

20 YEARS AGO...

Brianna Bassler, a 1999 graduate of Rockdale High School, was quite literally underneath the World Trade Center when the first of two terrorist-high-jacked airplanes slammed high into one of the two towers. Bassler was on the subway heading from her dorm room in Brooklyn to Grand Central Station and was most probably in the vicinity of the almost adjacent Wall Street Station when the first plane crashed.

City Council members voted to take no action on a contentious situation involving a 1,600-square-foot storage building in a residential neighborhood.

Rockdale ISD officials were aiming high in their attempt to get a Texas Education Agency grant for a project they felt was at least 15 years overdue. “We need to replace the electrical switches at the high school and rewire that campus,” said Arnold Proctor, business manager.

10 YEARS AGO...

Rockdale native Briana Bassler was going to have quite a story to tell her about-to-be-born daughter some day. “Your mother was there when 9/11 happened.” Ten years ago, Bassler was in a New York City subway train car virtually underneath the World Trade Center when it was attacked and destroyed. She wasn’t hurt but the only way home to her Brooklyn apartment was to walk back through the cloud of smoke and rubble and thousands of zombie-like fellow witnesses to history.

Richards Memorial Hospital and Little River Healthcare System had recovered from the Blackhawk Health debacle of the previous year and were once again expanding services. A new clinic— the Pecos Street Clinic—was opening in the former professional center building at RMH.

Rockdale’s volunteer firefighters answered 12 calls over the weekend as strong winds from a cold front triggered major fires to the north and south of the Rockdale area. None of the fires in the immediate Rockdale area were serious, but that wasn’t the case in neighboring Cameron or in Bastrop County. The RVFD was called to assist fires in Cameron and Bastrop County where about 500 homes were destroyed, including the home of Rockdale native Bill Headrick Jr. and his family.