Looking back...

10-20-40-100 YEARS AGO

100 YEARS AGO…

The Reporter takes pleasure in announcing that the Ladies Cemetery Association of Rockdale will hold a market at the store of Mrs. Dora Poole, on which occasion they will offer for sale a complete line of cakes, pies pickles, jellies, preserves, homemade bread, hot rolls, fresh eggs and butter. The purpose of the sale is to raise funds for the benefit of the old city cemetery fence fund, and the patronage of the public will be appreciated.

Attention is directed to the ad of Dr. Guffin and associates elsewhere in this issue. Dr. Guffin is a dentist who needs no introduction to Rockdale people, having had an office here before. He announces that he will open an office over Baldridge Bros. drug store on March 2nd.

The city has caused to be placed up on the new water works tower four 300-watt electric lights which gives all that portion of town the effect of moonlight on the darkest nights.

40 YEARS AGO…

The Rockdale branch of the NAACP has accepted a Justice Department decision that exonerates Rockdale police in the March 29, 1981 hanging death of a 30-yearold black man in the city jail. “I accept the decision in good faith,” Ellihue Wilburn, president of the Rockdale branch said in a letter to Mayor Bill Avrett.

From a dusty street corner and a one-room school in Rockdale at the turn of the century to the skyscrapers of Manhattan and then back home again to begin a new venture after her 80th birthday. That’s the life story so far, of Rockdale’s Alyce Shields, who returned to her hometown a decade ago after teaching in the New York City public school system for 32 years.

The RHS Big Blue Stage Band, under the direction of Jim Perry, won first place for class 3A bands at the annual Central Texas Stage Band Festival in Waco.

Rockdale’s candidate for a state office, State Rep. Dan Kubiak who was seeking the Texas land commissioners post, kicked off his campaign here at a barbecue which raised an estimated $18,000 for his bid.

20 YEARS AGO… Attendance approached

Attendance approached 500 during two days of ceremonies at the second annual Black History Month Celebration at the Institute for Teaching God’s Word.

Rockdale may get a new 7,000-square-foot City Hall and it could happen quickly. City Council members met in a three hour special session Tuesday night to consider an offer by Citizens National Bank to sell their current facility at the Wilcox-West Cameron corner to the city for use as a City Hall.

Seven Tiger and Lady Tiger power lifters earned places ranging from first to fifth at the Reicher High School meet and school records fell in three classifications.

10 YEARS AGO…

A barking family dog is credited with awakening the five members of the Ira White family, who fled their burning home at 2001 O’Kelley just before 5 a.m. Sunday. Rockdale VFD Fire Chief Herbie Vaughan said the blaze was traced to an electric pencil sharpener which was plugged in behind a couch and had been used the previous night during work on a student art project. The home was gutted.

Momentum is building toward Rockdale’s sixth annual Tejas Festival, which will turn much of downtown into a book-art-culture fair Saturday, March 3. Actually the Tejas Festival kicks off early on Thursday, March 1, with the first of a two-day art workshop at First Baptist Church Family Life Center Austin artist Rita Kirkman, who has been a popular feature of recent Tejas Festivals.