Through The Reporter Files

Looking back...

100 YEARS AGO....

It was a mistrial in the trial of Thorndale Thorn Editor E.L. Ramsey, charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of A. Taegel. Ramsey maintained the shooting was self-defense, that Taegel had tried to hit him with a chair before the fatal shot was fired. The jury deadlocked 9-3 for conviction.

B.Y. Aycock resigned after 16 years as principal of Rockdale’s African-American school, citing health concerns. Mrs. C.M. Allen who has been serving as his first assistant was appointed to replace him.

Many Milano residents, businesses and the Milano School were using lignite coal to heat their homes instead of wood. A new lignite mine had opened two miles from Milano and was supplying the coal at $3.50 per ton.

In lieu of their annual Christmas banquet, the Rockdale Volunteer Fire Department enjoyed an oyster supper at the Schiehing Cafe. Speaker was Rev. Glenn Flinn who, according to The Reporter, supplied “a flow of Irish wit.”

FORTY YEARS AGO....

Milam County commissioners assured the paving of Bushdale Road, the street serving Rockdale’s new junior-high school, by agreeing to provide the base material for the street.

Albert Timmerman Jr., vocational agriculture teacher at Rockdale High School, was elected national president of the National Vocational Agriculture teachers Association.

Alice Holliman of Rock-dale’s New Salem Home Demonstration Club was named Homemaker of the Year by the Milam County Extension Service.

Hays Consolidated captured the tourney title but Milano won over the fans as Charlie Martin’s Class B Eagles made it all the way to the finals, defeating Giddings and Gatesville.

TWENTY YEARS AGO....

Even though an official statement from the Texas Dept. of Transportation wasn’t due until Jan. 2o, none of the TxDOT representatives at a Rockdale City Council meeting would deny the agency had selected a northern US 79 relief route (loop) around Rockdale.

In the wake of the recent Columbine High School shootings, Rockdale High School established safety zones in the school, each with trained counselors.

As Jan. 1, 2000, approached, Sheriff Charlie West was warning that scam artists were actively working with various schemes tied to anxiety about the beginning of a new millennium.

Alcoa employees raised a record $113,711 for the South Milam County United Way to benefit area organizations.

TEN YEARS AGO....

A demographic study presented to Rockdale Independent School District trustees indicated two-thirds of students in the district were now classified as “economically disadvantaged.

About 100 LaGrange Leopard football fans, returning home from a playoff game in Midlothian, escaped serious injury when two charter buses were struck by the same vehicle on US 77 just south of the Y-intersection outside Cameron.

The Texas Dept. of Public Safety released a profile of a serial rapist who had been targeting elderly women in Central Texas.

Dusty Loewe’s Rock-dale Tiger basketball team stretched their win streak to 11 games, in the process capturing their second consecutive Rockdale Invitational Basketball Tourney title.