Forum Flashbacks: July 7-13
FORUM FILE PHOTO
25 YEARS AGO: Watch it Burn – At a Fourth of July barbecue, Carissa Keyes, Elliot Foster and Coby Keyes try to blow out an exhausted snake firework.
5 years ago
The Nodaway-Holt Education Foundation has received a sizeable boost from an alumnus who passed away last year.
Near the end of June, Dennis and Karen Dakan presented the Foundation with a check worth $917,000 from Dennis’ uncle, Edward Dakan.
Edward Dakan passed away at 93 years of age in March of 2016, but Karen Dakan said he had saved up the money to give to Nodaway-Holt for most of his adult life.
“He was teaching in Williamsburg, Iowa, and he saw an article about a man who had donated $1 million to the school district there,” Karen Dakan said. “He was inspired to save up $1 million to give back to Nodaway-Holt, since that’s where he graduated from.
“We found the article in his belongings after he had passed. We’re hoping that, when people hear of Uncle Ed’s donation, they’ll be inspired to give to their school districts as well.”
Edward Dakan graduated from what was then the Graham School District in 1941 and enlisted in the United States Army to serve during World War II, fighting on Layte Island and Okinawa Island in 1944 and 1945, respectively. He was awarded two purple hearts and a bronze star from Lieutenant Colonel E. R. Autrey. …
After the war, Edward Dakan returned to northwestern Missouri, enrolling in what was then Northwest Missouri State College for a year before venturing up to Ames, Iowa to earn his degree in agriculture at Iowa State University. After graduating, he taught vocational agriculture in Williamsburg, where he found the article and started saving his money.
Edward Dakan later left the educational field to become a field agent with the Farmers Home Administration and, later, the Internal Revenue Service. At the end of his career, he retired to Maryville to live a quiet life, all the while saving up $917,000 to give back to Graham, now the Nodaway-Holt R-VII School District.
15 years ago
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City opened a new office in Maryville, Mo., on July 1. This office is marking new territory for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City, who are extending their services into Nodaway County and opening a satellite location which will be named Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County. …
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County has established a board of directors and hired Executive Director Brandy Criss to manage the local efforts to match children with adult volunteers and work with the local board of directors.
25 years ago
Maryville residents looking to cool off on a hot July afternoon with a dip in the pool were in for a shock Wednesday as they entered the Maryville Aquatic Center and were met by a sign that told them the pool was closed because of mechanical problems.
For the first time since the new facility opened in 1993, a mechanical failure caused the pool to close its doors to the public. Those doors may not be opened until Friday.
According to Rod Auxier, director of the Maryville Department of Parks and Recreation, the piece of machinery giving the department problems is the main circuit pump.
100 years ago
RECORD RAIN FLOODS RIVERS AND VALLEYS
A torrential rain—the greatest single fall during twenty-four hours in the records of the weather bureau in this state—hit Nodaway County yesterday afternoon and last night, doing damage to growing crops, cut grain and livestock which will run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Bridges are out all over the county and there are no trains on any of the railroads because of washed-out tracks and bridges.
The rain at 6:30 o’clock this morning totaled 10.82 inches, according to the government gauge at the home of J. R. Brink, local weather observer. The previous twenty-four-hour record was on July 6-7, 1909, when the government gauge at Bethany showed a total fall of 10.71 inches. The previous record here was on July 14, 1915, when the precipitation was 6.77. …
Telephone lines are badly damaged and it is almost impossible to get reports from other towns in the county, however, it seems that the rain was the heaviest at Maryville. The rain came practically without wind or any really violent electrical display, but descended in steady torrents all night, stopping about 7 o’clock this morning.
Wheat cut and in the shock in the valleys of the One Hundred and Two, Platte and Nodaway rivers was washed away and soil was washed away from the roots of the corn and other growing crops. A good deal of livestock, particularly stock in pastures on bottom land, was drowned.
It is practically impossible to estimate the damage to farm property and livestock, but judging from floods of other years and from what can be seen in the valley of the One Hundred and Two near Maryville, many competent observers believe that the damage to farm property alone will run close to a million dollars over the county. …
Water got into the engine room at the pump station and last night and Mayor F. P. Robinson and C. F. Remus, city commissioner, took a gang of men to the station and started the steam pump so that water service was not interrupted. The men started to the station in a motor truck but couldn’t make it across the bottom and had to finish the trip by wagon. …
Reports from the west part of the county are that at Graham five and one-half inches of rain fell and that most of the bridges are out. At Skidmore the Nodaway River is as high as it has ever been, but the bridges are holding. The rainfall at Skidmore was 7 inches. The approach to the bridge over Florida creek north of Skidmore is gone, as are approaches to many small bridges and culverts. The Nodaway is within three feet of the record high water mark.
Telephone lines are out all over the east part of the county and The Tribune was unable to get any definite reports.
The 100-year flashback is courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, viewable at shsmo.org/collections/newspapers/mdnp. The original article ran in the July 10, 1922, edition of The Maryville Tribune, a predecessor of The Maryville Forum.
