Forum Flashbacks, Oct. 13-19
FORUM FILE PHOTO
25 YEARS AGO: Sing-A-Long – Second graders from Eugene Field Elementary School perform in front of their parents at Tuesday night’s Parents Night at the school.
5 years ago
The Maryville City Council in special session Tuesday afternoon voted unanimously to execute a change order that will allow for the demolition of a grain silo at the site of a new $4.7 million conference center and golf course clubhouse at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park and the construction of a lighted monument-style sign at the intersection of Highway 136 and Liberty Road east of Maryville. …
The silo, which was erected in 1978, has been the topic of much debate between those who see it as a potential safety and maintenance concern and those who see the storage tower as a historical icon representing the region’s agricultural heritage.
A bit of a compromise was revealed at Tuesday’s meeting.
Plans call for the silo to be commemorated by leaving approximately five feet at the bottom of the structure in place to be used as part of the conference center’s events lawn.
The remaining portion of the silo will be capped with a wooden floor and faced with stone identical to that being used on the conference center. A plaque will be affixed to recognize the historical importance of agricultural storage facilities of its type.
City Manager Greg McDanel spoke at length to the council, explaining the reasons and the processes that have taken place over the past couple of years between the city and the Mozingo Advisory Committee to arrive at the current plan.
“The silo has obviously stood as an iconic and unique feature for Mozingo Lake Recreation Park since its inception,” McDanel said. “However, it has not been a functional component for staff. … “We’ve really taken some pride in how best to commemorate the silo and letting the conference center be the new iconic feature for the park.”
15 years ago
More than four years ago a group of parents came to Rod Auxier and the Maryville Parks and Recreation Board with the idea of building a public skate park.
Today, that idea has become a reality.
With construction of the fencing around the skate park coming to an end, the new “SK8 Park” is almost ready for its ribbon cutting.
While the fence is being constructed, the park is still open for use by the public.
The original cost for this project was going to be $116,000, but with a $33,000 discount the board elected to spend what money they couldn’t receive through donations and grants.
25 years ago
Maryville fifth graders have been learning the value of the dollar recently, and who better to give them a lesson on financial issues than Missouri’s top money man.
State Treasurer Bob Holden was in town Thursday afternoon to talk to fifth graders at Washington Middle School in conjunction with the Dollar$ & $ense program.
The program, which is in its second year of existence, is a statewide cooperation between the government, banks and schools to educate students on the basics and benefits of saving money.
Holden said the theory is a simple one.
“Historically, America has not been a good savings nation,” he said. “(If we can teach the basics to) third, fourth and fifth graders, it can lead to long term economic health.”
100 years ago
REED DIRECTS BITTER ATTACK AT BREWSTER
————
“He’s the Brewer’s Rooster,” Says Senator in Campaign Speech Here
————
A bitter personal attack in which he characterized R. R. Brewster as “the brewers’ rooster” featured Senator James A. Reed’s address here last night. The wet and dry issue is evidently getting under the senior senator’s hide and he showed his feelings in a flood of bitter invective directed against his opponent, and in the same breath announced his own stand for “enforcement of the law.”
“Where is your dry candidate!” he shouted, “If you mean a man who proposes to stand by the constitution and by every law enforcing that constitution, then that is the ground I have always stood on.
“If you mean a man whose primary campaign manager was and for twenty years had been general manager of the Kansas City breweries and was manager of the United Breweries, then go and vote for Mr. Brewster.
“And if you think that representing a brewery for fifteen years as a lawyer makes a man dry, then go and vote for Mr. Brewster. He’s the brewers’ rooster,” Senator Reed said. A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd, but the usual applause which meets one of the senator’s vitriolic epigrams was lacking. …
The administration of President Harding and the personality of the nation’s chief executive next got the benefit of the speaker’s caustic wit. President Harding was termed “the most amiable and good natured gentleman who ever chased a golf ball across a green, and it is his amiability of character which makes him the easy victim of designing men.
“The shrewd agents of the big interests can get around him like an old-fashioned cooper, put him in a barrel, drive down the hoops, head him in, stop the bunghole, and close the spigot before he knows what they’re about,” the senator concluded.
