Forum Flashbacks: Sept. 1-7
FORUM FILE PHOTO
5 YEARS AGO: The reel deal – Repeated weather delays cut into the turnout for Saturday’s Maryville Optimist Club Kids Fishing Tournament at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park, which is usually held over July 4 weekend. But apparently the fish didn’t care and were biting anyway. About 30 youngsters and their families turned out for the event, which produced a good catch consisting of bass, bluegill, crappie and this remarkable 25.5-inch long channel catfish reeled in by Sawyer Husing, Maryville, who won the “biggest fish” award in the age 0-9 division. Other 0-9 winners were smallest fish, Ryker Hackett, Maryville, and most fish, Ty Moyer, Maryville. Winners in the 10-15 age group included smallest fish, Kysin Hazelwood, St. Joseph; biggest fish, Claire Nickerson, Maryville; and most fish, Jacob Hilsabeck, Glenwood, Iowa.
5 years ago
• After just over 36 years longtime Maryville Post Office employee Vickie Weldon called it a career Friday during a reception in the Fifth Street facility’s large mail-processing room attended by the coworkers she affectionately described as her workplace family.
On hand for the celebration were retired Maryville postmaster Bill Adams, who hired Weldon back in 1981, and former window clerk Steve Spurlock, who trained fellow window clerk Weldon in the only U.S. Postal Service job she ever had.
“It’s been a great postal family,” Weldon said. “They’ve supported me all these years, and especially these last three years.”
The comment was in reference to her coworkers’ sympathy and aid during her late husband Kurby Weldon’s extended battle with cancer, which ended with his death in 2016.
“But,” she added a little wistfully, “It’s time for me to go. It’s just time.”
In addition to the traditional cake-cutting and well-wishes, the reception included remarks by Postmaster Becky Giesken, who presented Weldon with the USPS Service Award and a letter from District Manager Gail M. Hendrix.
“The combined efforts of experienced employees such as you have helped make possible the achievements of the Postal Service,” Hendrix wrote,
• A crowd of about 200 SSM Health St. Francis Hospital staff members, civic leaders and local officials gathered on the hospital’s west lawn Thursday during groundbreaking ceremonies marking the start of construction for the new SSM Health Preschool & Childcare Center.
In the planning stages for well over a year, the center will help fill a widely perceived need for increased local daycare services and early childhood educational opportunities.
The facility will replace an existing daycare facility — a converted ranch-style house — just east of the main hospital building, doubling its capacity from 67 children to 136, plus an additional 20 openings for as-needed “backup care.”
15 years ago
Mel Tjeerdsma field is still waiting for its first game and the coach with the same name is still looking for his first win of 2007 according to an announcement by the NCAA Tuesday morning.
The football game on Aug. 23 at Bearcat Stadium between Northwest Missouri State and Arkansas Tech was ruled as being terminated and neither school will get a win or a loss. It was supposed to be Northwest’s first game of the season, and the first game played on the newly christened Mel Tjeerdsma field.
The game was called with 2:30 remaining in the first quarter because of severe lightning and storms. Northwest had taken a 21-0 lead when the game was called.
The game was originally thought to be a victory for the Bearcats by Northwest coaches and athletic staff. However, Arkansas Tech coach Steve Mullins understood that the game would not count. After some debate both teams submitted the matter to the NCAA for a final decision. According to a release on Tuesday morning, the NCAA stated the game would not count in part because “NCAA statistics policies for football require at least three quarters of competition for inclusion, which was part of the rational in making the decision.”
25 years ago
Representatives from all four Maryville grocery stores have said they will pull tabloids off their racks if coverage of the death of Princess Diana stretches the limits of good taste.
Those limits will no doubt differ from store to store, but all four said this morning they would remove the tabloids and return them to the supplier if they deemed it necessary.
“This week, so far, there weren’t very many bad ones,” Hy-Vee Manager Fred Von Behren said. “There was one that didn’t fit our criteria to stay (on the rack).”
Both Easter’s and Hy-Vee pulled last week’s National Enquirer off the racks because of a sex scandal story involving Diana, but coverage of her death will not hit the tabloids until next week.
“This next Tuesday will be when we really see what they are going to do,” Easter’s Manager Richard Westfall said. “We’ll pull any of them that are morally questionable.”
100 years ago
Benedictine Monastery Purchases Grand Piano
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H. B. Cushman of the Cushman Music House of Maryville has recently delivered to the Benedictine Monastery at Conception Junction a Bush and Gerts grand piano for use in the music department there. Father Gregory and Father Charles of the monostery(sic) both tested the piano and say that it has an unusually fine tone and action. Father Gregory is the world’s greatest authority on Gregorian chant and a talented musician. Priests from all over the world come to the monastery to study the Gregorian chant under his direction.
EDITOR’S NOTE: 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 column ran in the Sept. 1, 1922, edition of The Maryville Tribune, a predecessor of The Maryville Forum.
