Forum Flashbacks: Nov. 16-22
FORUM FILE PHOTO
50 YEARS AGO: Northeast Nodaway Wins Championships at Sheridan – Northeast Nodaway’s Fred Giesken hits for two against Jefferson in the boys championship game of the Sheridan Tournament. Trying to stop the shot is Steve Schieber. Louie Schieber is looking on for Jefferson. The Northeast Nodaway boys won 53-50 over Jefferson C-123 while the girls won 31-23 over South Nodaway R-IV.
50 years ago
An excerpt from Editor’s Omnibus, a daily column from Forum editors. This one was written by Bill Findley, Forum City Editor:
UFOs, those Unwelcome Fearsome Ogres from outer space, have made the local news lately.
Shades of Mario Andretti, some area persons have even chased these unpredictable objects. One State Trooper chased one all the way to St. Joseph — only to discover an eight-foot flood light which was bouncing its beam off clouds all the way to Maryville. Heavy winds were moving the clouds, it was discovered, making the light irregular and appear to be moving.
Nevertheless, all those UFO reportings couldn’t be from flood lights. Could they?
As a reporter always right here on top of a story, I decided to investigate this phenomena(sic). After several weeks of exhaustive search, I finally got my story: an interview with a little green man, conducted behind one of the local taverns.
The following are excerpts from that interview:
Daily Forum: Who are you, little green man? (My questions are always hard-hitting).
Little Green Man: My name is Ogre and I’m from .. (dramatic pause) … Outer Space. (These little green men speak excellent English).
DF: Wow! Golly gee!
LGM: I’m sure you want to know what I’m doing in Maryville. Actually, we’re conducting a labor survey. We want to locate an industrial plant here, you know.
DF: Gee whillikers! How come?
LGM: Well, we’re always interested in expansion. But we don’t locate in just any old site, you know. No sir. We’ve been looking over prospective sites for millions of years. We’re even mentioned in the Bible. Perhaps you’ve read it.
DF: Jiminy Cricket! And you’ve picked Maryville out of all those sites!
LGM: Well, we haven’t fully made up our mind. But as you’ve read, we’ve been scouting the area. I’m sure you understand how tough it is to keep things like this a secret. …
LGM: Of course, then there’s always the matter of rezoning. Our information has it that it’s very easy to get property rezoned in your town. We’ll need that, of course. We’re interested in locating in the downtown area. We understand there’s several properties available there.
DF: Gee, but won’t that make things a little congested?
LGM: We don’t pay that much attention to traffic signals, anyway. We have a very unique mode of transportation, you know.
DF: Wow! You’re going to fit right in here. You’ll even blend in with the school colors. …
LGM: Well, of course, there is one other little problem.
DF: Oh, no. What’s that.
LGM: Would you want to locate in a town whose people were always chasing space ships and talking to little green men?
100 years ago
2 MEN CHARGED WITH BLACKMAIL
_______________
K.K.K. LETTERS RECEIVED
_______________
Herschel (“Red”) Fite, about 23 years old, and Gebe Kelley are being held by the authorities here on a charge of trying to obtain money from parties here by writing letters demanding if the money was not left some harm or destruction to their property would be done. The postoffice inspector, F. D. Florea, of St. Joseph was notified today and is expected here tonight.
Fite was caught last night by Chief of Police Harve England while Kelley was not arrested until this afternoon. It was said Fite implicated Kelley in the letter writing.
According to the authorities, there letters were sent demanding money, all of them being signed “K. K. K.”
Fite was caught about 10:40 o’clock last night by Marshal England when he picked up a box which he demanded George Moore leave in the yard of the Fite home which is south of the Moore Bros. factory. Fite lives with his mother in a house located on North Market street between the Moore Bros. factory and the home of John G. Grems, who received one of the letters.
Mr. Moore had received a letter directing him to put $800 in a box at his factory door last night. England was notified and watched on the inside of the building from 6:30 in the evening until the time that Fite appeared.
Moore placed some money in a box and left it at the designated place, with a wire attached to it, running under the door, which slides up and down. England noticed through a window Fite get out of a car on Market street, go through his mother’s house and come out the back door directly to a place near the south entrance to the factory where the box of money was placed and then the box was moved. England immediately raised the door and turned his flash light upon him which blinded him. This morning he appeared at the city hall and was then turned over to the county officials who hold him in custody.
*EDITOR’S NOTE: The 50- year and 100-year flashbacks are courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, accessible at shsmo.newspapers.com. The original 50-year photo ran in the Nov. 17, 1973, issue while the 50-year column ran in the Nov. 20, 1973, issue of the Maryville Daily Forum. The original 100-year article ran in the Nov. 16, 1923, issue of the Maryville Daily Democrat-Forum, which would eventually become the Maryville Forum.
