Other days

100 YEARS AGO

July 23, 1921

WYNNE — Missouri Pacific passenger train No. 808, from Memphis to St. Louis, was held up and robbed by six masked men, five white men and a negro, all dressed in khakhi shortly after 9 o’clock tonight about eight miles north of here, between Vanndale and Cherry Valley.

50 YEARS AGO

July 23, 1971

■ County Clerk Jerome Climer said Thursday that he had planned to buy a used bus for use as a mobile voter registration office but that County Judge Frank Mackey wouldn’t approve the transfer of money in the clerk’s office budget to pay for it. Climer said his reaction was “shock and dismay.” Climer, who said that less than 60 per cent of the eligible voters in the county are registered, argued that the standard 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. hours at the Courthouse made it inconvenient for most persons to register.

25 YEARS AGO

July 23, 1996

■ The 10-member Encore troupe has as its mission “to educate as well as entertain; to instruct as well as inspire.” There’s a new theatrical group in town — and so far, it’s looking very promising. In fact, if it successfully pulls off its first production later this month, audiences will be calling for an Encore. That’s the name of this community-based group, whose primary goal is to increase awareness of the arts in Little Rock, especially among blacks. “I think there’s a lot going on in the African-American community that needs to be put on stage,” says Harold Massey, chief executive officer and director of Massey Entertainment, of which Encore is a division.

10 YEARS AGO

July 23, 2011

WALDO — A Waldo man was arrested Friday in the early morning slaying of an elderly woman who was killed at the Waldo post office, then set ablaze inside her vehicle in a wooded area northwest of the city, authorities said. Betty Cooper, 72, worked as a janitor at the post office and was killed there about 4 a.m., Columbia County Sheriff Mike Loe said. “That was her normal routine,” he said. “She would go into the post office each morning and clean it and get it ready for customers each day.” A worker who arrived to open the post office called police after finding a large amount of blood outside, Loe said. The scene, Loe said, was “one of the most heinous I’ve ever seen. There was a foot-wide trail of blood throughout the building. It looked like someone had slaughtered a deer.” Sheriff’s deputies arrested William Blackmon, 30, of Waldo in a wooded area off Bethel Road near the burning vehicle, Loe said.