Pomeroy Pioneer Portraits

Ten Years Ago

December 29, 2010

Members of Pomeroy FFA Alumni hope Pomeroy residents who don’t have plans will join them for the annual spaghetti dinner and silent auction at Spinner’s Hall on New Year’s Eve.

Local highlights of 2010 included the opening of the Lower Snake River Wind Project, the ending of the Ferd Herres Chevrolet franchise, and the Holy Rosary Knights of Columbus council celebrating its 100th anniversary, among other things.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

January 1, 1996

Pomeroy’s boys’ basketball team kept its winning record after defeating a team from Sydney, Australia, 79-67, on Friday in the Pirate gym.

Thanks to $1.6 million in state and federal funding for road improvement and a new bridge, Garfield County’s budget for 1996 will jump more than $2 million over the 1995 budget.

Despite a declining long-term care patient census at Memory Manor and lower numbers in Garfield County Memorial Hospital, district administrator Harry Aubert and the Board of Commissioners believe 1996 will be the year the district moves into the black financially.

Fifty Years Ago

December 31, 1970

Pomeroy’s pre-dawn southeastern sky was crystal clear for a triple-planet spectacular on Christmas morning. Widespread interest had been aroused in the merging light of Mars, Venus and Jupiter, which according to astronomers, occurred at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ, again during the Dark ages 800 years ago, and will not be visible again like this for another 800 years. Every 15 years, these planets are in the eastern sky not far apart, during the Christmas season.

Only 11 babies were born in Garfield County Memorial Hospital in 1970 compared to the previous all-time low of 21 for years 1965 and 1969. However, the small population decrease is not as drastic as the figures would indicate as the number of babies born in neighboring cities to Garfield County parents is as great, or greater, than those born here.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

January 3, 1946

Lieutenant William McCanse, killed in action in Germany on April 10, 1945, has been posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the highest decoration that can be awarded by the army.

Ellis Cox, sports chairman for the Pomeroy Junior Chamber of Commerce, announces that basketball games have been scheduled with three nationally known teams, the House of David, Kansas City All-Stars and the Harlem Globetrotters.

As in former years, one-half of all money collected in Garfield County for the fight against infantile paralysis will remain here to finance the hospitalization, care and treatment of local sufferers. During the past season, the state of Washington experienced one of the most serious outbreaks of polio in the nation.

One Hundred Years Ago

January 1, 1921

The homecoming of many young men and women to spend the holidays with relatives and friends is noted this week. Garfield County educators and the patrons of our schools may well be proud of the record made here in the percent of pupils that enter the school of higher learning.

According to the annual report of the state board of equalization, this county leads all others in motor cars per census person, having one for every 6.8 persons. Garfield County also leads in the assessed valuation per car, which observers take to show that the quality of cars in use here is higher than throughout the rest of the state.

The Pomeroy high basketball team decisively defeated the Anatone team 60-19, at the local gymnasium Saturday.

One Hundred Twenty-Five Years Ago

December 28, 1895

At last Merry Christmas of ’95 is really a thing of the past, and those who have been looking forward to the holidays as a time of pleasure certainly have no cause for complaint. There have been enjoyable family gatherings, pleasing entertainments, Christmas trees, plum puddings, and the like, and in all parts of Garfield County, the day was generally observed in the good, old-fashioned way.

R.E. Allen was the lucky person who won the pet deer at the raffle Monday.

A box social and necktie party will be given by the Good Templars at National Bank hall, next Monday evening. Everybody invited.

Better attend the Leap Year ball, girls, you may not have another chance for eight whole years. Eight years is a long time to wait. You will be older then.

The schoolhouse near the mouth of the Deadman in District No. 32 was destroyed by fire last Sunday. A number of persons had met there to hold Sunday school, and on building a fire, the roof caught from a defective stovepipe and the house burned to the ground. All of the furniture and books were saved.

The man who stole “Billy” Howell’s nice fat turkey just before Christmas is only exceeded in meanness by the fellow who, when his poor neighbor asked for a stick of wood to cook a breakfast for a half-dozen starved children, demanded that the poor man’s only broom be put up for security. And still we talk about this being a “Christian” country. Pomeroy can boast of another man as mean as either of these. It is the fellow who broke into the lodge closets and tried to steal the secrets of some of the civic societies.