Peekin' into the Past

Five Years Ago — July 30, 2015

Jim Murphy of Lyons has been hired as interim CEO for Melissa Memorial Hospital starting Aug. 1. He will serve until a full-time administrator is hired.

Holyoke Police Officer Joe Marcum presented an option for a City website at the Holyoke City Council meeting July 21.

Holyoke resident Mark Meusborn got to be one of the 2,480 National Federation of the Blind participants in the Guinness World Record-breaking umbrella mosaic in Orlando, Florida, on July 8. The group’s blue and white umbrellas depicted the NFB icon and tagline “Live the life you want.”

Ten Years Ago — July 29, 2010

One of Holyoke’s three centenarians, Velma Biddle, never got the 100-year birthday bash she deserved. Shortly before her birthday Aug. 8, 2009, she took a fall and has since been rehabilitating in Fort Collins. Now Biddle is nearing her 101st birthday and is still loving life. On July 20, she made a trip to Holyoke, where she was busy catching up with people around town at an impromptu gathering at the Vets Hall.

Theresa Tharp, a standout athlete at Limon High School in the mid-1980s, was honored this year as an inductee into the Limon High School Lloyd Gaskill Athletic Hall of Fame.

Twenty-Five Years Ago — Aug. 3, 1995

After 23 years of operation as an independent corporation, Heginbotham Medical Center, located at 520 S. Interocean Ave., has been deeded to the East Phillips County Hospital District, effective July 26.

Clarence Kuhnke will be the guest of honor at a 90th birthday celebration Aug. 6 at the community building at the Phillips County Fairgrounds in Holyoke.

The Fletcher-Edwards homestead in Haxtun is one of 25 farms and ranches which will be recognized by the Colorado Historical Society, the Colorado Department of Agriculture, Colorado State Fair, Colorado Farm Bureau and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Centennial Farm Awards ceremony will be held at the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo.

Fifty Years Ago — July 30, 1970

Tony Brethouwer, Wray, completed 38 years carrying mail on the Wray-Holyoke route before his retirement on July 24.

The Re-1J school board and administrators will hold a public meeting Aug. 3 to acquaint the citizens of the school district with the progress that has been made to date on the proposed new high school building project.

Seventy-Five Years Ago — Aug. 2, 1945

A new record for wheat production in Phillips County is being made this season. Favorable growing weather combined with good harvest conditions is making the total production of wheat the highest in the county’s history. In 1943 Colorado produced its best wheat crop as a state, but Phillips County has topped the very good crop it produced that year. About two-thirds of the wheat has been harvested as of this Thursday morning.

Some days ago the state game and fish department directed that the season be opened on antelope as the animals are being a nuisance to farmers. Now comes group after group of farmers from all over the antelope section saying that the antelope are not a nuisance and there are not more of the animals than the open range will support. The farmers say that when the season was opened some years ago, the hunters killed more head of stock than they did antelope. The farmers have petitioned the game and fish department to rescind the order granting the open season.