Peekin' into the Past

Five Years Ago

March 10, 2016

Band instructor Greg Wakeman made a proposal at the March 1 school board meeting for adding a part-time graduate assistant to enhance the long-term plan for the concert, marching and jazz band programs in Holyoke School District.

With the July 2016 Midwest Plains Regional Babe Ruth Tournament closer all the time, the Holyoke Ballpark has been a busy place as awnings go up, dugouts come down, new restroom foundations are poured and old restrooms are repurposed.

The city of Holyoke sludge removal from the sewer lagoon, contracted through VERIS Environmental, has proven more costly than the originally budgeted $93,500. A special meeting was required March 4 to approve an additional $25,077 to go toward the project or face VERIS halting any further progress altogether.

Tammy Kelley is the new associate attorney at Colver, Killin & Sprague LLP.

Daniel Koch, D.C., recently expanded Koch Chiropractic Clinic in Imperial, Nebraska, when he and his wife Kristin opened a Holyoke office at 111 W. Emerson St., in the former Holyoke Eye Care Center space.

Ten Years Ago

March 10, 2011

Hoping to leverage funds obtained from the 2010 mill levy override election, Holyoke Re-1J Board of Education approved submission of five BEST grant applications. The five grants which were approved for submission at the March 1 school board meeting cover the following areas: boiler, electrical, IT; school safety; roofs; site improvements/bus drop-off areas; and indoor air quality.

City Superintendent Mark Brown reported at the March 1 city council meeting that vandalism at Holyoke Municipal Airport will cost the city roughly $800 after someone shot out a lens of the airport beacon.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

March 14, 1996

Serjio and Socorro Peña, Holyoke residents for the past 16 years, now join the ranks as proud citizens of the United States of America. The Peñas went through the ceremony that officially proclaimed them citizens of this country at the Office of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service in Denver on Feb. 23.

Twenty-seven cars were entered in Holyoke Cub Scout Pack 32’s Pinewood Derby held March 4 at the Phillips County Fairgrounds.

Melissa Memorial Hospital initiates its noontime Brown Bag Lecture Series for the public on March 15. Subsequent lectures will be held the third Friday of each month with local health care providers, hospital personnel and consulting specialists all lecturing on health-related topics.

Fifty Years Ago

March 11, 1971

Holyoke and most of Phillips County received 8-10 inches of new wet snow, which started last Thursday night and continued through Friday.

Holyoke’s municipal baseball park will have a new electric scoreboard for the 1971 baseball season due to the generosity of Mrs. Charles R. Sheridan of Holyoke, given by her and her late husband in appreciation of the many enjoyable hours they spent at the ballpark.

Rev. Clyde L. Vandergrift, Holyoke Church of the Nazarene’s new pastor, held his first services on March 7. Pastor Clyde and his family came to Holyoke from Pasadena, California.

Holyoke FFA chapter members have started Operation Search and Recycle, searching out owners of old junkers to be delivered to the car press. Because of bad weather, the press, which was to have been set up last Tuesday, will arrive tomorrow. Approximately 120 old junkers are reported to have been signed up for delivery to the press.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

March 14, 1946

The Phillips County Telephone Company has installed two new switchboards in the local office, the work having been done Saturday night by Gloyd L. Seifert, manager of the Yuma Bell System exchange. In order not to disrupt service of the exchange in making the installation, the work was done late at night and during early morning hours.

The last of the concrete in the Alva Adams Tunnel has been poured and the hole through the range, that bears the name of the former United States senator from this state, is ready for the water to be turned into it. However, the other preparations are not complete and it will be some time before the tunnel will be in use.