Peekin’ into the past

Five Years Ago
Sept. 27, 2012
    April 24, 2013, will serve as Holyoke’s 125th anniversary, or quasquicentennial. A meeting will be held Oct. 8 at the Peerless Theatre for those interested in helping plan the 125th anniversary celebration.
    Janismarie Oberle is excited to take over as the new after-school instructor at Phillips County Education Services.
    With the recent discipline bill that removed zero-tolerance policy requirements in the state of Colorado, Holyoke School District’s Board of Education is taking a look at local school district policies. Six policies involving a zero-tolerance philosophy were reviewed by Superintendent Bret Miles at the Sept. 18 meeting.
    
Ten Years Ago
Sept. 27, 2007
    Melissa Memorial Hospital is proud to announce that Dr. Kevin J. Cuccinelli has joined its staff as a new family practice physician. He will be working at MMH for one week every month.
    Holyoke Police Chief Phil Biersdorfer and his officers are on the hunt for volunteers willing to provide temporary homes for stray dogs. The police chief has begun the new foster care program to help take care of the stray dog problem around town.
    City Superintendent Mark Brown warned Holyoke city council members at their Sept. 18 meeting that the time has come for the council to enforce backflow prevention of the city’s water system to be in compliance with the state health department.
    
Twenty-Five Years Ago
Oct. 1, 1992
    Because of the demand for services, Centennial Mental Health reopened its local satellite office at a new location in Holyoke last week. The Holyoke office was closed 14 months ago when Centennial underwent some reorganization. The new office is open Mondays and Tuesdays at 605 S. Baxter Ave. (Dr. Chesnut’s former office building).
    Open house festivities will be held Oct. 4 at the new SunSet View Community Center. The new 4,800-square-foot center was completed a little over a month ago as an addition to the former SunSet View Community Room/laundry and office building.
    Holyoke Elementary School’s fifth- and sixth-grade playground area on the southeast corner of the school got a big boost from the Holyoke PTA and other volunteers with the addition of some equipment and other improvements. The project includes the addition of two basketball backboards, a volleyball court and a couple benches, and lines were painted for the basketball and volleyball courts, a football field and a four-square court.
    Darlow and Debbie Speicher have purchased the mobile Tacos Unlimited Mexican food stand from Monse and Olga Conde, effective Sept. 18. They will also take over operations of JoNa’s Koffee Shoppe from Joe and Wynona Baker, starting Oct. 5.
    While Jack’s Bean Company, headquartered in Holyoke, has handled popcorn for approximately 10 years, the division took on an identity of its own this year, as it is now known as Jack’s Popcorn Company.
    
Fifty Years Ago
Sept. 28, 1967
    Julian Tofil, who was a caseworker in the Phillips County Welfare Department in 1962, returned to Holyoke last week to become the county’s welfare director. He assumed his duties here on Sept. 26.
    The first frost of the season came Tuesday night, but it was not believed to have been a killing frost in all parts of the county. The official low temperature in Holyoke was 31 degrees. An unofficial 25-degree reading was reported in the Wages community southwest of here, and there was ice in that area.
    Herman Senstock of Denver, a former Amherst resident, will celebrate his 100th birthday Oct. 8.
    
Seventy-Five Years Ago
Oct. 1, 1942
    Charter night was celebrated Thursday evening by the Holyoke Lions Club with a banquet at the Methodist Church, attended by more than 100.
    The U.S. Department of Agriculture order of Sept. 17 — temporarily “freezing” all farm machinery in the hands of dealers — was described by Dewey J. Harman, chairman of the Colorado USDA war board, as necessary to ensure fair distribution of available equipment and its placement where it will do the most good in wartime farming production.
    Corn and feed crops over a wide area in Colorado and Nebraska were damaged heavily by a hard freeze Friday night of last week. Much of the corn was still in the roasting ear stage, or just a little past, while many fields of cane were late on account of replanting. It was the hardest freeze in this territory so early in the season for many years.
    Along with sugar, tires, bicycles, typewriters and cars, men’s rubber boots have become another commodity to be rationed.
    Deer and elk hunters of Colorado have been asked to save all waste fats from animals they kill. Estimates of the fat which could be thus obtained for war purposes run as high as 60 tons.