100 YEARS AGO May 23, 1913
Hope was borne in the hearts of more than 200 working girls and women of Little Rock yesterday, when the proprietors of the six laundries of Little Rock and Argenta and the owner of one factory agreed to pay a minimum wage of $6 instead of $4, and to require nine hours work daily instead of 10 hours, beginning June 1. This agreement was reached at the end of a several days’ conference between laundry and factory men and officials in the State Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the department’s crusade for better wages for the working women of Arkansas.
50 YEARS AGO May 23, 1963
The Red Irvin family of Camden has a hen that will not be disturbed from its natural duty, even by a trip to church. Last Sunday, as the family got out of their car at church, their pet hen stepped out from under the car, where it had ridden since it left home. During services dogs began chasing the bantam hen and she sought refuge in the church, just as the closing hymn started. The dogs stopped at the church door, but the bantam strutted calmly down the aisle, hopped on a piano stool and sat motionless until the service closed. The Irvins took the hen home and within half an hour, she had laid an egg in her usual place - under the car.
25 YEARS AGO May 23, 1988
The effort to upgrade the state’s higher education system will involve calls for more uniform and tougher admission standards, says Robert Cabe of Little Rock. Cabe is a member of the special state Committee on Higher Education, which has been meeting at the state Capitol to develop recommendations for improving colleges and universities to submit to the Legislature in 1989. Currently, there are no uniform minimum admission standards for the state’s four-year institutions.
10 YEARS AGO May 23, 2003
BLYTHEVILLE - After many of its members expressed their regrets, the state Plant Board voted Thursday to force reluctant cotton growers and farm landlords in northeast Arkansas into a pesticide-spraying program intended to wipe out the boll weevil. The vote ended a two-hour meeting and public hearing characterized by the measured tones used by both board members and the more than 120 farmers and landlords in the audience. The Plant Board has said it has authority to force eradication on farmers under the state Plant Act of 1917, something some farmers questioned Thursday.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 05/23/2013