100 YEARS AGO May 28, 1913 CAMDEN - The famous cannon, “Old Betsy,” which was captured from the Federals during the Civil war and later thrown into the Ouachita river to prevent its being recaptured, is being mounted on a stone pedestal by the Mary Graham Chapter of the Children of the Confederacy. “Old Betsy” lay in the bottom of the river for about 15 years after the war closed. Then a negro diver found it and it was hauled to the surface. Bronze tablets will be placed on each side of the stone pedestal setting out the history of this famous gun.
50 YEARS AGO May 28, 1963
Self-styled rainmaker Homer Berry shed some light today on Russian Premier Khrushchev’s frightening boast, “We will bury you.” Berry’s enlightening remarks came in the course of a stinging reply to a critic who wrote to the Democrat’s “Answer Please” column wondering if there wasn’t some way “that the people can be spared the ravings of the so-called rainmaker, Major Berry.” Berry, retired major from the U.S. Air Force, angrily labeled his critic as “Communist.” “Is your ‘cell’ getting scared that this country might wake up to what your masters are doing to the weather around the world?” Berry demanded toknow. Russia, according to the rainmaker, is in “complete charge of all weather in the northern hemisphere.” The Little Rock reader’s letter to “Answer Please” complained about Berry’s claims and inquired if something couldn’t be done about him.
25 YEARS AGO May 28, 1988
The school board for the Pulaski County Special School District voted 4-3 Friday to make budget cuts of $2,525,761 - laying off 122 employees and closing Scott Junior High School, but saving most athletics. “It’s been a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking thing to cut things we worked so hard to put in place,” Superintendent Bobby Lester told a crowd of about 140 people. He said the moment was one of the saddest in his 19 years as a district employee.
10 YEARS AGO May 28, 2003
Mills University Studies High School in the Pulaski County Special School District is ranked as the 20th best high school in America in this week’s edition of Newsweek magazine. Fayetteville High and Little Rock Central High were the only other Arkansas schools to make it onto the list of 739 schools heralded as the top 4 percent of the nation’s schools. Fayetteville was ranked 584th in the country and Central came in at 661st.
Arkansas, Pages 8 on 05/28/2013