Other days

100 YEARS AGO Jan. 20, 1914 HARRISON - Refusal to answer questions asked by the Grand Jury this morning caused the imprisonment of a witness named Petty. He steadfastly maintained that he could not remember whether he had witnessed a poker game within the last two or three months. The question was held by Judge Reed to be one easy to answer.

50 YEARS AGO Jan. 20, 1964

Major forest fires burning out of control in the Atkins and Morrilton areas were expected to be put out by tonight, State Forrester Fred Lang said at noon.Lang reported that Sunday’s high winds powered at least 79 fires which ravaged a total of 9,134 acres of land. Lang pronounced the fire danger situation worse than that in October and November. Fire in the vicinity of Solgohachia (Conway County), which began a mile west of Highway 95, was reported to have crossed the highway and burned a distance of 5 miles east.

25 YEARS AGO Jan. 20, 1989

An amendment blocking the dispensing of contraceptives on public school grounds was tacked onto a school-based health clinic bill by a House committee’s12-6 vote Thursday. “In effect, you know this amendment kills the bill. Everybody knows that’s what it’s intended to do,” Sen. Jay Bradford of Pine Bluff, sponsor of a companion bill in the Senate, told the House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee after the vote Thursday. The amendment appeared to fail on an initial voice vote, but lawmakers apparently changed their minds when their opinions were recorded in an official roll call. A Senate bill had been approved Wednesday by that body without the anti-contraceptive amendment.

10 YEARS AGO Jan. 20, 2004

Alltel Corp. on Thursday will add its version of walkie-talkie phones to a short list of wireless carriers that offer the increasingly popular service. With the launch of its Touch2Talk feature, Little Rock-based Alltel will join Verizon, Sprint PCS and Nextel as the only U.S. companies offering “push-to-talk” services. After the success of Nextel, wireless companies have rushed to develop the technology, which works much like a walkie-talkie. Nextel had long been the only company with the walkie-talkie phones, and the unique feature helped the company grow into one of the country’s largest wireless carriers.

Arkansas, Pages 8 on 01/20/2014

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