Other days

100 years ago

Aug. 19, 1918

PINE BLUFF -- Indications are that hundreds of Arkansas men and many Pine Bluffians may be involved in an anti-booze campaign being conducted by federal authorities to check the great quantities of liquor said to be going into Camp Pike, Little Rock, from points in Louisiana, particularly Monroe. Federal officers have seized the book accounts and orders of several wholesale liquor houses in Monroe, including those of Chas. A. Green and E.L. Webb, formerly of Pine Bluff and Camden, and will turn them over to federal authorities at Little Rock for investigation. On August 11, a wholesale capture of several truck loads of liquor was effected near Hamburg and brought to this city and stored in the federal building.

50 years ago

Aug. 19, 1968

• One of four transients who lost an appeal on a vagrancy conviction before an Arkansas Supreme Court panel Wednesday was freed Sunday after paying the remainder of her fine. Miss Debbie Metcalf, 18, of Asheville, N.C. left the County Jail with her cousin, Charles Cole of North Little Rock. The release was arranged through Cole by the girl's parents, who had been in contact with her since her arrest. Miss Metcalf originally told officers that she was Martha Ann Dry, wife of William H. Dry, 27, who was arrested with her. Also arrested were Harry Stewart Dry, 23, and Jerry Lee McAllister, 22. The three men are still serving out their sentences on the County Penal Farm.

25 years ago

Aug. 19, 1993

• A decade after the Pulaski County school desegregation case began, white students in the three school districts continued to average much better scores on standardized tests than black students in 1992-93. In all three districts, results from the Stanford Achievement Test taken last spring show that black students on average did not score at or above the 50th percentile, considered the national average. The gap is significant to the Little Rock School District because of a financial settlement with the state. If the district can show it has raised the average scores of blacks to at least 90 percent of the average scores of whites by the year 2000, the district will not have to repay up to $20 million in loans from the state.

10 years ago

Aug. 19, 2008

• Bill Gwatney's murder was a "demented act of violence" and mourners shouldn't try to make sense of it, a minister said at his funeral Monday. "Bill's death was not God's will," said the Rev. Victor Nixon of Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church in Little Rock. More than 500 people packed into the church sanctuary to remember Gwatney, the state Democratic Party chairman, a former state senator and the chief executive officer of three car dealerships in the Little Rock area. Hundreds more watched from other rooms in the church. Guests included former President Clinton, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gov. Mike Beebe, U.S. Sens. Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln and dozens of other lawmakers and former legislators, including some Republicans.

Metro on 08/19/2018

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