100 years ago
Dec. 12, 1920
LEPANTO -- D. Smith Chambers, aged 55, charged with the murder yesterday morning of Deputy Sheriff W.R. Shields, 45, and Boss Todd, 40, a farmer, this afternoon was taken by City Marshal J.B. Blanchett to Jonesboro to be placed in the Craighead county jail for safe-keeping. Feeling against the prisoner here is bitter, it is said, and open threats to lynch him were made. He was guarded throughout last night and until he was placed on the train at 3:30 this afternoon. Chambers denied today that he shot either Shields or Todd. He told officers that Robert Jones, a farmer, killed both men.
50 years ago
Dec. 12, 1970
• Governor Rockefeller said Friday that he fully supported Governor-elect Dale Bumpers' ideas about reorganizing the executive branch of state government. Bumpers told members of the Pulaski County Bar Association Friday that a governor could not administer government effectively with 178 different agencies answering to him and that he would like to see the government departmentalized so that only eight to 10 persons would report to the governor. He indicated that he might not seek to accomplish such an ambitious undertaking immediately but that a start in this direction needed to be taken next year.
25 years ago
Dec. 12, 1995
• Not a single job announcement graced the bulletin board late Monday afternoon at the Pulaski County Personnel Department. But vacancy notices might soon crowd the board's corked terrain once more. Tonight, the Quorum Court's two standing committees will consider repealing the hiring freeze the full court imposed Nov. 14 to increase the county's financial carry-over into the new year. Depending on which of the ordinance's three sponsors are asked, the fledgling freeze has either run its course and done its job or it was an exercise in futility.
10 years ago
Dec. 12, 2010
• During a tour of the near-finished Argenta Community Theater in North Little Rock, Vince Insalaco paused as he took in his own elaborate descriptions of the building's versatility. "We tried to think 'What could this not be used for?'" Insalaco, the theater's cofounder, finally said. "We've not been able to think of anything. Unless you have something that will get more than 400 people." The $1.6 million theater, due to open by early February, is designed so that it can be rented for a variety of uses: amateur plays, recitals, student workshops, dinners, receptions, weddings, political fundraisers and even regular Sunday-night services for the Argenta First United Methodist Church.