100 years ago
Feb. 1, 1923
HOT SPRINGS -- Two thousand people witnessed the laying of the corner stone and the dedication of the Pythian bath house and sanitarium here today, which is being erected at a cost of $389,000 by the Knights of Pythias of North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Smith W. Green of New Orleans is the supreme chancellor.
50 years ago
Feb. 1, 1973
HOT SPRINGS -- The maternity section of St. Joseph's Hospital will be closed today, as an agreement reached earlier with Ouachita Memorial Hospital goes into effect. Ouachita Memorial now will handle all obstetrical cases and gynecological cases will be handled at St. Joseph's. The decision, announced in December, is intended to provide the community with better health services. ... "With the low birth rate in Hot Springs as well as throughout the nation, it is no longer practical for our institutions to have a duplication of services," said Sister Mary Werner, RSM, administrator of St. Joseph's.
25 years ago
Feb. 1, 1998
• The nonprofit agency that runs Head Start and other programs for the poor in Pulaski County is headed for some painful times but can survive, the man heading the agency's recovery effort says. Layoffs and the closing of some programs must be done to keep the doors open at the Community Organization for Poverty Elimination, or COPE, Don Ramey said Thursday. One COPE program already earmarked for elimination is a homeless day shelter at 3400 Asher Ave., where people have been able to shower, wash their clothes and get job referrals. ... This month, Pulaski County officials said they expect the federal government to demand repayment of about $660,000 from a summer nutrition program -- money the county would then probably attempt to recover from COPE. The county has already sued COPE for $115,000 that the county had to repay the federal government. ... Ramey, one of several current and former community action agency officials from around the state who are helping COPE, presented an analysis of the agency's finances to its board of directors Wednesday night. That analysis showed that in the past two years about $300,000 that should have been spent on Head Start was diverted to other purposes, he said. Another $140,000 in agency funds has also been commingled improperly, he said.
10 years ago
Feb. 1, 2013
• Almost eight years after the state Legislature passed a law allowing for the early release of state prison inmates to halfway houses, a state board on Thursday approved rules governing the releases. The Arkansas Parole Board has released dozens of inmates under Act 679 of 2005, but until Thursday, it did not have rules, beyond what's spelled out in the law, specifying which inmates are eligible, Chairman John Felts said. ... Felts said the lack of rules came to his attention a few months ago, when he received a call from an attorney who wanted a client to be considered for release under the law. "The more I looked at it, the more I saw it as an opportunity, for individuals who are nonviolent, who have no escapes in their past, to give them an opportunity," Felts said.