Down Memory Lane

79 Years Ago

September 11, 1941

Joe Wells has started the school bus again. He goes to the San Saba school, carrying from here and all along his route whatever children that attend that school. Joe is a good bus driver, having been on the same bus some four years. Hauling school children to and from school is a responsible job. He must get the pupils safely and on time to school and back home every school day in the year, and rain or shine makes no difference.

Monday night the rain began and Tuesday morning it is steadily keeping it up. Result of one inch of water. This gain insures good winter range. It has always been that the ranchman considered that if good rains came in September he expected winter range following, as long back as we can remember.

County Judge and Mrs. J. B. Jarrell have sold their residence on West Storey Street to T. P. Golding, local Ford dealer, and is moving to the former Jimmie Ragsdale home here. The Harrell's plan to erect a new home on their stock farm in the Chappel community during the next few months. Mr. and Mrs. Golding are moving from the W. C. Dofflemyer house which has been sold during the past week to Ace Howell, vocational agriculture teacher here.

Mrs. James Ellis has returned from the Midland Rodeo which she attended Aug. 30-31-Sept. 1. She reports a wonderful reception and entertainment for some 37 ladies who participated in the event.

More than two inches of rain fell over this county Tuesday morning. It has retarded the cotton pickers–but the ranchmen are smiling.

Mrs. J. O. Moore, Jr., has returned from Mexico City where she attended college this summer.

Mr. and Mrs. Jack Smith of Austin visited among relatives here this week.

59 Years Ago

September 11, 1961

Mrs. David Edmondson had a very pleasant surprise Wednesday morning when her cousin, Howard Phelps and family of El Paso came by to see her. She had not seen him for 21 years. They were enroute to Bryan to enroll their son, Steve, in the academy.

Mrs. Ray (Jackie) Pierce, whose husband is employed at Howell-Doran Funeral Home, has been employed as secretary at KBAL, succeeding Mrs. Madolyn Richardson, who has resigned to resume studies at Howard Payne College where she will be a junior student majoring in Spanish.

The new San Saba Junior High School building will be dedicated with open house Sunday, Sept. 17. The building, planned by Wylie W. Vale Associates architectural firm, was constructed by Keele Associates of Burnet at a cost of $288,894. There are approximately 34,000 square feet of enclosed floor space. Furnishings cost about $36,000. The building consists of 16 classrooms for grades four through eighth, a special education room, a foreign language laboratory room, four rooms for science in grades seven through 12, an air-conditioned cafetorium with a seating capacity of approximately 500, and air-conditioned administrative area consisting of a central library, offices, a teacher lounge and clinic. Work was started on the building in June 1960.

There was no real fire Monday, Sept. 11, when the alarm sounded about 12:50 p.m., but sparks were flying in a tree on South Live Oak Street, according to Fire Chief James (Red) Gossett. A lady living in the neighborhood saw the sparks flying in a nearby tree and yelled to a neighbor to call the LCRA office that fire was in the tree. Fire Chief Gossett stated the neighbor lady misunderstood her and thought she said to call the fire department. The high winds Monday caused a short in the wires which were in the tree causing the sparks to fly The shorted circuit was mended and no fire existed.