60 years ago

oct. 31, 1963

A meeting last week of the Golden Years organization in Hillsboro officially culminated three years of work by the Ford Foundation in Marion County. The county’s organization is one of seven pilot projects set up nationwide to aid in planning of activities for the benefit and satisfaction of the aging. Activities for the past two years have been under the direction of Esther E. Twente, member of the staff of Kansas University.

An open house at Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.’s new telephone exchange building at 705 Lawrence St. in Marion will be Nov. 13 and 14. Exhibits and displays will show how the new dial telephone service operates.

Although he has been eligible for retirement for almost 10 years, Rock Island Railway’s genial agent in Marion, Oscar W. Emrich, is retiring Nov. 1 after 54 years with Rock Island.

The Marion chapter of Future Homemakers of America staged a mock homecoming football game Oct. 15 played by two girls’ football teams. Unorthodox cheerleaders included football players Chris Hauser, Dick Hamlin, Max Jackson, Gene Schimpf, and Tom Tucker, wearing ragged shorts topped with dress shirts and neckties.