70 years ago

december 13, 1951

Max Blackwelder was elected unanimously Monday night to be the new president of the Chamber of Commerce for the coming year. Alvin Propp is the present president.

Carl Elling, manager of Riddle Soil Service, was elected vice president and the following men were named to the board of directors: L.L. Hadsell, John Brose, Homer Stenzel, Ray Longhofer, and Alvin Propp.

Dear Santa: I am in the fifth grade. We have a new brother. His name is Johnny Klenda. I hope you come to our house this Christmas. Please bring me a little puppy (alive), a B-B gun, a scope and a camera. Merry Christmas, Your friend, Joseph Klenda.

Work started this week on re-building the “Wheeler” bridge across the Cottonwood River between Marion and Florence. The bridge was washed downstream by the 1941 flood and replacing it or rebuilding another has been a much publicized controversy ever since.

Pictured are three girls who answered the age-old question, “Can she bake a cherry pie?” All three, Betty Sellers, Anna Lee Nickel, and Viola Dody, won blue ribbons in the 4-H cherry pie baking contest. Betty Sellers took top honors and will go to state competition in the near future.

Tampa is justly proud of its new fire truck, the latest in modern fire fighting apparatus for the type of work for which it will be used. The truck and Martin Hajek, Tampa garage man and a member of the volunteer fire department, are pictured in front of the building built to house the new unit as well as the old pull-type fire fighting outfit.

Aided by unusually fine building weather, the work on the Marion Community Hospital has progressed to the point where the general contractor, English Constructing Company, says that it is now more than fifty percent complete.