This Week in Odessa History

100 Years Ago

The Odessa Record

January 25, 1918

The annual mask ball was given by the Fraternal order of Eagles at the opera house Saturday night was the most successful ever given by the order and all participating report a splendid time. The receipts from the sale of dancing and spectator tickets were $156 and while there were fewer elaborate costumes than on former occasions, more people took character parts than ever before. The first prize for best sustained characters was awarded to Mrs. C. Clark and Miss Gertie Jasman and the second to Dr. Fred Balmer and Ernest Wachter.

Edwall High proved too strong for the local high school basketball team in the game on the local floor Saturday night but the wearers of the Orange and Black put up a hard fight and their opponents know every minute of the time that they were in a basketball game. The game was exceptionally good the first half when honors were about even and finally ended 11 to 9 in favor of Edwall. During the last half Edwall got a big lead at the start, although the home boys picked up during the last ten minutes of play and the final score was 18 to 35 in favor of the visiting team.

The Record has lost a subscriber, not because of the raise of price to $2.00 a year, but for the reason that we didn’t keep a news item, which a man had the nerve to ask us, out of the paper. Few newspaper men take pleasure in publishing the misfortune of any man or woman in the columns of their paper and life would be a great deal more pleasant to the average editor if everybody was to walk in the straight and narrow way, but there are certain individuals that simply can’t do that and then one is called upon to print things that he would much prefer not to, for it is the good and not the evil deeds of mankind that one likes to publish, even though the bad deeds do make more spicy reading. Some offenders are men enough to take their medicine without a whimper, while others will go to a newspaper office and use tears or threats or both in order to have their offense against the law kept out of the paper. Not many weeks pass that we are not approached by some one to keep this, that or the other thing out of the paper but there is only one answer to give in such cases and that is that we cannot make fish of one and flesh of another and a deaf ear is turned to all who make such requests. Therefore fair warning is given that there is only one way in which the names of offenders of the laws of the commonwealth can be kept out of the Record and that is to turn their footsteps into the paths which lead to righteousness and not to the police court.

75 Years Ago

The Odessa Record

January 25, 1943

The Lions club was host to the members of the school faculty at a duck diner at the Parish hall on Wednesday night. E. E. Newland was toastmaster. Milton Sackmann appeared in two vocal solos, and accompanied by Miss Ruth Derr, and Carver Whelchel presented a violin solo, accompanied by Mrs. Whelchel. P. C. Jantz responded for the faculty.

The Odessa bakery, in line with government war orders, will now deliver bread unsliced, and Mrs. Odessa will have to resurrect the old notched edge knife, like her mother used to keep, or sharpen up the meat carver and “have at it.”

This week, as with almost every week, a new group of subscribers are added to The Record list. Included this week in a new group of soldiers, some of our absent residents now in defense work, some from our own community.

Carl Yuckert is home from the coast on a 14-day furlough, to visit relatives and friends.

The continued winter has brought the wildlife of the area in to the farms, it is reported by many of the ranchers of the area. Rabbits were the first to respond, and now covies of quail, Chinese pheasants and Hungarian partridges are crowding in sharing the diminishing hay stacks with cattle.

In order that the Edwall basketball players may make train connections to Odessa, the basketball game scheduled for Friday will be held at 2:15 on that afternoon, rather than the usual evening hour.

Will the haystack last much longer? That is the worry of the local cattlemen, who have been feeding since the first fall of snow of Thanksgiving day. Last week’s storm took a toll on cattle, it was revealed, when they were downed in the raging snow storm and cold weather.

Gladys M. Amende, city clerk, has removed the names of 147 voters from the town list, as having failed to vote in the past two years.

Tech. James Scrupps is now located at the Staten Island terminal at New York City, with the ordinance department.

Walter Haase, whose injury was reported early in December, has written his parents that he sustained an injury of the left leg, and is now back in Australia, doing well under treatment at a hospital there.

Corp. Richard Walter, writing the Charles Scrupps, states that the letters from home friends are the chief break in routine and extends wishes to his friends here.

Jeanette Amende, Odessa, was among the 18 coeds to receive commissions in the Women’s Service Corps at the Washington State college.

50 Years Ago

The Odessa Record

January 11, 1968

Community play in the making for Odessa

By Mrs. James R. Walter

The show must go on! This often quoted phrase is ringing in the air and on the lips of all Odessa Junior Women as they build, borrow, and search for play props. The ladies are preparing for their club-sponsored Broadway play “Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung you in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad.” If a long title means anything, it should be good!

Our community can proudly claim not only the production of an exclusive Broadway play, but also the leading lady as one of our own. Mrs. Lee Schorzman, allas Madame Rosepettle, is the leading shrew of the tragi-farce play. The rest of the cast are fellow members of the ACTOR players, a group recently brought together under the direction Mr. Ronald Widener. This leading Broadway play should attract a large adult audience. How often does Broadway come to Odessa?

Reviews in leading magazines of the country have agreed that this far-out play by Arthur L. Kopit is in a class by itself. It has been describer as being to drama what op-art is to the medium of art. This in itself raises controversy. Rev. John A. Birchard will be moderating a panel to discuss the reactions of the cast and the audience to the play.

The date is set for Tuesday, January 20, 1968, for the one-and-only-performance of this play-of-the-year. So, mark it on your calendar as a night out. you won’t be disappointed! The action starts at 8:00 p.m. at the High School auditorium. Tickets are available at the Odessa Drug.

25 Years Ago

The Odessa Record

January 14, 1993

No judgment has been awarded to Eugene Deptuch against defendant Howard Phillips in Lincoln County Superior Court, as was stated in the Lincoln County Court Report published in The Odessa Record and other newspapers of Lincoln County in their issues of December 10, 1992.

In that case, the jury specifically found there was no negligence or outrageous conduct by the defendant, Howard Phillips, which was a proximate cause of injury or damage to the plaintiff, Eugene Deptuch, and further specifically found there was negligence or outrageous conduct by the defendant, John Wagenblast, which was a proximate cause of injury or damage to the plaintiff, Eugene Deptuch.

The jury found the amount of the plaintiff’s damage to be $75,000, and assessed $56,000 against the partnership of Phillips and Wagenblast as a result of the conduct of John Wagenblast, while a member of that firm, and the balance against John Wagenblast personally.