Looking back...Dec. 31 issue

Compiled by Georgia Smith of The Times

70 Years ago

December 28th, 1950

The New Year 1951 can Provide Only Time

It’s easy to rip off a tattered page of the calendar to reveal a new year. It’s not so easy to erase the sins, problems and uncertainty that were the product of the processing months.

Ripping off a calendar page is not a sure passport to Utopia or a signal that all that is bad has gone in the wastebasket with the old calendar. The year 1951 is only a continuation but it can be a starting point for a better life.

A year is not animated in that it is powerless to rule the world or men’s destinies. The year 1951 can provide the time and the logical starting point but can do no more. Man must take up for there.

Man must be peaceful if the world is to be at peace. Man must progress if the world is to step ahead. The individual and not the year will record in history whether 1951 was a year progress or a year of destruction.

When you shout “Happy New Year,” amidst a shower of confetti and the blare of tin horns, voice it with the thought that here is a new period, a starting point in which I can be a better person.

Behind that torn-off calender page is revealed a challenge to each individual in the form of a new period of time in which to make the world a better place to live.

Rip off that page. Blow your tin horn- but remember the challenge. Man and not the year rule the world.

A Happy New Year? Yes, a very happy new year to all-one in which each person realizes the burden of happiness for himself and others rests on his shoulders. Only the individual and the sum total of the actions of all individuals can make a happy 1951.—The Staff of the Davenport Times-Tribune

50 Years ago

December 31st 1970

Lincoln County Receives Attention in New Book

Once their habitat comprised a large part of eastern Lincoln County as well as considerable other land, mainly north and east of the county. Today the Spokane Indians still retain some tribal identity, but the make up only a small fraction of the population of the area which once was their own stomping ground.

Some changes that have taken place in the intervening period are outline in the book from the University of Oklahoma Press titled “The Spokane Indians.”

Dr. Robert H. Ruby, Moses Lake surgeon, and John A. Brown, history professor at Wenatchee Valley College, are the authors of the book, which takes the tribe back to time of early tradition, before the coming of the white man.

“It is the story,” says Robert L. Bennett, commissioner of the Indian affairs, in a foreword, of the American Indian buffeted by massive cultural changes, seeking to accommodate to, then resist the tide of white encroachment but in the end succumbing”

The authors have gone through a great many written and printed materials to put together the story. Most of it, necessarily, is from a whit means view; the Indians left comparatively little record. But some interviews with the Spokanes also are included.

Places familiar to Lincoln County residents are among those rating attentions in the book.

For Example, the military post at Fort Spokane figures prominently in the volume.

30 years ago

December 26th, 1990

Grange Celebrates

A festive crowd of well over 100 gathered at Spring Creek Grange Wednesday, Dec 12th, for a Christmas party.

The highlight for the evening for proud parents and grandparents was the entertainment by the children, which consisted of group and solo vocal numbers, instrumentals solos and readings. The Spring Creek Quartet sang a Christmas Carol, and another adult group presented a comedy skit.

As usual, the highlight fort the younger set was the arrival of Santa Claus, and distribution of gifts and treats.

10 years ago

December 30th, 2010

Reardan High School

Athlete of the Week

Kira Frolov

Middle school girls’ basketball couch Kristy Koch says this eighth grader is “energetic young women with a passion and desire for success. She continually works to improve her individual skills while doing her part contributing to our team goals. I am confident Kira will extend her knowledge and success over the next four years to leave her mark on Reardan. Thank you for your effort!” Her parents are Fred and Anesia Frolov.