75 years ago
April 3, 1943
• Operations at the Rayonier Inc. mill in Hoquiam were suspended today when employees refused to pass a CIO picket line assertedly set up because company officials discharged 10 men on orders of the AFL which had bargaining rights with the company. The controversy is the result of a jurisdictional dispute between AFL and CIO unions, company officials said.
• The First Congregational church of Aberdeen today was a shambles of torn hymn books, overturned chairs, song sheets, contribution envelopes, cigarette stubs, broken glass and smashed light fixtures — the work of vandals.
This afternoon police were informed that vandals also had entered and similarly desecrated the First Methodist church sometime during the week. Vandals had entered the Emmanuel Mission church twice earlier in the week.
Police have no definite clues, but believe the vandalism is the work of youngsters.
April 4, 1943
Sunday, no newspaper published
50 years ago
April 3, 1968
The Cooperative Extension Service in recent weeks, has moved from the Grays Harbor Courthouse to the former telephone office building in Montesano. On Friday the public was invited to look over the newly remodeled quarters.
At the same time, friends came by to wish the best to Heston Weyrich, seventh County Extension Agent-in-charge since 1915. He retires this month.
It was a natural time of reflection and recollection. Not many could remember when the Extension Service in Grays Harbor County consisted mainly of a place in the courthouse that was known as “The Farmer’s Room.” C.F. Monroe was the first agent.
April 4, 1968
High school students from Hoquiam and Aberdeen rang door bells to the tune of $3,700 last night during the annual Dollars for Scholars campaign.
Mrs. Dorothy Ladley, advisor of the HHS SHOUT service club and Paul Seabert, Weatherwax’s advisor, termed the community response “very gratifying.”
25 years ago
April 3, 1993
Weyerhaeuser’s settling ponds are not to blame for health problems suffered by 22 South Aberdeen residents suing the company, a doctor who examined the plaintiffs testified Friday.
Dr. Patricia Sparks of Seattle’s Providence Medical Center said allergies and longtime asthma caused symptoms ranging from bloody noses to headaches to burning eyes. The levels of chloroform and dioxin emitted from the settling ponds for Weyco’s Cosmopolis pulp mill were so low that it is “nearly impossible” that they could have caused the cancer of two of the plaintiffs, Dr. Parks testified.
April 4, 1993
• Ensign Joelle Buckman of Aberdeen, recently graduated from Basic Civil Engineer Corps Officer School, Port Hueneme, Calif.
The 1987 graduate of Aberdeen High School joined the Navy in 1992. Gary and Tobi Buckman of Aberdeen are her parents.
• Donald W. Reynolds, the founder of a formidable media group that includes The Daily World, is dead at 86.
He was the definitive self-made man, a short Texan who made his big dreams come true with old-fashioned hard work and persistence. He parlayed a string of small-town dailies into a modern, award-winning newspaper group — Donrey Media Group. Along the way, he became a billionaire, but remained a down-to-earth, gutsy man.
Without hesitation he would help unload newsprint or bundle newspapers when emergencies arose.
When Reynolds was paying a visit to Aberdeen in the ’70s, a reporter who had spent hours tidying up his desk, inquired, “Well, Mr. Reynolds, what do you think?”
“I think it will be back to normal around here just as soon as I leave,” Reynolds shot back with a laugh.
Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom
