In 1993, Capt. Sundstrom retired from APD

From the archives of The Daily World

75 years ago

June 14, 1943

American flags decorated the streets of Grays Harbor and flew above public and business buildings and industrial plants, as citizens marked Flag Day without stoppage of war effort.

The observation will be climaxed tonight with a band concert on Broadway in front of the Elks temple followed by a public patriotic program in the Elks lodgeroom.

“We urge every American citizen to join with us tonight in paying tribute to our great and beautiful flag,” M.B. Lytle, Elks Flag Day chairman, announced today.

June 15, 1943

The Boeing Aircraft company, builder of the famed Flying Fortresses, will open a sub-assembly plant in Aberdeen this month, the first unit of a big expansion program, Boeing officials announced here today.

The plant will be located in the former Marshall-Wells building which yesterday was purchased by the Goldberg Furniture company and in turn leased to the Boeing company on a one-year basis, with an option for renewal.

It will operate on a two-shift basis, employing more than 750 persons.

50 years ago

June 14, 1968

• Miss Rhonda Kinney of Hoquiam and Ron Harless of Aberdeen are recent graduates of Seattle Pacific College — Miss Kinney graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in English and Harless receiving his bachelor of arts in education with a minor in history.

• A huge one-pound clam was obtained on the beach at Moclips by Mrs. Doris Houghton.

It measured 6 1/2 inches long and 3 1/2 inches wide. With the neck extended it measured 12 inches in length.

Mrs. Houghton was asked if it was exciting to pull such a big clam out. She replied, “no, it was rather frightening because it felt like I was pulling out someone’s hand or something”

June 15, 1968

The times truly are a-changin’ and perhaps nowhere is the change more apparent than at the high school level.

Aile Norin is in a unique position to view the gradual revamping of the American teenage, for she has kept a finger on the pulse of Weatherwax High School for 27 years.

As AHS’s office manager Mrs. Norin has worked under three administrations and has been associated with two generations of students.

She has watched the high school’s enrollment climb from 800-900 students in 1943 to its present enrollment of 1,303. She has seen the school itself make way for change with the addition of the Phillips Building, completed in 1963.

“I don’t see much change in young people as a whole,” she said. “It’s just that students have more freedom than they did before, so of course they’re more outgoing now. I don’t see anything wrong with our teenagers.”

25 years ago

June 14, 1993

Growing up in Aberdeen, he was “the hoodlum … from the wrong side of the tracks.”

That’s stretching it, but young Nels Sundstrom was known to get into a few scrapes with the law, including some smashed street lights and a caper that involved stealing iron from the railroad.

Forty years later, Sundstrom is still well known to police.

Now they call him “Captain.”

Sundstrom retires today after 27 years with the Aberdeen Police Department.

Sundstrom’s men say he’s always been the kind of leader who isn’t afraid to take on a tough assignment but also knows when to step aside and let his detectives do their jobs.

“Run with it!’ and “Damn it, touch bases with me!” became his trademark phrases.

June 15, 1993

An ambitious sixth grader from Wishkah got one of the biggest ovations at Mike Lowry’s Town Hall meeting in Hoquiam last night.

“Our school may be small, but we get the education we need,’ said Matthew Alison, 12, his voice choked with emotion as he recalled the effort last spring to consolidate some rural schools with larger districts.

Together with his brother Terrance, 10, and grandmother, Josephine Moore, Matthew sat on a metal folding chair in the gymnasium at Our Lady of Good Help Catholic Church and endured three hours of sometimes tedious testimony by grown-ups.

Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom