75 years ago

March 9, 1944

Miss Gloria Nelson of Tokeland has the honor of being the first girl to take and pass the aviation cadet examination at McChord field, it was learned today. As a WASP ( Women’s Airforce Service Pilot) she will be stationed at Avenger field in Fleetwater, Texas.

Miss Nelson attended school at Tokeland and graduated from Ocosta high school in 1940.

Her 50 hours of flying time preliminary to the examination was taken at Blythe field in California, where she flew a trainer plane.

March 10, 1944

Hungry customers at a Chicago Canal street lunch room shout, “Pass my catsup, please!” and they mean just that.

Because of rationing, fifteen regular patrons have provided their own bottle of catsup and parked them on a shelf over the lunch counter, each marked with the owner’s name — just like shaving mugs in an old time barber shop.

When somebody else asks for catsup, Waitress Harriet Kappos coolly demands, “Twenty-three points, please.”

50 years ago

March 9, 1969

Dr. Albert G. Canaris, a former Hoquiamite, recently received one of the highest honors in zoological research when a parasite was named after him by Dr. F.A. Puylaert of the Royal Museum of Central Africa.

Dr. Canaris, a graduate of Hoquiam High School, discovered the new parasite while serving as a teacher and research worker at Agerton College in Kenya.

He received his bachelor’s degree from Washington State University in 1950 and completed Ph. D studies at Oregon State University in 1961. He was born in Aberdeen and is the son of Mrs. John Pahlitzsch. She is also known by her business name, Evelyn Polish.

March 10, 1969

James Earl Ray pleaded guilty today to murdering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary.

The entire proceeding, from original guilty plea to setting of the sentence by the jury, lasted less than three and a half hours.

The jury was chosen from a venue picked two weeks ago, but the jurors themselves had no idea, a court spokesman said, that they would be assigned to the Ray case until court began this morning.

25 years ago

March 9, 1994

Two basketball courts could fit in the cavernous garbage transfer station taking shape at the LeMay Landfill east of Aberdeen.

The County Commissioners will consider mandatory garbage collection and recycling for the entire county at a public hearing set for March 14.

“Everybody in the county ultimately generates garbage, and it needs to be disposed of property,” said Nancy Krussel, chairman of Grays Harbor’s Solid Waste Advisory Committee.

When the 25-year-old landfill closes April 8, Grays Harbor County will immediately begin transporting its trash to a regional landfill at Roosevelt, located near Goldendale in Eastern Washington.

Before trucks haul the garbage to Centralia, where it will be transferred to train cars for the rest of the trip, the waste will be collected at the new central transfer station.

March 10, 1994

The state Department of Transportation couldn’t have asked for better timing to prove its point that the bluff could call their bluff.

A big chunk broke off Wednesday afternoon and threatened to spill into the lanes of traffic, forcing the closure of Highway 12 where a $3.3 million highway widening project is under way in East Aberdeen.

Today was to be the first day of scheduled highway closures during the most dangerous part of the bluff removal.

No one was hurt when the rock face broke off, although there were skid marks on the highway from a couple of motorists.

Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom