75 years ago

September 2, 1944

F.R. (Pop) Copeland has climbed his last telephone pole.

After 35 years of faithful service as installer repairman for the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph company, Pop now is in retirement, and from now on his friends will find him at the Highlands golf course, along some streams fighting steelhead or leveling his gun on a mallard in flight.

Ever since the gas ration put a crimp in his fishing and hunting trips, Pop has practically been living at the Cosmopolis golf course.

“Why, last winter I played every day except one,” he said, “and that one day was when six inches of snow covered the ground.”

When Pop finished his work with the telephone company, it did not take the Copeland name off the payroll. Pop’s daughter, Leoda, is a supervisor and his son, Hulet, who has been working side by side with him, will fill Pop’s shoes.

50 years ago

September 2, 1969

Close to 70 gridders were on hand this morning as coach Leo (Bud) Hake opened his third season as head of the Grays Harbor College football forces.

The Chokers began three-a-day workouts under cloudy skies and a slight drizzle on the practice gridiron below College Hall. In accordance with new junior college regulations, drills for the first three days will be of a no-contact nature.

25 years ago

September 2, 1994

To many Harborites, it probably seems like only yesterday that young Bob “Buoy” Elway was sitting on the tires in his dad’s service station on B Street in Aberdeen, drinking a soda and reading his favorite comic book.

In truth, it’s been a lifetime. A lifetime of dreams, realized in 1976 when Buoy was able to purchase the family business. A lifetime of providing full-service maintenance and friendly conversation to a couple of generations of Harborites, many of whom have never pumped their own gas.

But Sunday the service station that has been in the Elway family since 1950 will be but a memory.

Buoy, who graduated from Weatherwax High School in 1966, blames bureaucrats with clipboards and checklists.

“I used to pay my insurance through Chevron — about $160 a year. Now they want me to pay $3,500 for each tank (of gas) I have. And he has two operable tanks and four more that aren’t being used. “Two have been here since before I was born. And they also say you have to pass a soil test.” he said. “This place has been here since the ’20s. I’d have a better chance of winning the lottery.”

Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom