75 years ago

Sept. 3, 1941

Someone once asked George Karamatic if he ever played against Bronko Nagurski. To which he responded, “He retired the year I joined the pros … and it didn’t make me mad at all.”

“It wouldn’t have made much difference if he had been playing with them when I joined the Washington Redskins,” Karamatic added. “The day we met the Bears, I lasted just three plays. We kicked off, they ran two plays and punted. Playing back in the safety spot I took the ball and started to go. The Bears had all sucked toward the center of the field and I took off down the sidelines. The next thing I knew our trainer was talking to me and I felt as if I had hit a bulldozer. Joe Stydahar, Bear tackle, had taken a swipe at me as I went by him and it knocked me end over end. I turned a complete circle and lit on the seat of my pants. I don’t remember it but that’s what the newsreel showed. I couldn’t sit down for a couple of days.”

Sept. 4, 1941

Brownie, a shaggy, mud-splattered mongrel, did his best to enroll in the first grade at Garden Tracts school in Raymond, yesterday morning. When school “took up,” he marched into the classroom with the pals with whom he has been playing around the school yard these last few weeks of vacation.

So determined was his yen for education that he refused to submit to commands, coaxing or promises of reward. He finally just had to be forcibly ejected.

Following that drastic treatment, he sat outside the door and howled pitifully, until police came and permanently “graduated” him.

50 years ago

Sept. 3, 1966

Approximately 1,300 Weatherwax High School students will answer the bell for the opening day of classes next Tuesday but odds are that not a one of them will have traveled as far for the opportunity as Fipa Hummel, an AFS exchange student from Germany.

He will be living with Mr. and Mrs. Robert Preble, their son, Gary, a senior at Weatherwax and their daughter Robin, a sophomore.

Sept. 4, 1966

Sunday, no newspaper published

25 years ago

Sept. 3, 1991

Today was the first day of school for students in Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Cosmopolis, St. Mary’s, North Beach, Taholah, Wishkah Valley, Elma, Montesano and Satsop.

At Aberdeen, the newness is from the top down. This is the first day of school for new district superintendent Sonja Martin.

“Well so far everything is going smoothly,” said Mrs. Martin with a laugh at 8:15 this morning. Superintendents Robert Kochis at North Beach, Mary Hall at Taholah and Roy Williams at Raymond are all experiencing the first day of school this week. In addition, Marlene Dixon, is the new principal at St. Mary’s School in Aberdeen.

Sept. 4, 1991

• Kids feel better about themselves when their teachers feel better about themselves. And teachers’ self-esteem is enhanced when they are listened to and appreciated by their bosses.

In a nutshell, that’s the philosophy of Aberdeen’s new school superintendent, Sonja Martin.

Mrs. Martin, 48, also feels strongly that it’s not just the teachers who impact lives, but everyone from the janitor to the cook in the cafeteria, including teacher’s aides, school secretaries and bus drivers.

• While soaring construction costs for a new library have Ocean Shores city officials fretting over finances, workers at the Anchor Avenue Thrift Shop have had no such worries over their new building.

“For anyone else to build a 4,000 square-foot building would be expensive, but not us,” said Ruby Baker. Their old facility will be taken over by the food bank which now is centered in office space across the town at the airport.

“It’s been amazing,” said Glenn Fundenberger, volunteer coordinator of the Galilean Chapel’s Social Concerns Committee. “Just about when I think I don’t have anyone available to do a job, somebody shows up.”

So far none of the work on the building has been contracted to professional firms.

“People come by and put in the hours when they can,” Fundenberger added.