WAY BACK WHEN: LOOKING BACK IN HISTORY Happenings in the Cookeville area as recorded in the pages of the Herald Citizen Newspaper, Cookeville, TN. By Bob McMillian 1970’s (Compiled by Audrey J. Lambert) http://www.ajlambert.com 1970 Everyone is taking about who might be the candidates in this summer's Cookeville City Council election, and the newspaper has surveyed the most likely candidates. Incumbent Robert King says he's in the race. Bob Poteet is about ready to announce a decision. Mayor Bobby Davis says he's honestly uncertain at this point. Noble Cody wants to be the next mayor. Kenneth Dyer says it's too early for a decision. Albert Maxwell says he's giving serious consideration to running. Donald Ferrell hasn't made up his mind yet and Wendell "Cotton" Johnson says he, too, is giving serious thoughts to entering the race. (January 8, 1970) Algood Mayor John Carr says that the Algood Board of Aldermen has decided not to follow a recommendation by the University of Tennessee's Municipal Technical Advisory Service. The agency said that Algood residents would be better off if Cookeville were to annex Algood. Taxes would be less because the tax base would be larger and governmental services would no longer be duplicated by the two next•door neighbors. But the Algood board said that it felt residents preferred hanging onto their town's identity and rejected the plan. (January 15, 1970) Baxter’s Larry D. Williams, 34, a lieutenant in the Navy, has been awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal for outstanding performance in combat missions in Vietnam. He’s been involved in aerial reconnaissance and psychological war•fare operations. (January 26, 1970) The Model Cities Review Board says that one of the most pressing needs facing the city of Cookeville is a lack of skilled labor. In the past, people have left the county to find jobs, and there are no training facilities here to teach them the kind of skills they need to work in industry, the report concludes. In Vietnam this week, B•52 bombers dropped thousands of pounds of high explosives on North Vietnamese supply depots in the A Shau Valley on the Cambodian border. The bombing raids were carried out after trucks were spotted in the valley for the first time in a year. The valley was the scene of intense ground fighting earlier in the war. (January 30, 1970) The TBI says that drug use here and across the state is up 22 percent on the whole. That’s the agency’s estimate based on increases in arrests for drugs. In most cases, the substance involved was marijuana or narcotics. (February 10, 1970) TTU has won a $50,000 grant from NASA to develop a thin film that can be used to measure temperatures in the atmosphere 43.5 miles above earth’s surface. (February 11, 1970) Dr. F. Story Musgrave, the astronaut scheduled to command the first manned space station for NASA later this year, told an audience that there is a statistical certainty that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, and some of it is likely to be more intelligent than we are. He also predicted that during the 1980’s NASA will begin travel to other planets, and in the 1990s there will be commercial flights to the moon. *At the Varsity Theater, “Alice’s Restaurant,” with Arlo Guthrie. (February 15, 1970) Thomas Peek, son of Mr. and Mrs. Clyde T. Peek of Rt. 1, Cookeville, is taking part in the U. S. Army’s “North Warfare Training” operation this week in Alaska. There, he’s learning cross country skiing, snowshoe use and trail breaking techniques. Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” was nominated for Song of the Year by the Country Music Association this week. And a group of defendants known popularly as the “Chicago 7” are awaiting sentencing this week after their conviction on charges of conspiracy to incite rioting during the Democratic National Convention in the Windy City two years ago. (February 20, 1970) James Herman Roberson, 78, this week celebrated histh 50year of service to area Missionary Baptist churches. A life•long resident of the Poplar Grove Community, he has performed 3,000 baptisms, 400 marriages, 1,321 funerals and “a host of revivals during his career. His first church was Poplar Grove Missionary Church here which he started in 1919. He was its pastor for 33 years. (February 26, 1970) Sen. Albert Gore Sr. is among the bipartisan group of U. S. lawmakers who this week accused the Nixon administration of secretly carrying on a war in Laos in an effort to reach North Vietnamese units hiding from U. S. forces there. Gore says that there is evidence that U. S. special forces units are “swarming all over the countryside in Laos. There’s quite a furor about it on Capitol Hill. (March 10, 1970) Everyone is talking about who might be the candidates in this summer’s Cookeville City Council election, and the newspaper has surveyed the most likely candidates. Incumbent Robert King says he’s in the race. Bob Poteet is about ready to announce a decision. Mayor Bobby Davis says he’s honestly uncertain at this point. Noble Cody wants to be the next mayor. Kenneth Dyer says it’s too early for a decision. Albert Maxwell says he’s giving serious consideration to running. Donald Ferrell hasn’t made up his mind yet and Wendell “Cotton” Johnson says he, too, is giving serious thought to entering the race. *With spring approaching, the upcoming city council race is beginning to be the topic of conversation about town. Everyone is wondering who's going to run, So, the newspaper this week asked the men most likely to run. Mayor Bobby Davis said he's not decided yet if he'll seek reelection. Bob Poteet said he's undecided too, but he's giving it a lot of thought. Wendell "Cotton" Johnson hasn't made up his mind. Neither has Albert Maxwell, but he says a lot of people are asking him to run. Donald Ferrell says he's been urged by many to toss his hat in the rate too, but he's not certain yet. Noble Cody says he'd like to run if he could campaign for the office of mayor, but that's not the way the city charter works. So, he's uncertain too. Who is running? Robert King says he's definitely in the race and he'd appreciate your vote. (March 12, 1970) A Baxter man, Alfred Franklin Rodgers, has been wounded in the leg while serving on a U. S. Navy patrol boat on the Truong Giang River in South Vietnam, according to military reports. He’s been in Vietnam for the last two months. *Meanwhile, in Cambodia, that nations parliament has ousted leader Prince Norodom Sihanouk in the wake of violent riots in protest of the presence of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops in that country. They are using Cambodia as a staging area to attack U. S. forces in Vietnam. Sihanouk has adopted a neutral stance towards all sides in the Vietnam War. (March 31, 1970) The city council has signed a contract with the Service Construction Co. of Nashville this week to build a $1.5 million water treatment plant and water intake structure at Mine Lick Creek on Center Hill Lake. Work is expected to get under way early this summer and officials say the new plant will be ready to send water 15 miles to Cookeville by the fall of 1971. (April 13, 1970) The newspaper surveyed the condition of school libraries here this week. It found a few problems. The high school here needs 2,590 more books to meet state standards and the Jere Whitson library sits over the school boiler room. It's always too hot there, said principal Lecil Boatman. And the school shares its librarian with Sycamore. She's only in either school 2 1/2 days a week, so kids in those schools can't check out books except on those days. The school board is presently mulling over ways to improve libraries here. *Meanwhile, the astronauts aboard Apollo 13 are having a few problems of their own today. Big ones. Something caused a violent rupture in the fuel lines to their engine, and their ship •• sailing from the Earth towards the moon •• has been left virtually crippled. Early today they fired the smaller engine aboard the lunar module that was supposed to have taken astronauts James Lovell and Fred Haines from a position in lunar orbit on down to the moon. Instead, they've used it to adjust their course so they won't miss the moon altogether and sail on into the void. Now, they're conserving food and water and are hoping that they'll be snared by the moon's gravity. Then, they hope to circle the moon once and use the pull of its gravity to 'slingshot' them on their way back towards the distant Earth. They're a long way from home. Mankind is watching. (May 1, 1970) Election results from this week’s Democratic Primary: Incumbent Ben Austin won the nomination for road supervisor, incumbent Charlie Vaughn won the nomination for circuit court clerk, and Jimmy Little has won his first term on the Putnam School Board. Billy G. Smith was the top vote•getter with 4,521 voters backing him for election as sheriff. Right behind him was Jim Horn in his bid for return to the county court clerk’s office.