Mays past, 50 years ago.

From the LaGrange Daily News, 1966.

Front Page News

Troup County Has Tremendous Tourism Possibilities — Troup County possesses a tremendous potential from the tourism business, according to Dr. William Keeling, head of the Business and Economics Research Department of the University of Georgia.

Meeting with citizens from West Point, Hogansville and LaGrange in LaGrange Thursday at the Troup Electric Membership Cooperative, Dr. Keeling questioned local citizens about hunting and fishing facilities, special sporting events, topography and places of historical importance.

In this survey, one of seven being held in the Chattahoochee-Flint area under a contract with the Area Planning Commission, Dr. Keeling said they have found that Troup County “has a lot of potential … especially in terms of the old historical homes, future possibilities from the West Point Dam reservoir and from the completion of Interstate I-85.”

He added that there is enough going on now in this county to develop schedules of local events.

Local Police Honored For Decrease — LaGrange’s Police Department has received the National Police Crime Analysis Award for a 13 percent decrease in crime during 1965.

This national recognition was presented by the National Police Officers Association of America to Mayor Gardner Newman and Police Chief T.E. McClung.

Local Jaycees Win Awards — Several LaGrange Jaycees and Tully Dawson, their 1965-66 president, returned home Sunday with two award plaques they received at the annual Georgia Jaycee convention at Jekyll Island.

One was inscribed, “to the most outstanding Jaycee Club in the state during 1965-66,” and the other read “to the outstanding local president in the Georgia Jaycees.”

The LaGrange club was the only club in Georgia in their population division — 25,000 to 50,000 — to win both awards.

In addition the local Jaycees won five first-place awards — more than any other division III clubs — in activity area competition.

LaGrange also won a second place award. There are 12 areas of project activity.

Troup Team Wins State Contest — The Troup High School team of Jerry Bailey and Wayne Williamson won the Fourth Annual Plymouth Trouble Shooting Contest in Atlanta by finding and fixing 16 mechanical malfunctions beneath the hood of a car.

The purpose of the contest program is to bring recognition to outstanding young auto mechanics students and encourage them to make a career as automobile technicians.

The boys won for their school a handsome trophy and individual prizes. They will go to Detroit in June to compete in the National Plymouth Trouble Shooting Contest finals. There they will have a chance at $16,700 in scholarship awards.

Girl Scouts Cleaning A Forgotten Cemetery — Girl Scout Cadet Troop 242 of LaGrange wanted to do a service project that would give them pleasure while benefiting others. They chose to clean up a forgotten cemetery, the old Confederate Cemetery, legally named the Stonewall Cemetery.

Situated amid railroad tracks, gas storage tanks and a mill lies one of LaGrange’s most interesting and unknown historical sites that has some 300 graves. The markers list fallen soldiers from Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana as well as Georgia. They include markers for a Kentucky colonel, an Alabama major and a 19-year-old private from western Tennessee.

The girls are cleaning each of the stones and are giving up their afternoons to work on the project.

LaGrange Girl Receives Award — Julia Taylor, now serving as chaplain of the senior Tri-Hi-Y at LaGrange High School has been elected as the Most Outstanding Tri-Hi-Y Member in the Central-west District. This announcement was made at the Christian Life Conference, held at Rock Eagle, when the trophy was presented to Julia.

This honor was given to Julia on the basis of her Christian leadership in club activities, on the school campus, in the church and her Christian influence on fellow students.

Donna Johns Receives Nursing Scholarship — Donna Johns, a LaGrange High School senior, has been granted a Walter Reed Institute of Nursing Scholarship sponsored by the United States Army. Participants were based on grades, integrity, leadership ability and extracurricular activities.

Donna will attend Mercer University for two years and will then transfer to the University of Maryland, where she will study at Walter Reed Hospital Institute of Nursing, one of the best in the country. Upon her graduation, she will enter the U.S. Army Nurses Corps as a second lieutenant and will serve there for three years. She will be a member of the United States Army Reserve.