Forum Flashbacks: Aug. 3

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50 YEARS AGO: Veach Gives Hula Hoop How-To - When some of the contestants at Friday’s hula hoop contest, sponsored by the parks and recreation department, breezed through the preliminaries but had trouble with the last event — keeping a selected number of hoops going for 15 seconds — Ron Veach, recreation director, decided to demonstrate how it was done. Much to his dismay, however, Veach (right) discovered it was a little harder than it looked. In fact, while Karen Wilson (left) kept her hoops going for several seconds Veach hardly gave the photographer time to snap a picture before the hoops were embarrassingly falling about his ankles. Cindy Cox and Kip Hardesty won the hula-hoop contest for girls and boys respectively, while Terri Schenkel and Rexal Wallace won the frisbee contest, which immediately followed. All the winners are 11-years-old.

15 years agoA new car dealership will be opening in Maryville this month, offering sales and auto repair as well as another reason for area residents to shop locally as well as possibly draw outsiders into the city.

Tri-State Ford-Lincoln-Mercury will open its doors Monday, Aug. 11 at 2017 S. Main St. in Maryville — the same location as the former Northwest Ford dealership.

Todd Hill, owner of the dealership, said his business will bring 15 new jobs initially to the area to sell both new and used vehicles, automotive repair and, if all goes well, additional sales tax revenue to the city.

50 years ago*EDITOR’S NOTE: Like all Forum Flashbacks, the article below has only been edited for length, not for content, and so includes the gruesome details of a murder as they appeared in 1973 that are disturbing to read.

Area law authorities were conducting an intensive investigation today following Saturday’s slaying of a Northwest State University coed, Miss Teresa Sue “Tess” Hilt, 22, Chillicothe.

Miss Hilt’s nude body was discovered at 5:04 p.m. Saturday by Edward L. Happel, a friend of the murdered girl. According to authorities, the girl was lying face down in her bed, her body covered with blankets. Miss Hilt lived in Apartment 27, College Gardens.

Investigation indicated “slight evidence of a struggle,” authorities said. A woman’s stocking was tied around the neck of the girl.

An autopsy Sunday revealed death was caused by stab wounds near the area of her heart. The autopsy report showed two stab wounds to the chest, three stab wounds to the left lung, five to the left arm and numerous knife injuries to the uterus, inflicted through the vagina.

Strangulation with the stocking, which authorities first thought was the cause of death, occurred after death, the autopsy report showed. Other damage to the body were torn neck muscles, a black left eye, and bruises to the left cheek and upper arms.

It had been hoped the autopsy, conducted in St. Joseph, would reveal whether the woman had been sexually molested. However, tests proved inconclusive on possible sexual intercourse. There were no signs of pregnancy.

The murder weapon, a knife, has been recovered, authorities said, and is in the custody of law officers. It was found in the girl’s right hand, which was bent behind her back.

Miss Hilt, a blonde, petite music major who was to begin graduate school this fall at MSU, was last seen alive at about 1 a.m. Saturday by several persons near College Gardens. …

Miss Hilt, apparently an extremely popular student, was born on Jan. 6, 1951, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley R. Hilt, Chillicothe.

She was a 1969 graduate of Chillicothe High School, and in May, 1973, received her BS in Ed. Degree in music. She had enrolled this summer in both graduate and undergraduate courses and had planned to receive her MSU Education in guidance and counseling.

During her undergraduate work at MSU, she had served on the Union Board and the Tower staff. She was a vocalist and had been a member of the cast of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” last year.

100 years ago

PRESIDENT HARDING DIES SUDDENLY OF APOPLEXY

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President Harding died at 7:20 o’clock last night. Mrs. Harding and two nurses were the only ones in the room at the time. It is officially recorded that the President died of cerebral apoplexy — something snapped in his brain. …

San Francisco, Aug. 3 — While a great nation bowed reverently today the body of Warren Gamaliel Harding, 29th President of the United States, reposed simply upon the topmost floor of a great hotel, 3,000 miles from the Capital.

The President died quietly and without warning at 7:20 o’clock, only a few hours after the physicians, who had hovered over him for the past few days, had issued the most favorable news yet on his illness.

About the same hour tonight at 7:30 o’clock a funeral train from this far-western city will start a funeral procession across the continent, such as the nation has never before witnessed. The funeral train will bear the body of the President of the United States across 3,000 miles of deserts, plains and mountains.

The immediate cause of the President’s shocking death was officially announced today to be cerebral apoplexy, the rupture of a blood vessel in the axis of the brain near the respiratory center.

CALVIN COOLIDGE MADE PRESIDENT AT 2:47 A. M.

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Vice-President Calvin Coolidge became President of the United States at 2:47 o’clock this morning.

Shortly after 11 o’clock last night Attorney-General Daugherty wired Coolidge, suggesting that he take the oath of office at once.

The oath was administered by the new President’s father, John Coolidge in a lamp-lighted room in Plymouth Vermont.

President Coolidge will leave New York at 5:45 o’clock tonight for Washington.

Upon his arrival the oath of office will be formally administered by Chief Justice Taft of the Supreme Court.

Plymouth Vermont, Aug. 3 — At 2:47 o’clock this morning, eastern standard time, Calvin Coolidge became President of the United States in a dimly lamp lighted room in the old Coolidge homestead midst the Vermont hills and in the presence of only a few witnesses.

The oath was administered by John Coolidge, the new President’s father, the elder Coolidge being a notary public, which qualified him as an official in this momentous ceremony. The proper form of oath was not at hand and an urgent telegram was sent to Washington to obtain it.

With no other visible form of emotion save the paleness of his countenance, Coolidge stood behind a little table with his right hand upraised as his aged father read the oath.

*EDITOR’S NOTE: The 50-year and 100-year flashbacks are courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, viewable at shsmo.newspapers.com. The original 50-year article ran in the Aug. 6, 1973, issue of The Maryville Daily Forum and the photo in the Aug. 4 issue. The original 100-year article ran in the Aug. 3, 1923, issue of the Maryville Daily Democrat-Forum, which later would become The Maryville Forum.

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