August 2
100 Years ago – 1924
The Kiwanis Club meeting was a Bachelor’s Night, put “in the hands of merrymakers who put a lot of fun and pep” into it, the Henry Bulletin reported. After describing “the mock marriage of Henrietta Gradyana Moore to Charles Pajamas Smith Jr.,” it gave some verses, including, “I never before saw a he-male bride, and never hoped to see one; But, I tell you all right now, I’d rather see than be one.”
75 years ago – 1949
Henry County Agricultural Conservation Association Secretary J. Frank Wilson announced that about a dozen Henry county tobacco farmers were planning to destroy the tobacco crop they were growing that exceeded the government allotments. About 60 farmers had planted slightly more than their allotments had allowed. The penalty for overplanting varied with the excess acreage: If the overplanting amounted to 100%, the penalty was 20 cents per pound at market; a smaller penalty, but over the entire crop, was placed on less planting.
An estimated 900 people attended the final night of the Circle K rodeo performance at the Martinsville Speedway.
Oosey Isley shot 66 at Forest Park’s golf course, one of the lowest scores of that year. Other scores were Clarence Owen, 71; George Morris, 71; John Whittle, 75; John Yeaman, 75.
1960
When John Y. Yeaman of Knollwood Place reported having seen on Philpott reservoir a huge concentration of jellyfish about the size of 50-cent coins. He consulted with R.P. Gravely Jr. on that, and the entire Gravely family, including 7-year-old Bebe, gave interesting conversation on all sorts of topics. “I was amazed at the stored information and walking encyclopedia the Gravelys seemed to be,” Yeaman told the Martinsville Bulletin. Bob Martin of the State Game and Fish Commission in Richmond later explained that the jellyfish Yeaman had seen were a fairly rare fresh water variety that have been found in other lakes. Local sportsmen said that the jellyfish came in on amphibious planes the Navy had been landing on the lake in connection with an underwater sound-testing project.
Tommy Hall, a Martinsville Explorer Scout, had just returned from the National Jamboree in Colorado Springs. He reported that the Horsepasture uniform shoulder stripes were heavily sought after in the swap sessions, because people couldn’t believe there was a name like that.
The Rev. James H. Rodgers, 51, and his wife, Melvina Bryant Rodgers, 49, of 207 Wilson St., died in a car crash in Mayodan, N.C. The Rev. Rodgers was a Pentecostal evangelist. The couple had been on their way home from a Pentecostal Holiness Church camp meeting in Greensboro, N.C. Their daughter, Rachel Lou, who the week before had married Kenneth R. Slate, returned from their honeymoon at midnight that same night to learn that her parents had been killed.
50 years ago – 1974
The Henry County Board of Supervisors were being sued by two groups. The first was a suit by 11 residents and landowners who questioned the constitutionality of the county’s subdivision ordinance, which had been highly controversial. The second was by the Axton-Laurel Park Lions Club, who had requested a permit to operate bingo games but were denied.
25 years ago - 1999
Tuition at Patrick Henry Community College was reduced to $37.12 per credit hour from the previous $46.65.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.