May 30

By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion

100 Years ago – 1924

The Martinsville Garden Club hosted delegates to the State Convention of Garden Clubs which otherwise was meeting that week in Danville. Mrs. Sam Hairston of Oak Hill gave a luncheon followed by an afternoon tea at the Fieldale Club House, hosted by Mrs. Pitcher of Leaksville, N.C. Next, a reception for about 100 visitors was hosted by local Garden Club president Mrs. J.D. Glenn. Plans were made to travel by motor car, unless the weather was bad, in which case a special car would be chartered over the Danville & Western Railway.

County women were having a big rally at the Preston school building to boost home demonstration work in the county and complete plans for the “Better Kitchen” contest. About 500 attended.

75 years ago – 1949

Bill Berkley was recuperating from a fractured left wrist. The injury occurred when he was attempting to slide into third base on a close play during the Martinsville-Axton baseball game at Brown street field. He was a member of the Axton team in the Bi-County league. He was treated at Martinsville General Hospital.

Doris Hermes won first place in both the open three-gaited class and the three-gaited amateur championship stake at the Troy, North Carolina, horse show. Her horse was Kalarama Fantasy. She also won second place in the five-gaited amateur championship stake with Colonial Comet.

1960

Jimmy Amburn became the first boy to be elected to the Varsity Cheerleading Squad at Martinsville High School. Along with Puddin’ Minter, Bonnie Cheshire, Lynda Goode, Linda Spencer and Carolyn Shockey, his tenure would begin in the fall. The cheerleading squad led the charge at pep rallies, ball games and tournaments.

By popular demand, Drewry Mason High School’s Touchdown Club staged a repeat performance of their Womanless Wedding, which was first presented April 23, with the entire original cast.

50 years ago – 1974

Eight hundred and eighty seniors were getting ready to be graduated from high school June 6-7. The five Henry County high schools were Bassett, Fieldale-Collinsville, Drewry Mason, George Washington Carver and Laurel Park. There also was Martinsville High School, with 271 seniors, and Carlisle School, with its first graduating class, of 27 students.

— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.