60 years ago

july 7, 1966

Peabody’s annual July 4 celebration was a successful one, drawing large crowds for all of the several events planned during the two-day celebration. The largest, of course, was the evening fireworks display, when thousands thronged the spacious City Park for the showy event.

No wonder the Red Cross swimming program is so popular at Marion Municipal Pool. Pictured on the front page are pretty instructors Kaye Applegate, Linda Bauman, Tammy Case, Bev Elling, Barbara Hunt, Helen Jackson, Mary Konarik, Judy Pankratz, Roma Roebke, Jackie Thomas, and Susan Yeagley. Two not present for the picture are Janice Jantz and Linda Oldham.

From all indications this week it appears that LaVonda Hett, Marion High graduate of this spring, is being groomed and prepared for a place among the top fashion models in the nation’s fashion center, New York.

LaVonda, who was given the modeling name “Marni Pearce,” is employed by Plaza Five Agency in midtown Manhattan.

Rose Marie Loveless, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry F. Loveless of Marion, is shown being sworn into the Navy’s Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.

About a dozen men made up a threshing crew on the Virgil Litke farm, west and south of Aulne.

Litke is a collector of antique farm equipment, which was used to thresh 35 acres of oats he had previously cut and shocked.

The thresher used was a pre-World War I galvanized Case separator, and the tractor was a 1916 Huber, made in Marion, Ohio, rated at 35 horsepower on the drawbar and 70 horsepower on the pulley.

The men who were pitching bundles to the separator in 100 degree heat said the novelty was fun for a little while, but they’d not trade it for modern conveniences of today.