Editor’s note: This is a weekly column dedicated to local and national history. It will appear in the newspaper every Tuesday.

 

Local history

May 7, 1969: Residents of school District 241 approved construction of a vocational-technical school with 79% in favor. Charles Lee, president of Local 6, UPWA said, “I am very pleased with the result. Organized labor has felt that this is something that the community has needed for a long time.”

May 7, 1969: A portrait of Dr. F.W. Calhoun was presented to Naeve Hospital by P.J. Nee, president of Naeve Hospital Auxiliary. Calhoun worked as a general practitioner in Albert Lea for 62 years, delivering 5,000 babies in that time.

May 6, 1979: Gov. Al Quie proclaimed May 6-12 “Title I Awareness Week” in Minnesota. In 1979, six elementary schools in Albert Lea received federal Title I funds to employ supplemental aides for those students who needed special help.

May 7, 1989: The top nurses were named at Naeve Hospital. Lexie Light was named R.N. of the Year, and Denise Benson was named L.P.N. of the Year at a special Nurses’ Tea in the hospital dining room.

May 12, 1989: Sixth grade students at Brookside School presented a quilt to teacher Mary Schiemenn. The quilt was described as a labor of love by the class, each student designing and sewing a block in the patchwork textile. 

 

U.S. history

1789: America’s first inaugural ball was in New York in honor of President George Washington, who had taken the oath of office a week earlier.

1939: Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.

1975: President Gerald R. Ford formally declared an end to the “Vietnam era.” In Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon — the Viet Cong celebrated its takeover.

1984: A $180 million out-of-court settlement was announced in the Agent Orange class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans who said they’d been injured by exposure to the defoliant.

2004: Army Pfc. Lynndie England, shown in photographs smiling and pointing at naked Iraqi prisoners, was charged by the military with assaulting the detainees and conspiring to mistreat them.

2009: Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz,” died in Crestwood, Missouri, at 89.

2018: First lady Melania Trump unveiled what she called the “Be Best” public awareness campaign to help children, focusing on childhood well-being, social media use and opioid abuse.

 

— Information from Albert Lea Tribune archives and the Associated Press.