From The Examiner during the week of April 3-8, 1972:

“WOMEN CLEAN THE DIRTY DITCH” – Five furious mothers from the 300 block of Norwood were busy Thursday morning cleaning up a drainage ditch in the area which they say has deteriorated to the point of breeding rats, germs and disease.

Ms Craig Trowbridge, who initiated the cleanup, said she called the city’s health department last week but no attempt was made to inspect the ditch.

“The city never attempted to clean it up,” Ms Trowbridge said as she lifted a shovel full of branches, mud and leaves from the ditch. “The biggest cooperation I could get was from the park department. They said if we cleaned it up, they would take the trash away.

The women began their project around 9 a.m., and an hour later, water that had been stagnant for several months began to flow through the ditch.

“WASTE FOR ALL IS FREE HERE” – Independence Area Trash Haulers, with the cooperation and assistance of the city, will be offering a free pickup service next week to help residents with their spring cleanings.

“Free spring cleaning makes the city cleaner,” said Gerald Shields, president of the Jackson County Trash Haulers Association.

“RANDALL PROMOTES A MORATORIUM ON THE SCHOOL BUS” – Washington – Representative William J. Randall of Independence endorsed President Nixon’s moratorium on new school transportation to achieve racial balance and pledged to support a constitutional amendment to permanently end all forced transportation .

“The bus has never been and never will be a magic panacea,” Randall said in a recent interview. “It only serves to lower the overall quality of education.”

From The Independence Examiner for the week of April 3-8, 1922:

“MEETING OF COUNTY WOOL PRODUCERS” – The Jackson County Wool Growers Association held its annual meeting and election of officers in Blue Springs on Saturday. The association includes 150 farmers who own 8,000 head of sheep in Jackson County.

“TO A MODERN DREAMY FACTORY” – The Slaughter Dairy Company, 211 N. Main street, has just installed complete new equipment for the manufacture of high-end dairy butter. The factory now has a capacity of 1,800 pounds per day and delivers a large quantity of its fine butter to the people of Independence. It is the only creamery in Independence to make creamery butter.

“GENERAL NEWS RAW” – Boredom of rail travel can now be relieved by passengers listening to radio concerts from distant towns as the train speeds along the tracks. An experiment of this nature was attempted yesterday on a Delaware, Lackawanna & Western train to New York, and is said to have been quite satisfactory. Passengers were treated to a concert by Cornell University as they departed Ithaca, and another by Schenectady’s General Electric Company between Ithaca and Oswego.

“THE POSSIBILITIES OF RADIO” – Soon, it may be possible to order the week’s supply of groceries at the convenience store by radio. Or, better yet, maybe next summer you can get baseball scores, game by game, while working hard at your desk with a radio receiver in your ear.

Radio upgrades that could make such things a reality were discussed last night by local Westinghouse distributor KC Tallant, who explained some of the newer upgrades designed to make radio work easier for small amateur units.

“One of the most recent improvements has been a storage battery that will power radio equipment,” he said. “It is a collection of small cells designed solely for radio work and is now operating successfully at many stations in all parts of the country.”

— Compiled by Jeff Fox