45 years ago

april 11, 1979

Marion was the starting and stopping point for a two-day Pride motor coach tour that took 36 interested people to the southeast corner of Kansas over Saturday and Sunday.

The tour started with coffee and rolls at Owl Car Café. It also included a slide presentation of improvements in Marion and a tour of various local sites before moving on to other locations.

Kathy Silhan is the Marion County Record rural news correspondent introduced this week by staff writer Pam Vinduska. Kathy is the youngest and newest member of the newspaper’s weekly rural news providers.

Ernest Meierhoff is pictured holding a wing strut from an ill-fated Fokker tri-motor plane that carried Knute Rockne and seven other men to their deaths in a crash Aug. 31, 1931, near Bazaar. Meierhoff, who lived near Clements at the time, is owner of the strut.

Janet Hett of Peabody won the Florence Women’s Christian Temperance Union’s junior high essay contest. Theme of the contest was “What’s Wrong with Tobacco — Its Use and Effects.” Rochelle Mueller placed second, and Marty Kroupa was third.