BY BRENDA EDWARDS

100 YEARS AGO – 1921

• Representatives of Boyle Post 46, American Legion, expected to have a large delegation for a two-day meeting in Lexington when Emmett O’Neil, a Centre College graduate, was running for the officer of commander of the American Legion. O’Neil of Louisville was known as a war hero for his military service overseas. The event included a grand ball at the Lafayette Hotel.

• W.P. Givens has purchased half interest in the Danville Grocery Company and Danville Meat Market on Fourth Street. Givens and Charles Crow will operate the businesses.

• Claude D. Minor of Perryville was elected president of the Kentucky Bankers’ Association during the bankers convention at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville. He succeeds Charles Ellis of Sturgis. Minor is cashier of People’s Bank & Trust Company in Perryville.

75 YEARS AGO – 1946

• Kentucky State Hospital, which was acquired last winter from the federal government and is in operation on Shakertown Road in the buildings formerly occupied by Darnall General Hospital, will be dedicated by Governor Simeon Willis in September. It houses more than 600 men and women with mental illness from 32 counties.

• The commodities concrete building on the northwest corner of Chaplin River and Mackville streets, built by W.N. Casey for supermarket is nearing completion and will open soon.

• More than 500 hunting licenses have been sold this week in the office of John B. Nichols Jr., county clerk. This includes statewide tickets and those permitting hunting only in Boyle County. County licenses cost $1 each and the state license is $3. The licenses are good until the end of the year.

• E.G. Singler and Co. owners of Singler Tobacco Basket and Lumber Co., Junction City, has begun to manufacture concrete blocks. Equipment installed there at the present time is capable of turning out over 1,000 concrete blocks per day. All types of standard blocks are now available. The company employs 20 men.

50 YEARS AGO —1971

• Danville Attorney Pierce Lively has been named chairman of the Emberton-Host campaign in Boyle County, and Joyce Jackson of Danville has been named chairwoman, according to the Republican campaign headquarters in Louisville. Emberton is the nominee for governor and Host is the nominee for lieutenant governor. Lively is a trustee of Centre College, and past president of the Danville and Boyle Chamber of Commerce. Jackson is president of Ephraim McDowell Memorial Hospital Auxiliary and a member of he local library Board and Cancer Association.

• J. Sterling Towles, managing editor of the Advocate-Messenger, has retired from the newspaper. He was succeeded by Robert McNemar, who had been editor of The Kentucky Advocate Magazine. Towles  worked for Danville newspapers twice, going back to 1925 after graduating from the University of Kentucky. He bought half-interest in the old Danville Daily Messenger in1927, kept it a few years and sold it. Towles worked in real estate and represented Boyle County in the state Legislative session of 1932. He also worked for the War Department in Columbus, Ohio. He returned to the Advocate-Messenger in 1954 and worked for 17 years in the newsroom.

• A $685,500 building project is going on at South Central Bell Telephone Company facilities on south /fourth street. It will allow for growth and expansion of the telephone service. Toll and exchange Central office equipment costing $766,00 will be housed in the new facility on the third floor and an addition to the rear of the building. The original structure was erected in 1958, when the dial system went into service. Completion was expected at the end of the year.

• Plans are made for the Boyle and Lincoln County Feeder Calf Association’s future feeder calf sales at the Boyle County Stockyards. Three sale dates are in September and October.

25 YEARS AGO –1996

• An old U.S. Army practice hand grenade was found at the National City Bank construction site on fourth street. It was later destroyed at Caldwell Stone’s rock quarry off U.S. 150. No one was injured in the episode that lasted about six hours and caused 25 downtown apartment residents to be evacuated and a few streets to be closed. Owens Excavating was working at the site when they noticed the MK-2 grenade on one of the pillars holding up the floor in the basement of the old bank building.The pin was still intact. Local police along with state police and the U.S.Army’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal Team assisted. The Army team speculated the grenade was between 40 and 50 years old.

• Danville Montessori School celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday. The private school was started 25 year ago by Bill and Pat Critchfield. The school began with seven children and grew to 22 in 1976. Enrollment was up to 40 in 1977.

• The city-owned Angora Club opened to the public. It features aerobics classes,weight-lifting and racquetball. The club, purchased by the city in August, will be run by the Recreation Department. The swimming pool is closed for the season.