Eight young men were arrested early on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 16, 1962, following a crackdown on underage drinking. They were taken to the Lewis County Jail in Chehalis. Six of the males were arrested near Morton. 

“Four minors and two juveniles were apprehended three miles east of Morton at 12:10 a.m., Sunday. Four are in the county jail in lieu of $300 bails,” The Chronicle reported. 

The four men still being held in jail were William Lewis, 19, of Randle; James McDougall, 19, of Olympia; Richard Weatherby, 19, of Lacey; and Thomas Jackson, 18, of Eatonville. 

All of them were charged with illegal possession and consumption of liquor by minors, as well as “for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” 

Henry Meyer, 21, of Eatonville, was also arrested with the group and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. His bail was set at $200. 

Also in jail were two underage Kosmos boys. Larry Cole and Bobby Dobbs, both 17 years old, were being held in custody on Monday, Sept. 17, waiting to be remanded to Morton Justice Court. 

Also arrested was Dwight Gaskins, 19, of Puyallup. Gaskins was arrested on the night of Saturday, Sept. 15, for illegal possession of liquor. He was arrested at a Morton dance and remained in the county jail as of Monday, Sept. 17, in lieu of $100 bail. 

All eight individuals were waiting to appear in Morton Justice Court. 

The arrests were made by sheriff’s deputies and Morton Police Chief Ted Condiff. 

• A visit by New York Gov. and Democratic Presidential Nominee Franklin Roosevelt was announced on Saturday, Sept. 17, by Washington state Democratic Party Chair George Starr. Roosevelt was expected to arrive in Seattle on Tuesday, Sept. 20. The governor was to take a car to his hotel after arriving, “after which the forenoon will be devoted to conferences with party leaders,” The Chronicle reported. Roosevelt was then scheduled to visit the Puyallup Fair and Tacoma before returning to Seattle later Tuesday evening. Roosevelt was then expected to leave at midnight for Portland, where he was expected to arrive at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

• Thomas Hockett passed away in his home on the night of Friday, Sept. 16. Hockett, who was born in the late 1860s, was 64 years old when he died. He left behind a wife, Lurana Hockett; two daughters; two sons; a brother; and three sisters.

• Forde Phelps was appointed to the school board for consolidated district No. 214. The Mineral resident, who succeeded Carl Carlson following his resignation, was to serve until the annual school election in March of 1933.

• Fair, “somewhat cooler” weather was expected for Sunday, Sept. 18, with a projected high of 82 degrees and a low of 46. “Fair weather and normal temperature” were forecasted for the rest of the week. 

• Frank Martin, the Republican nominee for Lewis County Commissioner in the 1st District, ran an ad in The Chronicle thanking his supporters for their support in the primary election. In the ad, Martin said he wished “to thank his many friends for the loyal and friendly support given him, which gave him such an overwhelming majority in the primary election.”

• The Chronicle reported a new election had been scheduled for Nov. 6 in Germany. According to The Chronicle, the announcement came after German Chancellor Franz von Papen dissolved the Reichstag, the German parliament, on Sept. 12. The Nazi Party would win a plurality of the votes and seats in the Nov. election. 

• Members of Chehalis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church were scheduled to travel to Olympia on Sunday, Sept. 18 where the church’s pastor, Rev. J.C. Tourtellot, was to deliver the sermon at the Olympia Union Church. Those wishing to go to Olympia but who lacked the means to afford travel were asked to call Tourtellot. The Centralia Presbyterian Church was also planning to join the trip. 

• Five inmates at the Lewis County Jail were taken to the Walla Walla state penitentiary on Tuesday, Sept. 15. The five men were Joe Wendling, J.C. Steedley, Dewey Bise, John Gault and K.G. Luke.

• The Republican and Democratic precinct committee officers (PCOs) were set to gather at the Lewis County Courthouse on Saturday, Sept. 19 to form their central committees. The central committees were to then begin supervising the general election campaign. The PCOs were to meet separately in the courthouse at 2 p.m., as required under the law. 

• Two delegates were to attend the 44th annual Washington Good Roads Association convention in Bellingham on the night of Thursday, Sept. 17. The delegates were to take 10 gallons of strawberries for the convention banquet on the evening of Friday, Sept. 18 as well as letters from the Chehalis and Centralia mayors Louis Vimont and Ray Sprague inviting the association to hold their convention in the Twin Cities the following year. 

• An ad was placed in The Chronicle for selling two horses for $250. The horses were described as “1700 lbs., 6 and 7 years old.”

• A “small home” in Centralia was listed for $1,250. The listing described the house as having “two bedrooms, kitchen, living room, fine garden with lots of fruit and berries.”

• Two men were announced as having volunteered for military service during World War II. The men were Chester Edmonds of Winlock and Frank Wildhaber of Raymond. The two men had qualified for service as mechanics in the Army Air Force but were disqualified for unnamed “physical defects,” though local head of recruiting Sgt. Bertram Robison said they may soon be accepted anyways. According to The Chronicle’s story, all men who had been previously rejected from certain jobs in the military were being encouraged to apply for reconsideration. The Chronicle also wrote the age limit for the Army Air Force, the predecessor of the modern Air Force, had been extended to include men between the ages of 18 and 50. 

• An Associated Press story in The Chronicle announced “Russia’s armies yielded fresh ground at the bloody western gates of Stalingrad Wednesday.” German and Soviet sources gave conflicting reports, with German sources announcing German soldiers had reached into “the interior” of Stalingrad while Soviet sources said Russians were “holding firmly against an avalanche of battlestained Nazi veterans and reserves,” The Chronicle reported. Soviet forces would go on to win the Battle of Stalingrad after months of fighting in what is often considered the turning point in the conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union’s conflict in World War II. 

• After three boys ran away from the State Training School, now known as Green Hill School, on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 16, one of the boys returned after only two hours. The other two boys were believed to have stolen a car from Chehalis before abandoning the vehicle in Tumwater. At one point, police officer Leo Foy saw the stolen vehicle driving through Tenino and fired a shot into the air after the boys refused to stop. “Foy lowered his aim after the auto was out of town, and hit the 1948 coupe just above the gas tank, a hole showed when officers found the auto abandoned. ‘I thought they shot back,’ Foy explained, ‘Though I’m not sure. Anyway I slowed down to reload my gun, and my old car just wouldn’t pick up fast enough to catch them again,’” The Chronicle reported. It was reported a second car had been stolen from Tumwater sometime early on the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 17. 

• A week long event to support employment for the disabled was being planned for the week running from Oct. 5 to 11. “The gears have been meshed and the machine oiled for ‘National Employ The Physically Handicapped Week’  in Lewis County,” The Chronicle reported. The chair of the event was John Kneeland of Chehalis, a member of the Chehalis American Legion. “Kneeland is well suited for the chairman’s job, having a thorough knowledge of the handicapped, being confined to a wheelchair because of a back and leg injury, first received in the armed forces,” The Chronicle wrote. Among the other members of the board in charge of the event was Dexter Kerstetter, a Centralia native who earned the Medal of Honor while serving in World War II. 

• Lewis County Sheriff’s deputies assisted in the search for a crashed plane on the night of Tuesday, Sept. 16. The plane was being flown by a Civil Air Patrol pilot and contained one passenger. While the deputies and others involved in the search were unable to find the plane, the passengers, two Tacoma residents, reportedly walked out of the woods on the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 17 near Vail. Bob Gowen, the pilot, was reported as having a broken hand and superficial cuts and bruises while Claude Piccioni, the passenger, was reported as having a broken jaw and possible internal injuries. Both were being cared for at a medical station nearby. 

• Three Lewis County soldiers were among the over 5,000 landing at Seattle and San Francisco on Wednesday aboard ships from the “Far East.” The three men were Jack Trowbridge of Morton, David Ike of Winlock and Walter Gardner of Centralia. 

• Robert Johnson, 29, lost his left forearm on Tuesday, Sept. 16 after it became caught in a power saw in Longmire. Johnson was then taken to Morton for treatment at the hospital. Lewis County Sheriff Frany Thayer made an emergency trip from Chehalis to Morton later that day with blood for a transfusion. At the hospital, Johnson was given a blood transfusion and blood plasma. His condition was reported by The Chronicle as being “much improved.”

• Brush fires broke out in three spots in western Lewis County on the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 17, according to The Chronicle. One of the fires occurred near the Chehalis garbage dump, burning almost one-third of an acre before being extinguished. The two other fires were near Dryad and near Bunker Creek, though few details were provided on those two fires. At the time the Twin Cities had been covered with smoke, though the forestry office in Chehalis said the smoke was from a permitted fire near Tenino rather than the brush fires.

• Chester Rhodes, the Superintendent of the Chehalis School District, was reported as complaining to members of the Chehalis Chamber of Commerce about stores being open during the evening interfering with attendance at school events. “Speaking at a noon board meeting Tuesday, Rhodes said the keeping of late hours in the stores on Friday nights tends to reduce the attendance at sporting events, also held on Friday nights,” The Chronicle reported. The issue was referred to the Chamber’s retail trade committee for further study. 

• The Chronicle ran a story listing names of the Chehalis School District’s 118 kindergartners and 141 first graders for the start of the 1962-1963 school year. The students were listed by teacher. Among the classes were Hazel Fagerness’ morning kindergartners, who included Howard Burton, Ann Marie Eissinger, David Garner, Cheryl Florea, William Haunreiter, Judy Jorstad, Terry Karboski, Cindy Tibbits, Greg Lund, Shelley Riley, Kenneth Hardy, Cynthia Clark, Daniel Wildhaber, Cynthia Gottfryd, Kent Hojem, Mark Robinson, Steven Clark, Karen Ford, Julie McClees, Lynda Duffin, Berthadean Ramacher, Gregg Johnson, Steven Huntley, Michale Anderson, James Cole, Steven Rambo, Paul Mouchon, Darla Hamilton, Densise Fanning and Frederick Ming. In Lenora Henricksen’s afternoon kindergarten class were Kimberly Downing, Ilonka Nozsar, Judy Tauscher, Cynthia Pollman, Roy Williams, Jenny Mullowney, Anna Craig, Lori Hall, Lynne Pehl, Brian Shepherd, Robert Berryhill, James Vander Stoep, Lawrence Sexton, Jefrey Evans, Daniel Thompson, Terri Schwartz, Steven Quant, Joel Goff, Daniel Miller, John Estep, Deborah Lansing, Darling Fox, Ronald Gehrman, Lee Hoyt, Douglas Ballou, Gary Young, Donna Strickler, Vickie Stalker, William Butigan and Kenneth Ballard. For first grade, Mary Gillard’s class included Mark Giffey, Chris Swann, Kathy Huston, Patricia Reinke, William Literal, Melvin Riggles, Juilie Harr, Billie Mann, Steven Emrich, Jayne Buchholz, Sharon Hamilton, James Keevy, Wayne Fromel, Ronald Ahrens, Ralph Smith, Ginger Shirey, John Patterson, Vanessa Hittle, Jane Stiltner, Kim Broderick, Harvey Burnham, Richard Boone, Ronald Klickman, David Stearns, Benjamin Hodge, Susan Lomax, Catherine Cheyney and Joyce Pearson. In Helen Fetchner’s first grade class were Jon Zylstra, Debra Hubenthal, Ricky Huntley, Gary Rhodes, Neal Zopolos, Jill Harr, Nancy Hansen, Karen Wood, Daniel Dobyns, Tracy Spencer, Vickie Ames, Karen Maggs, Michael Maupin, Kirk Willis, Jeff Matthiesen, Joan Marie Knoll, Marie Curtis, Edward Bazinet, James Vann, Shannon Simpson, Cynthia Rasmussen, Kathy Hill, Phillip Smith, Devin Piper, Ruth Norman, Jeffrey McAllister, Allan Shively, Penny Barner and Toni Rivers. 

• A dispute regarding the relocation of a stretch of the White Pass Highway in eastern Lewis County would not be settled by federal authorities, The Chronicle reported. According to Centralia Mayor and president of the White Pass Highway Association Ray Davis, the Federal Power Commission had sent a letter declaring it had no authority on the matter. Davis declared he would take the unspecified relocation issue to the Legislature during their legislative session the upcoming winter. “This is too important to even think of defeat. … There’s still the state Legislature, and we’ll start work on that. The relocation of the White Pass Highway is wrong. It is not in the best interest of Southwest Washington and the advantages envisioned when it was established are being lost,” The Chronicle reported Davis as saying. 

• A news story was featured in The Chronicle announcing nine new astronauts for the U.S. space program. Among the nine was Neil Armstrong, a then 32 year old test pilot for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), who would become the first person to walk on the moon in 1969. The other eight newly announced astronauts were Elliot See Jr., Frank Borman, James McDivitt, Thomas Stafford, Edward White II, Charles Conrad, James Lovell Jr. and John Young. 

• Two Toledo High School students were announced as representatives of the Washington state Future Farmers of America (FFA) at the national FFA convention in Kansas City, Missouri on Oct. 10. The two, Leland Young and Karl Salzsieder, were to help judge poultry at the convention. 

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