A diverse set of headlines hit the press on this date, from a teenager seeking to annul her marriage to a nighttime highway robbery. In more positive news, the highway patrol believes speed limits imposed in 1973 to conserve fuel might reduce traffic fatalities on rural roads.
__Jan. 5, 1924__
• A young woman is filing to end her teen marriage. Vivian Harding, age 18, was 15 years old when she married John William Harding, then 17, in Dallas, Texas. The couple separated after a year. John Harding is now 20 and lives in California, while Vivian Harding joined her grandmother in Butler County.
Vivian Harding seeks an annulment rather than a divorce on the grounds that, as minors, neither party was “in law capable of entering into legal and binding contract.” Since she is still considered a minor (the age of majority being 21 until 1971), Vivian Harding’s grandmother Elizabeth Jones filed the petition on her behalf.
__Jan. 5, 1949__
• A highway robbery occurred south of Poplar Bluff on Jan. 4. Insurance salesman Jewel Queffenne was reportedly driving on Highway 53 last night when a maroon car ran him off the road and two masked man held him at gunpoint. The pair stole $182.
The only description Queffenne could give highway patrolmen was that one man was tall and slender, the other short and stocky. A car matching their vehicle’s description was unsuccessfully chased by police in Caruthersville on Jan. 3 for unknown reasons.
__Jan. 5, 1974__
• The Daily American Republic announces the first baby of 1974 born in its readership area is Wilburn Lee Baucom Jr. He was born six minutes after midnight on New Year’s Day at Doctors Hospital, weighing exactly 8 eight pounds. His parents are residents of Doniphan. Wilburn Jr. reacted to the media attention with an unimpressed yawn.
• Lower speed limits necessitated by the country’s ongoing fuel shortage could save lives in rural Missouri, according to Missouri State Highway Patrol Superintendent Sam Smith. Smith told the Senate Appropriations Committee the new 55 mph speed limits recently signed into federal law might reduce traffic fatalities by 20% — or, save 250 lives annually.
• Tom Cash is elected president of the Greater Poplar Bluff Area Chamber of Commerce. He is a previous chamber chairman and works as the employment supervisor for Poplar Bluff’s Missouri Division of Employment Security office.
• Circuit Judge Rex Henson appointed Clinton Summers as acting prosecuting attorney for Butler County, even though Summers resigned effective Dec. 31, 1973, since the governor has yet to appoint his replacement. Summers and Sheriff Clyde Hendrix are working to contact Gov. Christopher “Kit” Bond and rectify the situation.