Pages Past - Dec. 21

On this date ...

1976: Holiday specials at Kmart included:

• Nineteen-inch color TV sets for $344.

• AM pocket radios for $2.97.

• Presto Burger for $11.88.

1971: A Worley Mills tandem truck overturned atop a 10-foot pile of highway department gravel.

The accident occurred about 12 miles north of Clovis on SR18.

Officials said the brakes on the pup, or second trailer, apparently locked, sending the vehicle off the highway.

The driver, on his way to Tucumcari, suffered a back injury and was taken to Clovis’ Memorial Hospital for examination.

1956: A 5-year-old Floyd girl was unconscious in Clovis Memorial Hospital after she was accidentally shot in the head.

Nanette Baldridge was riding in the back of her grandfather’s pickup when a .22-caliber rifle in a gun rack discharged, officials said.

“The bullet ricocheted a time or two, then struck the little girl in the left temple and lodged in the right rear section of her skull,” the Clovis News-Journal reported.

Two days later, the newspaper reported she was conscious and her condition had improved after a neurosurgeon removed the bullet.

It was Nanette’s second serious accident of the year. In January, she fell into a grinder while her father was grinding feed. Doctors amputated her left arm above the elbow and amputated her right arm below the elbow following that incident.

Pages Past is compiled by Editor David Stevens. For more regional history, check out his weblog at:

http://www.highplainsyesterdays.com