Some memorable front-page headlines

Friday, November 22, 1963

The day U.S.President John F. Kennedy was killed. For the first time in most people's memories, The Record's biggest type was used on Page 1. It was wooden type, each letter and period a separate block of hardwood. The paper had already been made up and gone to press, just around noontime. When news of the shooting was flashed on the news service teletype, the press was stopped, and a new front page hurriedly made up. Then the regular run was finished. After that, an "extra" edition was printed and distributed for city area newstands, the only "extra" in my experience with the newspaper.

Tuesday, February 20, 1962

American astronaut John Glenn, Jr., the West's first man in orbit, successfully completed three trips around the world. In Sherbrooke's East Ward, 3,000 TV viewers missed the blastoff when a telephone linesman got his wires mixed up and accidentally cut their cable TV service just seconds before liftoff.

Friday, July 12, 1957

The huge fire was in the tiny farming community of St. Malo d'Auckland, about 30 miles south of Sherbrooke near the Vermont border. It destroyed the main business building which housed the town's restaurant, general store and merchandise warehouse. Also lost were a residence, a barn and a poultry shed. It could have been much worse if it hadn't been for 20 volunteer firefighters from Beecher Falls, Vermont. who were the first on the scene, and kept flames from spreading to the bank building and three other homes. They were joined by firemen and equipment from Sherbrooke, Sawyerville and nearby St. Isidore d'Auckland. No one was injured.

Friday, January 27, 1956

An argument eruped in the newspapers among the Eastern Townships, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York state about whose maple syrup was the best. And there were allegations American syrup was routinely watered down with superior Canadian imports. New York's Gov. Averell Harriman then issued an invitation for a Canadian entry in the annual New York State Maple Sugar festival in April to see whose syrup was the lightest and the sweetest. So The Record sponsored farmer Otis Fowler from nearby Kingsbury to do battle with the Yanks. Fowler was the reigning Canadian Maple Sugar King, and many-time former Syrup King. Did he win in New York? Well, I had left The Record by then for a year's overseas study, and never did find out until August, 2003. That's when I heard from the paper's editor in 1956, George MacFarlane. He e-mailed me from Cowichan Bay, B.C.: "The New York entry was declared the winner to the outrage of the Record, and I recall that Vermont was mighty upset too."

Saturday, December 31, 1955

Predictions for rosy economic times in the Eastern Townships coincided with similar predictions nationally. In the Sherbrooke area, construction was already at its highest level in many years, and was expected to go higher in 1956. A winter construction campaign was helping to keep the prosperity of the 1950s going. Sherbrooke's work force was about 29,000, with 2,500 seeking jobs, a figure expected to go down in 1956.