100 years ago, 1917
The Anti-Narcotic department of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union of Auburn is to offer two prizes of $5 each, one to a boy and the other to a girl, for the best composition on the subject, “Injurious Effects of Tobacco on the Human System.” The composition must not exceed 400 words in length and competitors will have four weeks in which to complete their work. All seventh grade pupils of Auburn are entitled to enter.

50 years ago, 1967
The chief of the Boston bureau of the Associated Press told members of the Auburn-Lewiston Kiwanis Club today he believes that the “public is down on the news media without reason.” Speaking at a noon luncheon at the Auburn YMCA, Jack Simms said it was his opinion that the press “is doing the best possible job in light of the complex problems with which it is faced. “The news media has been made into a whipping boy by governmental organizations and by a few individuals and firms that think it’s to their advantage to downgrade the press,” he said. Simms told his audience that the aim of the news media is to keep the public informed and he estimated that more than $1 million was spent on news coverage of the last Gemini space mission alone.

25 years ago, 1992
The Franklin Pasture master plan document finds support for its proposal in the words of a famous Lewiston-born artist’s poetry. The document quotes from Marsden Hartley’s “Lewiston is a Pleasant Place:” “I go back to the Franklin Pasture which for us children was the Asia and Africa of our first impressions.” The long-term plan, scheduled for presentation to the City Council Tuesday, calls for extending and renovating recreation space in the pasture and giving the area a firmer identity as a community asset. “Over 100 years ago, Mr. Hartley knew Franklin Pasture as a place for adventure and exploration,” the plan reads. “Under the recommendations of the Franklin Pasture Master Plan, the opportunity for adventure and exploration will exist at Franklin Pasture in perpetuity.”

The material in Looking Back is reproduced exactly as it originally appeared, although misspellings and errors made at that time may be edited.