Step back in time features news items from The Daily Star 25 and 50 years ago.
25 years ago
Aug. 17, 1987
Area schools are violating tradition this year and choosing different dates to open school for teachers and students.
In an unusual departure from past practice, the Oneonta city school system is opening the week before Labor Day, on Wednesday, Sept. 2. School officials decided an earlier opening would allow an earlier Christmas holiday.
Other schools are going for half-day sessions Sept. 8, with the first full day Sept. 9. Still other schools are calling teachers back Sept. 8 but are not calling the kids back until Sept. 9.
The main reason the first day of school varies by school this year is the lateness of Labor Day, which is Sept. 7.
The holiday is just late enough that some schools have had to set tight schedules to make their calendars work this year.
"This is the first time that I can recall that Labor Day has been this late," said Richard Molatch, superintendant at Unatego Central School.
Both Laurens Central and Walton Central are sticking with tradition. The first full day of school is Sept. 9, with staff conferences the day before.
50 years ago
Aug. 17, 1962
COOPERSTOWN _ Otsego County Judge Frederick W. Loomis, attorney for the Otsego Electric Cooperative, Inc. since its formation, said that he might have to relinquish the position.
Speaking to a group of members and their families at Cooperstown High School for the 18th annual meeting of the cooperative, Judge Loomis said:
"You all have probably read in the papers that, in connection with the new law, I have a decision to make whether I will practice law or be a judge. So it might just be that this is the last meeting at which I will act in my official capacity as your attorney ... but it might not be," he said.
"If I should leave the cooperative, it will be in the capable hands of Richard Johnson." (Richard Johnson is presently Judge Loomis' associate in Loomis and Johnson law firm in Edmeston.)
Judge Loomis was invited in 1941, when a young lawyer, to serve as attorney of a group to provide electric power for farmers.
He said that most of the original signers of the certificate of incorporation are still serving the cooperative of the board of directors.
