100 years ago

March 31, 1925

The Arkansas Real Estate Association was organized yesterday with 53 charter members, representing the real estate business in nearly 20 towns across the state. L. C. Holman, president of the Little Rock Real Estate Board, was elected president of the new organization. R. T. Little of Fort Smith and O. L. Bodenhamer of El Dorado were chosen first and second vice presidents and J. E Rutherford of The Real Estate Department of the Union Trust Company, Little Rock was elected secondary treasurer.

50 years ago

March 31, 1975

HOT SPRINGS — Municipal Court Judge Earl Mazander sentenced three, self-described National Socialists (Nazis), to a year in jail and a $500 fine on misdermeanor charges of unlawful assembly at the Congregation House of Israel on March 9. Mazander gave the maximum sentence for the misdermeanor charges after he found the three guilty of unlawfully disturbing a religions meeting at the synagouge by purposely “inciting passions and emotions and expressing hate and bias” toward members of the synagouge. … Police arrested the three for picketing the synagouge and carrying signs emblazoned with the swastika, the Nazi insigna.

25 years ago

March 31, 2000

FAYETTEVILLE — Landing a new retail shopping center in north Fayetteville is more important than preserving a grove of oak trees, Mayor Fred Hanna said Thursday. His opinion puts him at odds with his own landscape administrator, Kim Hesse. Hesse has said cutting down the century-old trees at the proposed Steele Crossing would violate Fayetteville’s Tree Protection and Preservation Ordinance. The Planning Commission turned down the shopping center proposal on Hesse’s advice, but the developers have said they’ll probably appeal the decision to the Fayetteville City Council. “I’d hate to lose the opportunity to have the business in Fayetteville,” Hanna said Thursday. He said he thought the city should allow the developers to cut down the trees and replace them with new ones in another spot.

10 years ago

March 31, 2015

FORT SMITH — A Utah man was sentenced in federal court Monday to more than five years in prison and was ordered to repay nearly $300,000 for high school band money, intended for a Hawaiian trip, that he gambled away in Las Vegas. Calliope Saaga, 40, made a tearful apology to the six Fort Smith Southside High School officials and parents who attended the sentencing before U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III. He expressed anguish at betraying people he worked with at the school, saying he considered them to be friends more than customers. “I will work until the day I die to pay this back,” he said, as members of his family, including his wife and four of his six children, watched from the audience. Holmes sentenced Saaga to five years and three months in prison and ordered him to pay $272,235.89 restitution to the 260 band members, parents and chaperones, who paid money for a “once-in-a-lifetime” trip to Hawaii in 2012.