How Time Flies for June 19, 2008:

100 years ago

June 19, 1908: Republicans have nominated William Howard Taft of Ohio for President at the convention in Chicago. A Pantagraph correspondent wrote a long story of his observations there, signing only as J.L.H. (Possibly Jacob L. Hasbrouck?)

75 years ago

June 19, 1933: Three of the robbers in the Cullom bank holdup of June 3 were arrested after a shootout with police in Lafayette, Indiana. Three officers were wounded, one fatally. One bandit was shot by a bystander who grabbed his submachine gun.

50 years ago

June 19, 1958: Two guys went to rob Stein's Shell Station on US 66 across from the GE plant. Two soldiers drove up in a car and scared them off. They got as far as Chenoa before sheriff's police arrested them. One suspect was from Chicago, the other from Morgan Park.

25 years ago

June 19, 1983: Former Bloomington mayor Walter Bittner is retiring as vice president of the National Bank of Bloomington (now part of National City). He began at the bank in 1955 and in local politics in 1953. He's a 1936 graduate of BHS. (An east side park now bears his name.)