Twenty years ago — 1999

Honors were accorded recently to two Stockton Highway Department employees for the years they spent keeping the roads in top working order. Robert “Deputy Dog” Kawski spent 30 years as a town highway employee. Dick Crandall completed a 22-year career with the highway department. His fellow workers called him “Supertrucker” because he always drove the 10-wheeler truck. Both were presented with plaques thanking them for their service. The plaques also contained clocks, but no alarm.

Thirty years ago — 1989

Rocco Lombardo’s martial arts students recently threw a small party in honor of the classmate they call “Bionic Mike.” There were smiles, handshakes, best wishes and even a cake for Mike Mathews of Dunkirk. The teenager underwent heart surgery April 19 at Millard Fillmore Hospital during which an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator was inserted. The mechanism, which is powered by a battery pack inside the boy’s chest cavity, is designed to automatically shock the heart if it ever stops again. Mike went into cardiac arrest April 5 while running laps at the Salvation Army gym.

Forty years ago — 1979

Sixteen-year-old pen pals Pauline Valone of Dunkirk and Ivy Hill of Guildford Surrey, England enjoyed a two-week visit at Mrs. Valone’s Bataan Avenue home. They began their correspondence through Letters Abroad. Both women read the same article in a magazine. Mrs. Hill is a furrier, a trade she learned 40 years ago as an apprentice in London. She and her husband are enjoying their first trip to America.

Fifty years ago — 1969

Joseph Militello, mayor of Farnham, was the guest speaker at a recent meeting of the Silver Creek Kiwanis Club. The 24-year-old mayor, the youngest mayor in the state of New York, is a teacher at Lake Shore Central School in Angola. Mayor Militello is a graduate of Silver Creek High School and Buffalo State University. The topic of his talk was “Teacher Image.”