Fifty years ago, in 1966, a look at the front page of the newspaper would have been a lot different from today. First of all, a copy of the Atmore Advance would have cost you 10 cents. That has certainly changed over 50 years.

We, at the newspaper, often have people to come in and want to look at back issues. Many times they are looking for obituaries, either for personal reasons or even genealogy reasons. Today the obits are located together so it is a lot easier to find them than it was 50 years ago. Back then, you had to carefully search the whole paper, because an obit could be anywhere.

I don’t know why, except for the reason that they put it where there was room. It was not as organized back then. I do a lot of genealogical work and love to look at back issues, not only for articles, but the obits as well. I guess not many people were doing this type of research as much back then as they do today. If you decide to come into the newspaper office one day to look up an obit, remember to look on each page of that issue, or you might just skip right over it.

During the early months of 1966, people were coming out of the woodwork announcing their candidacy for various offices. G.S. “Scotty” Byrne was the only person who qualified for the office of sheriff. Atmore Police Chief John W. Hammac resigned to accept an appointment as state deputy fire marshal.

Most of the news was either about who was running for what and the other thing on Atmore residents minds, an expansion of Vanity Fair.

After a couple of months of hard campaigning, the deadline of Feb. 1, was met when $275,000 in bonds were sold in order to expand the Vanity Fair. Everybody was quite excited about that one and it was a boon tobusiness for a number of years.

A look at the bargains of the day were quite interesting. A&P had lemon pies for 39 cents; ketchup, two 14-ounce bottles for 37 cents; mayonnaise, one-and-one-half quarts for 73 cents; (Kwik Chek had a quart for 39 cents) and, best of all, a dozen donuts were only 19 cents. Not only did A&P have terrific prices, they were giving away prizes, from televisions to small appliances. They don’t do that

anymore, do they?

How many times have you seen a dead armadillo lying in the road after having a fatal encounter with a vehicle? Well, it must have not been so common 50 years ago. Roscoe Helton thought the sight of an armadillo was enough to warrant a visit to the newspaper to show the critter off. The story stated that these animals were usually seen in the southwest. I guess they have moved east in the years since then.

Times are certainly changing.