Feb. 3, 2003: Concord High School running phenom Rachel Umberger accepts a full scholarship offer to Duke University, according to running coach Barbara Higgins.
Feb. 3, 1968: In Concord, Richard Nixon opens his presidential campaign with a speech in which he says America is a country with a torn soul, a country that needs a new leader who recognizes its “crisis of the spirit” and can restore “the lift of a driving dream.” He then hosts the press for a party at the Highway Hotel. Special guests: Nixon’s 19-year-old daughter Julie and her fiancee, David Eisenhower.
Feb. 3, 1944: On the Senate floor, U.S. Sen. Styles Bridges rises to defend Reader’s Digest against a Democratic senator’s complaint that the magazine should not have published an article critical of the Roosevelt administration. Reader’s Digest is published in Concord and printed at the Rumford Press.
Feb. 3, 1942: The Concord school board expels 8-year-old Sylvia Esty from school for failing to say the Pledge Allegiance. Esty, a Jehovah’s Witness, says her religion prohibits it. The board says she may return to school when she is ready to say the pledge each day.
Feb. 4, 2000: Thousands of students got into the act of voting through the Kids Voting New Hampshire program, the Monitor reports. In Concord, 1,589 kids voted alongside their parents and, like their elders, chose John McCain and Al Gore as their favorite candidates.
Feb. 4, 1991: In the middle of a three-day heat wave, Concord residents enjoy a high temperature of 61 degrees. It was 59 the day before and will be again tomorrow.
Feb. 4, 1908: In Concord, the St. Paul’s School ice hockey team defeats the Harvard freshmen 9-1. Captain Hobey Baker “played a wonderful game,” scoring three goals, the Monitor reports. Baker will later become a college hockey star, and the trophy awarded to the nation’s best male collegiate player each year will one day bear his name.
Feb. 4, 1971: The low temperature in Concord is 22 below zero. The day before it was 27 below, and two days before that it was 26 below.
Feb. 4, 1965: Workers pour a concrete floor for the John F. Kennedy Apartments for the elderly on South Main Street in Concord. The 10-story building is expected to cost $1.4 million.
Feb. 5, 2002: The preliminary $51.8 million school budget is up nearly 1 percent from last year and includes provisions for a new roof at Broken Ground School, three new sports teams at Concord High School and a security guard to watch school buildings after the last bell rings, the Monitor reports.
Feb. 5, 2001: Up to a foot of snow falls in just a few hours as a true blizzard hits the state. By the time the snow is done the next day, Concord will have about 15 inches of accumulation. Several towns will report more than double that.
Feb. 5, 1968: Rev. Norman Limoge, the administrator at Bishop Brady High School, sends 18 boys to Ray’s Barber Shop after they defy his warning to come to school with “respectable haircuts.” “We’re all here under protest,” one boy tells a reporter. “We didn’t think he’d do it,” says another. The act will lead to a lively exchange of letters to the editor. “Jesus wore long hair,” a defender of the boys will write. Margaret Savard of Pembroke will respond: “As the parent of one of the boys involved, you have my approval.”
Feb. 5, 1853: Thomas Francis Meagher, the famed Irish exile and itinerant lecturer for Irish independence, speaks at Concord’s Depot Hall. Among his listeners is President-elect Franklin Pierce.
Feb. 5, 1942: An alert Concord police officer spots the car of a suspected spy on South Main Street near the Capitol Theater. He arrests the man at gunpoint. The chief gives the officer a pat on the back, but no charges are filed against the man. “It was all in error,” authorities say.
Feb. 6, 1968: Campaigning at the Concord Community Center, Sen. Eugene McCarthy responds to President Johnson’s assertion that the United States cannot merely “cut and run” in Vietnam. “It creeps into the language of the administration, figures of speech like ‘cut and run,’ ” McCarthy says. “I am not sure, but what cut and run with cattle is a good thing to do if you’re stampeded. I mean, it’s the only way you can get out.” Sen. Tom McIntyre, Johnson’s lead man in New Hampshire, responds that McCarthy “somehow believes we can pack up and quit and still hold our heads high.”
Feb. 6, 1862: Meeting in Concord, a “Union Convention” adopts a platform plank on the war similar to that of the Democrats, which states: “This war should not be waged in any spirit of conquest or subjugation, or for the purpose of overthrowing the rights or established institutions of any of the States.”
Feb. 7, 2000: After 31 years, WKXL talk-show host Gardner Hill airs his final edition of Party Line. The Concord station’s owner has decided to hire a new radio personality. “Nooooooo Gardner,” one woman calls in to say. “This is ridiculous,” another adds. “I can’t say that I’m shocked, but I am disgusted.”
Feb. 7, 1986: As a memorial to Christa McAuliffe, the Concord High teacher who died during the Challenger launch, a new state trust fund is formed to allow other teachers to take “journeys of discovery and enlightenment.”
Feb. 8, 2001: More than 30 Concord police and state Drug Task Force officers raid an apartment complex in Concord to arrest three men and a woman who the authorities say are involved in a crack ring. The city’s police deployment is one of the largest in recent memory.
Feb. 8, 1897: Concord’s first movie plays at White’s Opera House. The show includes bathers at Rahway, N.J., a watermelon-eating contest, a mounted policeman stopping a runaway horse and a three-minute boxing match featuring Gentleman Jim Corbett. “There is nothing fake about it,” the Monitor reviewer reports, adding that the pictures are “vivid and truthful.”
Feb. 8, 1820: George Hough, Concord’s first printer and editor of an 18th century newspaper in the city, dies at the age of 73.
Feb. 9. 2001: Concord High sophomore Rachel Umberger wins the 300-meter and 1,000-meter runs at the state Indoor Track and Field Championships. As a team, the Tide finishes fifth overall.
Feb. 9, 1988: Fresh from a first-place finish in Iowa, U.S. Sen. Bob Dole takes a hard anti-Communist line in a Concord campaign appearance. He warns against “glasnost fever,” saying: “Whatever glasnost is, it is not democracy. Whatever else Gorbachev may be, he is still a hard-as-nails Communist.”
