Long Time Gone

The Eads Assembly of God Church, now known as the Praise Community Church, began in the summer of 1936 with a tent revival service by Rev. T.

Anniversaries are important. They may be used to sell cards or jewelry or expensive dinners, but at its untarnished core, the message communicated in celebrating an anniversary is important.

Professors of Sociology and other high academic areas who have made a study of those small towns that survived the early days on the High Plains and those that didn’t often make the same observation and illustrate that observation by using the same image. They typically, more or less and in one way or another, describe the towns that survived as being similar to a three-legged stool.

This past week the country has directed their eyes to the skies as at least four objects, thought to be coming from China, had entered North American, and more specifically American, sovereign air space more than likely spying on American and North American weapons capabilities.

Valentine’s Day has come again to the High Plains and Arkansas Valley of Southeastern Colorado. In recognition of this love-filled day we dug up one of our favorite Long Time Gone articles written by Priscilla Waggoner five years ago—in February of 2019.

This original piece was written in 2018 and defined the Lamar Holiday Basketball Tournament in all its glory. Unfortunately, the tournament was forced to take a leave of absence in December of 2020, but was generally back, if not hesitantly so, last year 2021.

For over 60 years, Eads, and specifically the United Methodist Church in Eads, was the home to the annual Christmas Cantata. Tommy and Philomene Liesen directed the multi-community choir for most of those years.

Last week’s election brought positive news for those who supported the funding for building a new K-12 School in the McClave School District. The passing of a tax hike in order to build the new school comes with a sizable bill and there was most definitely a slight divide in those who supported the school tax hike (57.

Kiowa County was developed due to two distinct historical occurrences that promoted Westward Expansion in the United States. The first was the development of the railroad, in Kiowa County’s case, the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and the second was the federal Homestead Act that brought thousands of landseekers to this neck of the woods hoping to establish a new life as a landowner.

The Kiowa County Fair & Rodeo held on the second weekend in September each year has become the one time of the year that people who have moved away from Kiowa County come back to reminisce with old friends of days gone by. One of those special Fairs back in 1984, nearly 40 years ago, featured the presence of four legendary cowboys who were there at the Fairgrounds in Eads to tell their story about the 40 cowboys who experienced an astounding three-month cattle drive that started in September back in 1929 and is still one for the record books.

Prohibition is a topic that is barely remembered among citizens of the United States unless they are fans of mobster movies such as Bonnie & Clyde, The Untouchables and Scarface.