Looking back: Teen tackles thief ‘football style’ after man breaks into high school
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IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of Oct. 7 to Oct. 13 in east Idaho history.
1900-1925
BLACKFOOT — A boy had a “narrow escape from death” after nearly being killed by a moving train, The Bingham County News reported on Oct. 12, 1911.
The incident happened while the “Taft excursion” was pulling into town from the west Friday morning and a large crowd of people were waiting for it to arrive.
Fera Brown, the young son of W.E. Brown, was “wrestling with companions” when he was pushed under the wheels of the moving train.
“(He) was immediately caught by one of the boys he was playing with and escaped injury aside from having one ear cut,” the paper stated.
1926-1950
POCATELLO — Burglars got away with 30 cents after breaking into a Pocatello warehouse, the Idaho State Journal reported on Oct. 8, 1950.
The break-in happened at the O.G. Roche Transfer Company Warehouse. Thieves entered the building by breaking a small window on the north side of the building.
“Two trunks were forced open but indications are that nothing was stolen (from the trunks),” the article reads.
The 30 cents that was missing was taken from a petty cash drawer.
1951-1975
ARIMO — A teen tackled a thief who broke into his high school and was trying to get into the principal’s office, the Idaho State Journal reported on Oct. 8, 1954.
Robert Johnson, 17, and son of Marsh Valley School District Superintendent Andrew H. Johnson, went to the high school around 7:30 p.m. to get his books. He heard some hammering noises and saw a flashlight as he approached the school door.
“Robert shouted to a neighbor, who didn’t hear him, so he went on in the building,” the article explains. “He switched on the light and saw, eight feet away, a middle-aged man prying off the door of the principal’s office.”
The article continues, “Four burglaries in the last year in North Marsh School District went through Robert’s mind as he watched the man flee toward the gymnasium.”
Johnson ran across the street to his home to get his father. His father grabbed a shotgun and told his son to get in the car.
“The son drove around to the west side of the building and the father waited, gun in hand, at the southwest corner of the school,” the Journal wrote. “Superintendent Johnson watched the burglary suspect climb out of the window of the girl’s lavatory and run toward his (Johnson’s) car as though he might be expecting an accomplice to pick him up.”
But suddenly, the man began to run in a different direction.
Johnson’s father yelled, “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
The son shouted back, “Don’t shoot, Dad!”
The teenager then tackled the man “football style.” After several minutes of struggling to escape, Johnson got a “hammer lock on his left arm.”
“Meanwhile, the elder Johnson hovered over the scuffling pair trying to decide which writhing figure in the dark was his son and which he should punch,” the paper said.
The Johnsons and special deputy sheriff Grant Williams took the man to a service station and called for the state police at McCammon.
1976-2000
POCATELLO — The “potato war” was in full-swing as “bigger and bigger spuds keep cropping up,” in Pocatello, the Idaho State Journal reported on Oct. 12, 1976.
The Journal previously shared a photo of Ethel Williams, who had produced a 2.92-pound potato in her garden. On Monday, Bob Baker, of Mink Creek, went to the Journal’s office and showed off his 3.75-pound Red Pontiac potato.
He said it was weighed to the nearest gram on a calibrated Toledo scale. Baker was an organic gardener and said his prime fertilizer was sheep manure.
