Here’s some old news from the Andover, East Andover, West Andover, Potter Place, and Cilleyville “gossip” columns of the Franklin Journal Transcript, selected by Heather Makechnie.

September 5, 1963

Howard George, Ervin Nelson, Jr., John Ireland, Wallace Scott, Albert Klotz, Murray Smith, Jr., Ralph Sanborn, and James Emerson all went deep-sea fishing off Kittery, Maine on Labor Day.

Showing at the Regal Theatre this month: Flipper with Chuck Connors; The Slave with Steve Reeves; Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford; Fanny with Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier; Donovan’s Reef with John Wayne, and The Chapman Report, the personal story behind a sex survey, with Shelley Winters, Jane Fonda, and Effron Zimbalist, Jr.

September 12, 1963

Franklin Sears Store (Tel Phone 680) is selling top-of-the-line 12.3 cubic foot Coldspot Automatic Defrost refrigerators for $187 and Allstate Nylon Safety Traction Tires (8.70×15 tube-type, blackwall) for $12.95 each (plus federal excise tax).

Mrs. Joseph Cloutier of Flaghole Road won the Electric Sewing Machine on exhibit at Plymouth Fair.

September 19, 1963

Record Figures Pose Problems for Franklin School Board: An all-time record high of 1910 pupils officially enrolled in Franklin schools! An analysis of the total senior high school enrollment reveals that, included in the total of 565 students, of the 97 tuition students (34 more than the 63 who registered last year), 35 are from Andover, and 13 from Salisbury – this occasioned by the closing of Andover High School.

September 26, 1963

The 115-year-old boys’ preparatory school, Proctor Academy, began the 1963-64 school year with a record 159 boys, according to Headmaster Lyle H. Farrell, LL.D. [Today, the co-ed school has roughly twice that population.]

Rex Sherman of Andover was one of the winners of the Eastern States Exposition Sheep Show, taking second place with a Cheviot Ram. Rex is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Sherman of Proctor Academy. He is a graduate of Proctor and presently a junior at UNH. He built his championship flock from one 4H club lamb and is earning his college tuition with the flock.