This is a photo of the patrol boys from Noble School, Juniata, from 1939-40. Shown are (from left): front row — Bob McCloskey, Jim Beichler, Bob Akins, Jack Bowden and Fred Brown; second row — Jack Gerhart, Ken Cunningham and Joe Tanner. Darcia Townsend, who submitted the picture, is the daughter of Jim Beichler of Juniata (front row, second from left), who will be 97 years old on Oct. 24.

Readers are encouraged to send or deliver old local photographs of general interest for use in Yesteryear. Information about people and places should be included. Photos must be 30 years old or older and should be sent to Yesteryear, Altoona Mirror, P.O. Box 2008, Altoona, PA 16603, or emailed to community@altoonamirror.com. For more information, call Brenda Carberry, community news coordinator, at 814-946-7459.

Local news on this date

Oct. 11, 1950

District 9 of the Pennsylvania Highway Department, headquartered at Hollidaysburg, won first place in the National Safety Council survey of highway systems in the United States with an accident frequency of 04.4. Blair County had an accident frequency of 0.

Oct. 11, 1975

An AMED ambulance was involved in a crash at Lexington Avenue and Eighth Street that turned it on its side and caused $30,000 in damage to it and light injuries to a patient and three medical technicians.

Oct. 11, 2000

The Altoona Area School District, William Pfeffer school police officer, launched a new program called Target Truancy because 200 students were missing classes daily with only about 50 of them for legitimate reasons.

Oct. 11, 2015

The Take Steps Walk was held at Peoples Natural Gas Field as a fundraiser for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, Rachel McCune walk manager. Crohn’s and Colitis are

diseases of the digestive tract.

Oct. 12, 1950

A Magic Meals Cooking School, sponsored by Peoples Natural Gas Co., was being held at the Jaffa Mosque over three days with a capacity crowd. It was supervised by Helen Shepard of the National Live Stock and Meat Board.

A meeting of the Blair County Association of Radio Service Engineers, Kenneth R. Brubaker president, was held at the Venetian Gardens Restaurant in downtown Altoona to discuss early RCA television antennas.

Oct. 12, 1975

Three people were killed, one from Hollidaysburg and two from Bedford in a head-on crash on Frankstown Road, about 1.5 miles from Altoona between a car and a pickup truck. The Bedford man was Arthur Townsend, retired principal of Bedford High School, and his wife Lucinda.

Former Altoona Congressman James E. Van Zandt attended the 25th anniversary celebration of the Altoona VA Hospital that would be soon named for him. Van Zandt, in addition to being a retired Congressman, was a retired Navy Admiral and veteran of both World War I and World War II.

Oct. 12, 2000

After many pros and cons over several years, Altoona City Council voted to ban open burning in the city for the first time ever. Those holding burning permits would be able to use them for one year. One point against was the accumulation of additional trash and yard waste not burned.

The Hollidaysburg, Spring Cove and Williamsburg School Districts were to share approximately $110,000 in grants for a program called The Alternative Education for Disruptive Youth, Gov. Tom Ridge announced. At least five other school districts were also receiving grants.

Oct. 12, 2015

Altoona Area High School English teacher Amy Vinglish was to study sharks in the Florida Keys at a study center called the Aquarium Reef Base under Florida International University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Altoona Area Transportation Committee, Joe Baldwin director, was participating in a program called Operation Safe Stop to stop cars from illegally passing school buses and endangering the students. October was National School Bus Safety Week.

National, world news on this date

Oct. 11

In 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education ordered the city’s Asian students segregated into their own school. (The order was later rescinded at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt, who in exchange promised to curb future Japanese immigration to the United States.)

In 1968, Apollo 7, the first crewed flight of the Apollo program, was launched with astronauts Walter Schirra Jr., Donn F. Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard.

In 1984, Challenger astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space as she and fellow Mission Specialist David C. Leestma spent 3 1/2 hours outside the shuttle.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev opened two days of talks in Reykjavik, Iceland, concerning arms control and human rights.

Oct. 12

In 1492, Christopher Columbus’s first expedition made landfall on what is now San Salvador Island in the Bahamas.

In 1870, General Robert E. Lee, former overall commander of the Confederate States Army in the Civil War, died in Lexington, Virginia, at age 63.

In 1968, Mexican track and field athlete Enriqueta Basilio became the first woman to light the Olympic flame at the opening ceremonies of the Mexico City Summer Games.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon nominated House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president.

In 2019, Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours, crossing the finish line of the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Vienna, Austria, with a time of 1:59:40.

Local news compiled by Tim Doyle. National, world news from The Associated Press.