What arcane instructions are being handed out to this young crowd? For what event did they assemble?
If you recognize any of the faces in this picture, tell us at editor@starkvilledailynews.com and we'll put your answer in next week's edition.
Three answers, with increasing detail, arrived for last week's picture of a well-dressed crowd wielding shovels.
“In the Sunday Sept 25 paper, I believe the man on the front row to the left of the woman and holding a shovel is Bill Geiger, deceased, and the man directly behind him to the left might be Jimmy Linley, owner of NE Exterminating,” wrote Betty Tucker.”
Terri Linley had a personal connection to one of those pictured, and an alternate spelling for another.
“The photo contains my grandfather Jimmy Linley, Jim Craig, Bill Gyger, Johnny Sartor, and the rest of the hospital board and board of supervisors breaking ground for the new hospital wing,” she wrote.
The most information, however, came direct from OCH Regional Medical Center; specifically, from Susan O'Neal Self, executive assistant to the CEO.
“This is obviously one of our groundbreaking ceremonies (at hospital) – for what I am not sure,” she said in an email. “I can identify just about everyone in the picture, though, and I would say this was probably in the mid-80s (85-87?).
Current administrator Richard Hilton is in the middle on the very back row. Associate administrator Mike Andrews is first person to the far left. Others are one current board member, Jimmy Linley; and former board members William B. Robinson, J.D. "Danny" Berry, Bill Geiger, Helen Taylor and Dr. Johnnie Sartor.
Board of Supervisors member Frankie Edmonds is standing by Mr. Andrews. I am not sure, but I think that is Jim Craig, who would have been Chancery Clerk at the time, on back row left side by Mr. Edmonds.
I cannot identify everyone to the right side of picture because it is dark and a little blurry. But, I imagine, it is Board of Supervisors members who would have been in attendance for anything related to the hospital, which at the time was called Oktibbeha County Hospital.