On Aug. 6, 1959, the Peninsula Enterprise reported that the outlook for a junior college on the Eastern Shore “continues to look good.”
On Aug. 6, 1955, the first graduation ceremonies of the Jefferson School of Commerce’s Eastern Shore Branch were held at the Plantation Inn. In all, 20 graduates of the course were presented diplomas by Jesse Ewell, representing the school’s president, E. Lee Armentrout.
On Aug. 6, 1954, 7-year-old Bill Watson, son of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Watson Jr. of Cheriton, was recouperating in Accomack-Northampton Memorial Hospital after a near escape from suffociation when a sand cave he and other boys had dug at Smith Beach, near Eastville, collapsed on him.
On Aug. 6, 1945, U.S. Navy Petty Officer First Class William Jona Parks, 23, of Accomac, was killed on Aug. 6, 1945, when the submarine on which he served was sunk in the Longbok Strait in Indonesia. Parks’ body was never recovered. His name is memorialized on the Tables of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines. There is a memorial marker in the Parksley Cemetery for Parks near the graves of his parents, James and Mary Parks.
Aug. 6, 1945, an airplane piloted by Lt. (jg) Rodney C. Jensen and another piloted by Ensign Robert W. Fulton apparently collided over Chincoteague and Assateague islands. Both men were attached to the Chincoteague Auxiliary Naval Air Station. The body of Jensen, 23, who formerly lived in Eugene, Ore., was found in Chincoteague Bay. The body of Fulton, 25, who was from Oak Park, Ill., was never recovered despite a massive search of the area surrounding Chincoteague and Assateague.
On Aug. 6, 1939, Receipt of Sunday mail began on Chincoteague Island from the early morning train. “This is the first time that Chincoteague has ever received a Sunday mail,” the Peninsula Enterprise newspaper reported.
