Ozona History

August 24, 1944

Lt. Welton H. Bunger, Jr. United States Marine Corps, has again been cited for heroic action in the Pacific Island Japanese extermination campaign. The Ozona Marine officer was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and accompanying citation in ceremonies somewhere in the Pacific on August 5. A copy of the citation, from which Marine unit numbers, position designations and other restricted matter were left blank, was sent to the officer’s parents here, along with the ribbon representing the medal.

August 19, 1954

While the area swarmed with lawmen from four counties, it fell to the lot of two groups of Ozona Volunteer Firemen to capture four boys who had escaped from the Gatesville State Home for Boys and fled across the pasture after abandoning a 1949 Oldsmobile convertible in a bar ditch two miles east of Ozona last Thursday morning. The four boys told officers they had stolen the car in Belton, had broken into a café in Austin and had stolen about $50 worth of candy and cigarettes from a drive-in theater concession stand in Sonora. None of the boys, ages 14 to 16, was armed. They were brought to the sheriff’s office here and turned over to Sutton County officers to hold until Gatesville authorities could come for them.

August 20, 1964

A freak wind caught the door of Garland Young’s barbers’ shop in the village last Friday and snapped the door back over the door stop shattering the near inch-thick glass. John Fowler, with Mr. and Mrs. Bill Bradbury’s granddaughter, Nanette Tribble of Dallas, manned the brooms and collected a rather imposing stack of glass while both barbers, Young and Beall were busy with customers.

August 22, 1974

Sonny Bailey comes us with a bigger toadstool. He brought it to town to prove it! This monster measures between 9 and 10 inches across and stands almost a foot. Bailey plucked it from a dozen or so that sprung up on his ranch east of Ozona after the rain last week.

August 22, 1984

Tara Wilkins waves to her family as she takes the big step to first grade here Monday. Tara was one of the 237 children enrolled In Ozona. She takes the big step to first grade primary school.

complied by Amanda Deats-Coello