What was happening on Aug. 8, 1968?

What was making the news on 8-8-68? Take a trip to yesterday in La Crosse.

On August 8th of 1968, Richard Nixon accepted the Republican presidential nomination, for the second time, when the GOP held its convention in Miami Beach. Wisconsin delegates put Nixon over the top toward the end of the balloting. Nixon’s first nomination was in 1960, while he was still vice president. He lost that election to John F. Kennedy.

While TV watchers had to choose between Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley for election coverage, a portrait of the Marquis of Huntley was donated to La Crosse’s Viterbo College. The painting dated back to the early 1600’s, and was donated to the college by a California woman who had gotten hospital care from Viterbo graduates. A promise was made to display the portrait in Viterbo’s new fine arts building…which wouldn’t open for another three years.

The biggest local story on the front page of the Tribune that Thursday was a report on the United Fund, now known as United Way. The goal for 1968 would be $347,000…an increase of $22,000 over the year before. Thirty agencies in the area would get United Fund money, including La Crescent branches of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and the Red Cross.

Anti-mosquito spraying was scheduled in La Crosse that night, from the Causeway to the north city limits.

And movie lovers could go to La Crosse’s outdoor theaters and see “Bonnie and Clyde” or the latest James Bond adventure, “You Only Live Twice.” Fifty years ago, 1968, yesterday in La Crosse.