Don’t tell anybody, but America could put a woman in space some day.

Forty five years ago, in the fall of 1973, word got out that NASA was testing women to see if they could withstand the rigors of space travel, like weightlessness and the stress of re-entry. This was 10 years after Russia sent a woman into orbit. The space agency apparently tried to keep the tests top secret, and insisted that no decision on female astronauts had been made yet. A newspaper headline said that American women might be in orbit by the end of the 70’s. It didn’t happen until Sally Ride boarded a shuttle in 1983.

The Wisconsin Assembly overwhelmingly legalized the game of Bingo in Wisconsin, after a constitutional amendment was passed earlier that year. Public Bingo games would be common around the state by the following summer.

The Legion Post in Onalaska had a Halloween dance, with music provided by “Chief Many Horns and His Tomahawks.” That band probably would have a different name today.

In ’73, the UW-La Crosse band was still called the Marching Chiefs, and it was raising money for a New Year’s trip to appear at the Orange Bowl. Members of the band took part in a fundraiser at Jerry’s Place on 4th Street, modeling fall fashions…in 1973, yesterday in La Crosse.