Here’s a look at some stories from the week of Aug. 4-10.
Aug. 8, 1954: 100 Boats expected for Inboard Regatta
Dayton and the Miami Valley’s premier boating event of the summer, the annual inboard regatta of the Greater Dayton Boat Club, was to take place on a new course in 1954.
The new course was laid out on the Miami River near Deeds Carillon.
Boat classes fell in two categories, 225- and 266-cubic inch engines.
Approximately 100 boats were expected, including some of the fastest in the country. The time of the event had to be moved up an hour to accommodate all the extra elimination heats that would have to be run due to the large entry list.
Bleachers were erected for spectators that could accommodate between 1,000 and 1,500 people.
Aug. 9, 1964: Cupid sees double; sisters marry brothers
Cupid doubled his arsenal of arrows and scored a bullseye with two Dayton families.
Sisters Diane and Barbara Amann became the brides of brothers William and Eugene Luehrs during a ceremony at St. Anthony church.
The doubling didn’t stop there. Participating in the ceremony were two Larrys, two Barbaras and a pair of Bobs.
The brides wore identical gowns and had plans to live in a duplex with their husbands.
For the honeymoon, however, Diane and William were headed north, and Barbara and Eugene were headed south.
Aug. 4, 1974: Starbound singer: Dayton man lands leading role
When W. Dorian Harewood was a student at Jefferson High School (a 1968 graduate), he couldn’t afford to take singing lessons.
So his piano teacher, Josephine Hinds, decided to tutor him for free.
In 1974, it paid off for Harewood, then 23, when he landed the role of leading man opposite Bette Davis in a Broadway musical, an adaptation of the play, “The Corn is Green,” then called, “Miss Moffet.”
Harewood had been steadily landing roles in New York, but nothing as big as this. The show was already booked for a nine-month national tour and was scheduled to open on Broadway the following year.
Harewood went on to have a successful acting career.
He is known for playing Jesse Owens in The Jesse Owens Story (1984), Det. Paul Strobber on Strike Force (1981–1982), and Rev. Morgan Hamilton in 7th Heaven (1996–2003).
Aug. 5, 1984: Stuart Rose takes Rex stories public
Stuart Rose left a New York investment firm to buy Rex Radio and Television in Dayton.
He started running Rex out of a brick warehouse off Interstate 75, housing millions of dollars worth of TVs, stereos and appliances.
Success followed and he was able to buy out two more retail chains, expanding his reach to 44 stores.
Then, in 1984, he opened up the business to a public offering of stock, which allowed him to make even more plans for expansion.
He moved all of his retail operations into one holding company called Audio/Video Affiliates. Sales had reached $75 million a year.
At age 29, Rose became the youngest chairman and chief executive officer of a publicly held company in Dayton.
Aug. 10, 1994: Far East Center opens in Airway Shopping Center
Thao Thi Truong and her husband, Han Van Duong, escaped Vietnam in 1979 with their daughter, Vy, and son, Hoang, and arrived in Dayton shortly after.
They arrived in Dayton in 1980 with nothing. First, they opened a small restaurant, Oriental-Occidental, on Brown Street and operated it for a few years before opening up Kim’s Market.
In 1994, the couple had just opened the Far East Center, which they said was Ohio’s biggest Asian food market.
The 8,000-square-foot store in Airway Shopping Center was filled with new items that could never be stocked or displayed in the tiny Kim’s Market they also operated on Wilmington Pike.
Truong made multiple weekly trips to Chicago to shop Chinatown for fresh Asian produce.
The new store offered shoppers an array of Chinese, Philippine, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese foods and seasonings, as well as some African, Indian and Indonesian specialties.
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