At Evans-Collins Field in Knoxville, Tenn., two pass interceptions — one of which was returned for a touchdown — spelled disaster for the Jacksonville Jaguars as they dropped a 28-7 North American Football League game to the Knoxville SOK.
It was the second straight loss for the Jaguars, who had a 1-4 record and it dropped head coach Al Bassett’s team into the cellar of the league’s Blue Division.
The Jaguars finished the 1966 schedule with a record of 4-8-0 before the league folded after two seasons. Three of the four wins were at home in the Gator Bowl, according to profootballarchives.com.
Other teams in the league were the Chattanooga Redskins, Huntsville Rockets, Lakeland Brahmans, Mobile Tarpons, Savannah Chiefs and St. Petersburg Blazers,
• Grand larceny charges against former City Commissioner Dallas Thomas were assigned to Criminal Court Judge Hans Tanzler Jr.
Seventeen indictments with 40 grand larceny counts were returned Aug. 30 by the Duval County grand jury. Thomas was accused of theft of $23,766 from the city over a five-year period.
The cases were scheduled to appear on Tanzler’s calendar Oct. 25.
In other grand jury news, city Auditor John Hollister Jr. was indicted on charges of grand larceny of city funds. The 63-year-old municipal finance chief was charged with theft of $1,107.63.
Smiling, despite the circumstances, and claiming he was innocent of any wrongdoing, Hollister surrendered at the county jail and then posted $3,500 bond soon after the indictment was handed to Circuit Judge Marion Gooding.
The jury also returned indictments for grand larceny, perjury and conspiracy to commit grand larceny against City Council members Cecil Lowe and W.O. Mattox Jr. and former city Recreation Department head George Robinson Sr.
• The Grace Lines passenger freighter Santa Isabel, scheduled to arrive in Jacksonville with 700 tons of bananas, was forced to reduce speed after striking an underwater object off the coast of Ecuador.
W.H. Stillwell, traffic manager for McGiffin & Co., a Jacksonville steamship company, said the ship left port on a seven-day journey with the shipment of bananas, which usually lasted about three weeks before they would spoil.
He said ship line officials informed him the 459-foot vessel was expected to discharge its 52 passengers and the fruit at Cristobal, Panama.
It then was to proceed to New York City, where the ship would be repaired.
• Sponsorship of the Florida State University Student Circus would be the first project for the new Interact Club at Fletcher Senior High School.
The collegiate acrobats and clowns would perform three shows Sept. 24 at the Jacksonville Beach City Auditorium.
The club was formed in January under sponsorship of the Jacksonville Beaches Rotary Club.
Its members, selected from among Fletcher’s top students, were sponsoring the circus to help finance three projects: a foreign exchange student program, landscaping the inside patio at the school and furnishing a visitor’s lounge in the school’s reception area.
• Another battle in the federal war on poverty began with the start of job training classes for 220 young people from economically deprived neighborhoods.
“The project is aimed at those youth who, without training, are and will remain unemployable because of a multiplicity of problems,” said Chester Howarth, supervisor of manpower development and training for the Duval County public school system.
The program was financed with federal funds and administered by the school system in cooperation with the Jacksonville Youth Opportunity Centers.
The first phase of the program was budgeted at $176,400 for training and equipment. An additional $145,000 was earmarked for subsistence allowances for students in the program.
Six occupations — automobile mechanic, auto body repair, clerk-typist, short-order cook, sales clerk and waitress — were selected for youth training, based on employer records, job openings, job orders canceled, surveys of industries involved and labor market reports from the Florida State Employment Service Office, Howarth said.
• The Town House restaurant and lounge at 8510 Philips Highway was serving for $2.95 a 16-ounce Kansas City sirloin along with a baked potato with sour cream and chives, fresh-baked bread and salad tossed at the table.
For hungry diners with a taste for seafood, Pritchett’s Kitchen, at 3438 Blanding Blvd., advertised two all-you-can-eat specials: catfish and hushpuppies for $1.95 or $1.50 for fried shrimp at the restaurant on the bank of the Cedar River.
• Florida Junior College at Jacksonville was seeking to solve one of its first-year problems — student parking — by borrowing some land from the city.
The school had entered into an agreement for the land and was asking the Duval County Board of Public Instruction to approve it at the board’s next meeting.
The land involved was a small city park west of the college on Flagler Avenue as well as small portions of streets adjacent to the school along Andover Terrace, Dorel Street and Lucille Street.
Some of the property would be used for vehicular parking and recreational purposes while the remainder would be used for recreation only, according to the agreement that already was signed by Mayor Lou Ritter.
• It was about rescues, beach buggies and 92-degree heat as an estimated 70,000 people jammed the Beaches for the Labor Day holiday
“We’ve been lucky so far. This beach is loaded with people but we haven’t had anything real serious,” said Rolfe Wall, captain of the American Red Cross Volunteer Lifesaving Corps.
A young girl who couldn’t swim drifted away from shore on a raft and a young boy was caught in a run-out.
“We got them back in OK and fixed a cut on another boy’s foot,” Wall said. “I think lifeguards prevented a lot of drownings and injuries with their whistles.”
A highlight of the weekend was the first beach buggy parade at Jacksonville Beach.
Forty-three various shaped, multicolored vehicles drove along the sand.
It was noted the procession was such an unusual sight that “even some men turned their eyes from the bikini scenery.”
• A paddy wagon carrying 14 inmates from the city prison farm flipped over on a curve on Lem Turner Road near Riverview Elementary School.
The 13 male prisoners were on their way to the Jacksonville police station, where they were to wash police cars and performed other chores. The one woman in the van was to be released.
The prisoners were taken to Duval Medical Center, where they were examined.
Police refused one of the prisoners when he was released by doctors because he claimed he could not sit up. Sixteen hours after the accident, the man was still on a stretcher in the hospital’s emergency room.
A spokesman for the prison farm blamed a defective steering mechanism for the accident.