Saturday, Nov. 17, 1956 --

• The United Fund’s inaugural fund-raising drive exceeded its goal by $1,929.89 cents and raised a total of $83,120.14. United Fund president John Hess of Hess Apparel said the amount computes to $1.91 for every man, woman and child in Wicomico County. Campaign director Marsh Gollner credited the hundreds of volunteers who were organized into 12 separate divisions to appeal for funds.
• A controversy has erupted on the Wicomico County Board of Education. Gen. Amos W.W. Woodcock, the board’s president, declared in a speech last week to the Wicomico PTA Council at the Pinehurst School that the county School Building Commissions of 1953, ‘55 and ‘56 allowed for “haphazard and extravagant” school construction that wasted taxpayer dollars. In a statement released to the public on Friday, board member J. Frank Pusey of Delmar countered each of the general’s claims and presented documents that showed 72 classrooms, two cafeterias and a field house were constructed for $2.6 million, while in the 1940s just 19 classrooms were constructed at a cost of $1 million.
• Vernon Cowger, 37, a barber in Pittsville, was being treated at Peninsula General Hospital for shotgun wounds to both legs. He and Frank Parsons of Pittsville were rabbit hunting on the Feldman poultry farm off South Division Street Friday morning when Parson fired two blasts at a rabbit. The .12-gauge pellets missed the rabbit, but 46 pieces of shot entered Cowger’s legs.
• An Angus cow owned by Ernest Cullen, Wicomico High School’s vocational agricultural teacher, wandered onto Route 50 near Mardela Springs and was struck and killed by a car driven by Thomas Hart, 39, of Potomac Avenue. Damage to Hart’s car was estimated at $200.
• A crowd of 1,002 sat through heavy rain to see Wicomico High School defeat Annapolis High School, 20-0. The Indians will now face the Cambridge High Raiders on Thanksgiving Day in a bid to log their first undefeated season since 1952. Tommy Colonna, Charley Dixon and Bruce Wilson Sr. scored the Wi-Hi touchdowns.