By Greg Bassett

Monday, July 7, 1969 --

• Peninsula General Hospital’s Board of Trustees has approved a $5-per-day increase in its daily care rate. The hike is needed to balance the hospital’s largest-ever $7.6 million annual budget. The new daily charge is now $43 in multi-bed areas, $45 for semi-private rooms and $49 to $55 for private rooms.
• Lightning was blamed for two fires that occurred Sunday night on separate chicken farms owned by George F. Wolf of Tony Tank. Wolf’s farm with 36,000 chickens burned to the ground on Rockawalkin Ridge Road, at a loss of approximately $48,000. The other fire was at a dwelling house owned by Wolf on Naylor Mill Road. 
• Salisbury City Police were continuing their investigation of the theft of a 6-ton oil tank truck from C.B. Hill Fuel Co. on North Salisbury Boulevard. The 1951-model truck is gray and blue in color and has the company’s name printed on the side. Police termed the theft “baffling.”
• Sunday night’s 1.72 inches of rain is being welcomed by local farmers, but Wicomico’s agricultural extension agent said it might have come too late to save much of the corn crop. According to Robert Miller, hundreds and hundreds of acres of corn in the central and western parts of Wicomico predicted crop losses of about 50 percent because of drought conditions that occurred at a crucial time in the growing season.
• Peoples Court Judge Raymond S. Smethhurst Jr. found a Salisbury man guilty of failing to yield the right of way in a June crash that killed a Snow Hill woman. In a highly unusual move, prosecutors arranged the testimony of a physic expert, Dr. Frank Hose, who is employed by NASA at Wallops Island, to support the investigating State Trooper’s conclusion.