EDITOR’S NOTE: Superiorland Yesterdays is prepared by the reference desk staff at Peter White Public Library.

30 years ago

MARQUETTE – A $374,000 grant will enable specialists at Marquette General Hospital to help treat patients at four rural Upper Peninsula hospitals. The federal Rural Electrification Administration grant will pay for an advanced fiber-optic telemedicine system based at MGH. The system will provide video conferencing and teleradiology between specialists at MGH and Baraga County Memorial Hospital in L’Anse, Helen Newberry Joy Hospital in Newberry, Schoolcraft County Memorial Hospital in Manistique and Ontonagon County Memorial Hospital in Ontonagon. Upper Great Lakes Educational Technologies Inc. received the grant. MGH and the four other hospitals are required to provide matching funds. “The telemedicine system, which is scheduled to go online within the next year, will provide people who live in remote areas quick access to MGH’s advanced medical services without having to travel,” said Sally Davis, MGH director of education, in a hospital news release.

60 years ago

HOUGHTON – Omission of the word “mining” from Michigan Tech’s new formal name will not bring any lessening of emphasis on the field of earth sciences, according to Dr. J.R. Van Pelt, Tech president. For more than three-quarters of a century, Tech has been identified, by name as well as curriculum, with the mining industry. This week, its official name became Michigan Technological University. “This change is not a negative one for mining, but a positive one for the university as a whole,” Dr. Van Pelt said. “We have a mining heritage, and are justly proud of that heritage. We will continue to be a first-rate mining school, but Tech is outstanding in other fields as well. The new name is descriptive of our overall role in the field of higher education.” According to survey figures released recently by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Michigan Tech ranks first in size in Michigan and third in the nation in mining engineering. The survey was based on number of degrees granted in 1960-61 among 242 engineering schools in the nation. Tech currently has 42 students enrolled in mining engineering, which represents a 30 percent increase over 1962-63.