These are some highlights from the News Journal on Oct. 24, 1968:

National headlines

‘3 Astronauts Are Debriefed By Technicians’

• “CAPE KENNEDY, Fla. (AP) — The Apollo 7 astronauts, back from 11 days in orbit, continue meetings with project officials here today and confer with three other spacemen who may fly around the moon in December. Discussions between technical experts and Apollo 7 pilots Walter M. Schirra Jr., Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham will have a bearing on whether the Apollo 8 astronauts get a go-ahead to rocket moonward or make another earth-orbital voyage. The Apollo 8 pilots — Air Force Col. Frank Borman, Navy Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. and Air Force Major William A. Anders — rehearsed Wednesday how to escape from launch pad emergencies.

Locally

• The East Clinton Players were rehearsing “The Wizard of Oz” with some of the main characters listed as George Hartley as the Cowardly Lion, Wayne Smith as the Scarecrow, Debbie Hutchins as the Wicked Witch of the West, and Randy Mueller as the Wizard.

• In a battle of unbeatens, Wilmington’s eighth-grade football team bet Franklin 6-0 as Ted Vance scored the game’s only touchdown. on a 17-yard pass from Robert Raizk. “Ron Kirk was the offensive and defensive star of the game with 111 big yards rushing on 12 carries and on defense he was in on the tackles numerous times.”

• A photo showed “Tommy Buckreitz, seven months old, gives proof of his birth to Mrs. James Tagg, registrar of births in Clinton County, as she prepares to issue his mother, Mrs. Fred Buckreitz, Lynchburg Route 2, a photostat of the birth certificate.”

• A photo showed the Blanchester Women’s Republican Club’s “lovelies” rehearsing to entertain featuring “Mrs. Louis B. Nuhn, Mrs. Earl Hadley, Mrs. William Hampton, Mrs. Richard Clifton and Mrs. Gordon Swigert. Mrs. Herman Jung is president of the club which is one of the most cooperative and energetic in the county.”

• Showing at the Murphy Theatre: “It’s a Ring-A-Ding Laugh Affair” as Walt Disney presents “The Parent Trap.” Coming soon was the big Halloween Midnite Spook Show with “Death Curse of Tartu” and “Sting of Death.”