Seventy years ago, Helen Coghill, Maureen Beckman, Martha Boeckman, Marjorie VonBank, Luverne Beckius, Elizabeth Ann Lattery, May Elizabeth Stocker, Juvinus Pauly, Thomas Stocker, Charles Lambrecht, Urban Hartman, Merwin Hennes, Ervin Bendzick, James Kersting, Edward Gregory, Christian Schmitt, Robert Maus, Virgil Wolf, Robert Wolf, Thomas Havel, Gerald Seifert, and Cletus Link took their first holy communion at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

Hope Lutheran Church will host Financial Peace University, a 13-week program to help families handle their money, beginning at 6:30 p.m. March 24 at the church, 201 Hope Ave. in Jordan.

The course will teach common-sense principles and small group accountability for finance. It is taught by Dave Ramsey, the author of “Total Money Makeover.”

The cost is $149 for a course kit, which includes a workbook, audio lessons, budgeting forms, and a book, among other items.

For more information, call the church at 952-492-5902.

Fifty years ago, the Jordan mayor made a proclamation that all businesses close for three hours of Good Friday afternoon.

For more information, read the Looking Back column in the April 3 issue of the Jordan Independent. Read it online in the Print Edition section, or subscribe by going to www.jordannews.com/subscribe.

Here's what's been going on in and around New Prague lately, according to the New Prague Times:

- Bruce Porvaznik's drawings of the flag raising at Iwo Jima and Gen. Douglas MacArthur on an envelope won a contest run by the military history magazine Armchair General. Porvaznik is a New Prague resident.

- Anthony Teagues of New Prague, aka Mr. Cota Cota, releases his sixth hip hop album, "Work Ethic - 101," in May.