This day in history: Bear shot and given funeral after it escaped Natatorium Park cage. Students backed Hubert Humphrey for president at student convention at Gonzaga

From 1976: The student delegates at a simulated Democratic convention at Gonzaga University chose Hubert Humphrey as their 1976 presidential candidate and California Gov. Edmund G. Brown as his running mate.

This was a far cry from the actual choices made a few months later at the true Democratic National Convention: Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.

Carter did not even make the top three on the students’ final ballot.

Yet these students voted for some platform positions that were ahead of their time. They endorsed legalized abortion, decriminalization of marijuana, and Social Security reform.

Humphrey won on the fifth ballot after supporters of Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson threw their support to Humphrey.

Nearly 250 college and high school students from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana participated.

From 1926: A 2-year-old cinnamon bear escaped from its cage at Natatorium Park, with tragic results.

When park attendants discovered the bear missing, they spotted it in some nearby bushes. “A lively chase ensued” and the bear scampered up a tall spruce tree. The bear refused to come down and “no amount of coaxing would avail.”

Finally, the park superintendent ordered the bear shot.

“We hated to do this, but she got a little vicious and it wasn’t safe to take chances,” he said.

Authorities suspected that some unidentified boys might have “tampered with the cage locks and released the animal.”

The bear, who had been at the park since she was a cub, was given a funeral and “buried in the park under the shade of the pine trees.”