Forty-five years ago, the big news at the commissary included the addition of canned 7-Up and Cheetos.
Here’s a quick glance back at some of the headlines from The Arabian Sun over the past 75 years.
Aug. 11, 1946
All women in Dhahran are cordially invited to the regular monthly meeting of the Dhahran Women's Club at the Clubhouse theater on Monday, Aug. 12, at 3 p.m. A program has been arranged for your entertainment.
Mrs. W.E. Fry is hostess for the day. Her co-hostesses are Mrs. W.H. Needham and Mrs. A.W. Nordling.
Aug. 5, 1961
A group of 31 Saudi students arrived in Dhahran on Aug. 5 to tour Aramco facilities and installations as guests of the company. The group attended a banquet in honor of the visiting Makkah Sports Club in the Dhahran Dining Hall.
Commissary Department Manager Ali Baluchi inspects produce stocks in the Dhahran Retail Store chill room. Locally grown fruits and vegetables were stored there along with products from as far away as Martinique, a source of avacados on sale.
Aug. 11, 1976
Fifty new food and convenience items will soon be found on Aramco commissary shelves, thanks to the responses to a survey conducted in early June in the commissaries in Abqaiq, Dhahran, al-Munirah, and Ras Tanura, Commissary Department manager Ali Baluchi told The Arabian Sun this week.
The items — which range from avocado dip to Zud sink cleaner — were elected on the basis of the 1,500 questionnaires returned in the four areas. The questionnaires were tabulated according to family size and responded nationality, so that orders might include some items for bachelors, some for families, and some to satisfy the requests of each of the nationality groups that shop at Aramco stores.
Specialty items that have already been ordered are sugarless gum, soy beans, water chestnuts, marshmallows, papayas, pizza mix, avocado dip, and other assorted frozen dips, a wide assortment of diet drinks, and lighter fluid. Brands were selected by the Commissary Department unless specific brand names such as canned 7-Up, Fritos, Alpen, Comet, Lysol, Woolite, Mr. Soft fabric softener, and Zud stainless-steel sink cleaner.
John J. Kelberer
August 1991
John J. Kelberer, former chief executive officer and chairman of the Board of Directors of the Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), died quietly at his home in Austin, Texas, early June 26. He was 64 years old.
Kelberer started work at the Aramco enterprise as a communications engineer with Tapline (the Trans-Arabian Pipeline Company), an Aramco subsidiary, in the fall of 1950.
He was appointed CEO and board chairman of Aramco in January 1978 and relinquished those positions in April 1988 as a prelude to the formation of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, or Saudi Aramco, later that year. He was Aramco's longest-serving chief.
Aug. 2, 2006
The Saudi Aramco Medical Services Organization (SAMSO) recently announced the receipt of the 1,000th cheergram for an inpatient at the Dhahran Health Center.
"Patients smile a lot when they receive a cheergram," said Monira Al-Jindan, coordinator of Summer Volunteers at SAMSO. The cheergrams were developed by SAMSO's Websites Team and Hospital Volunteers in 2005 as simple messages employees can write and send by visiting SAMSO's website. The messages — which can be in English or Arabic — are then printed and delivered to patients by hospital volunteers.
— The Arabian Sun: August 08, 2021