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f/8 and Be There
Fred Lynch
Fred Lynch retired in 2018 after capturing images for the Southeast Missourian since 1975, in that time moving from black-and-white to color, from film to digital and to video. The blog title is a nod to an earlier era of news photography and the 4x5 Speed Graphic: It's more important to be there for the shot than to worry about technical details.
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Mule Racing

Posted Monday, October 5, 2009, at 9:47 AM

This photo by G.D. Fronabarger was published Sept. 18, 1941 on the front page of the Southeast Missourian. Here is the caption:

Was this a race! Bearing, neck and neck, down the stretch to the finish line over the half-mile course, this white mule race highlighted the county racing program Wednesday afternoon during kids' day at the District Fair.

The two mules are ahead of a brown third mule, virtually obscured in this picture. At the left Miss Luella Wilkening of Oak Ridge pushed "Fritzie" across the mark to nose out "Kate," ridden by Bud Job of Cape Girardeau.

A year earlier, G.D. Fronabarger made a picture of horse racing at the re-opening of the SEMO District Fair in 1940. It was the first year for the fair at the new Arena Park. The last fair in Cape Girardeau was in 1929.

Horse racing at SEMO Fair

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  • Actually I remember when we had barrel racing (with horses) at Arena Park.

    Ahh the good ole days. Quite, no traffic, everything closed on Sundays, everyone knew everyone and we had more Mom and Pop businesses and "options" for kids to do things.

    -- Posted by Egotistical_Bigot on Tue, Oct 6, 2009, at 7:48 AM

  • The rider in this picture on the outside mule is my mom, Luella Wilkening Foster. She was probably about 13 when this picture was taken. Her father, my grandfather, was Charles (C.C.) Wilkening. He was a mule and cattleman with a farm in north Cape County.

    -- Posted by mbuhs on Tue, Jan 14, 2014, at 8:58 PM

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