Out of the past 9/23/09

St. Mark Lutheran Church congregation held a mortgage-burning ceremony Thursday night in honor of completing the payment on the church parsonage, 2117 Sherwood Drive; the mortgage was taken in 1966.

Pind's Jewelry is having a closeout sale at its 4 N. Main St. location and will move to its store in West Park Mall around the middle of October; in business 33 years, Lester Pind came here from Poplar Bluff, Mo.; Robert Herbst has been affiliated with the business since 1970 and is co-owner with Pind.

50 years ago: Sept. 23, 1959

A new tax-billing computer, one of two delivered in Missouri and said to be one of the first 10 of its type in the United States, has been installed in the office of County Clerk Rusby Crites in Jackson.

NEW MADRID, Mo. -- With ideal weather that has prevailed for more than two weeks, the cotton harvest is humming; cotton has ripened 10 to 15 days earlier than usual; gins in counties of the district are running day and night, and still they can't keep pace with the harvest.

75 years ago: Sept. 23, 1934

The choir of Christ Evangelical Church provides music for the evening service, at which the Rev. Ralph E. Weisser is installed as pastor of Christ Evangelical; the installation is conducted by the Rev. Theodore Braun, father-in-law of Weisser.

Members of the First Baptist Church are in search of another pastor following a communication from Dr. Paul Weber, pastor of the First Baptist Church at Jefferson City, declining to accept the local congregation's pastoral call; Weber's congregation wouldn't release him from his contract.

100 years ago: Sept. 23, 1909

E.B. "Eddie" Cochems, the former St. Louis University football coach and now with the Barnes University team, has written for a game with the Normal School squad.

Paul P. Hinchey of De Soto, Mo., president of the Hinchey-Greer company of that city and Cape Girardeau, comes in on the Gulf train en route home from Malden, Mo., where he attended the Pythian convention.

-- Sharon K. Sanders