Jackson chamber reaches century mark

(This article has been updated.)

The older I get, the less enthusiastic I become about my birthdays.

However, should I live long enough to see my 80th, 90th or perhaps even the 100th anniversary of my birth, then yes, those birthdays will be notable and worth celebrating.

There's apparently a 100th birthday coming up this week for an area organization that's also worth noting.

I became aware of the century milestone recently when Southeast Missourian librarian Sharon Sanders shared a copy of a Missourian clipping from May 20, 1921, 100 years ago Thursday.

The two-paragraph news note, filled with over-the-top language, read as follows (I have left the punctuation and grammar unchanged):

"Jackson again has a fighting, aggressive, up-and-going and honest to goodness commercial club. No, not a chamber of commerce nor a business men's league, but just an aggregation of live wires, banded together to get the old town out of the rut.

"The same spirit which, some years ago, made it possible to put over the bond issue for the new court house and jail, and in late years was instrumental in acquiring the branch of the shoe factory and the $80,000 high school, the same spirit actuated the citizens of Jackson to band together and organize themselves into a commercial organization which is not even named yet, but is full of vim."

About 10 days later, on June 1, 1921, the Missourian printed a follow up dispatch:

"Tomorrow night the commercial club meets for the purpose of adopting or rejecting the report of the committee on constitution and by-laws, and to transact such further business as may come before the meeting. The first propositions to tackle are the improving of roads within the township of Byrd and the procuring of a band for the city of Jackson. If properly encouraged, the musical talent within the city could band together into a very creditable organization."

The account of that meeting, as reported in the June 3, 1921, edition is below:

"Jackson now has a full-fledged commercial organization, to be known as the Jackson Chamber of Commerce. At a meeting at the court house last night, which was attended by about 40 citizens, the report of the committee on constitution and by-laws was heard, and the constitution was adopted, section by section, a lively debate resulting over of the paragraphs. In a like manner the by-laws were adopted. The temporary organization was then made permanent and consists of the following:

"F.E. Kies, president; W.O. Stacey, vice-president; William Bruening, secretary; J.H. Poe, treasurer; C.L. Grant, W.T. Ruff and L.A. Goodwin, executive committee. The membership dues were fixed and qualifications of members established. ... The ministers of the gospel may become honorary members without being required to pay dues. Membership may be obtained by citizens of Cape Girardeau county outside of the city of Jackson."

In conclusion, the article said, "it was an enthusiastic meeting and the Chamber of Commerce demonstrated that it is active, aggressive, alive and doing."

I scream, you scream for B-R ice cream

You may remember back in January I reported Baskin-Robbins was returning to Cape Girardeau and the ice cream store had a target opening date of May 1 in the West Broadway Plaza across the street from the Southeast Medical Plaza.

Obviously, May 1 has come and gone and there's no ice cream to be had, at least not yet.

Like many other construction projects these days, it appears the store's build out may have been delayed because of construction material delays or other issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, Becky Harding of Area Properties Real Estate told me last week a lease agreement has been signed and we'll eventually have Baskin-Robbins' "31 flavors" here again.

She also told me a salon has signed a lease agreement to occupy space in the completely remodeled building, which formerly housed a convenience store and Ken's Cape Cleaners. Watch for updates in the Business Notebook.

Barges and gasoline are moving again

The Mississippi River at Memphis reopened to river traffic Friday once engineers determined the I-40 bridge between Arkansas and Tennessee was not in imminent danger of collapse due to a "significant fracture" discovered in one of the bridge's support beams.

More than 60 vessels and approximately 1,000 barges were prevented from traveling under the bridge for several days last week.

And after being shut down for more than a week following a ransomware attack, the Colonial Pipeline is back in service after the company reportedly paid nearly $5 million to a Russian-tied hacker gang known as DarkSide. The cyber attack led to temporary spikes in gas prices and caused temporary price hikes and widespread shortages at thousands of gas stations in several states.

Meanwhile, DarkSide apparently shut down operations after receiving the ransom. I'd consider retiring, too, if someone gave me $5 million.

On a serious note, the incident should serve as a reminder to all of us to never open a suspicious link in an unsolicited email. No matter how safe you think the link might be, you could be opening your computer, iPad or even your phone to malware and viruses.

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