Calling all Jackson Homecomers queens

This year marks Jackson Homecomers centennial. Mark your calendars for a slew of special events from July 22 through 26.

Homecomers started with the dedication of the county courthouse and coincided with the inception of Jackson High School's football team.

Since the courthouse dedication, "there were some years during World War I and II that there were no Homecomers," said Dave Hitt, a city of Jackson Ward 2 alderman, who is leading the planning committee.

Already committees are working on everything from figuring out the best way to extract the time capsule embedded in the courthouse's cornerstone to rounding up the queens. An all-class reunion for Jackson High is in the works.

"We anticipate a lot of those folks will go to the school and come up to Homecomers," said Hitt, commander of Altenthal-Joerns American Legion Post 158. "That's just part of the experience."

Queen researcher Linda Penzel sent an e-mail days ago to everyone she knows and has already gotten word from "quite a few," but by no means enough, people. The first queen, Ruby Johnson Conrad, was elected in 1935. She still lives in Jackson.

Claueda Moran Barks, the former Miss Oran, was elected in 1958. In an e-mail, Barks told Penzel she still has the golden 50th Jackson Homecomers crown, her dress -- which still fits (jealous, anyone?) -- newspaper articles, black-and-white photos and her regal hand-painted portrait, done by Mrs. Joe (Marie) Haupt. Penzel is hoping to showcase some of these and other queens' items along Jackson's uptown shop windows.

Penzel has some names, such as Sherri Ulrich Punches (1973), but no year for Cindy Weber Grebing and, from sister and Touch of Jules shop owner Juli Naeger, Valerie Janet Klein.

"What's hard is their married names," Penzel said.

Gina Landewe of Cape Girardeau won the crown 20 years ago, after a neighbor urged her to enter. She remembers having fun, being nervous about public speaking and telling the crowd about her most-admired person, mom Virgie Beussink. Landewe never mentioned getting crowned to her three children, which include a daughter, Hannah, 8. She's lost track of her crown.

"My mother may have it. It was fun ... back then, if you won that contest then you went to the Missouri State Fair and competed for the Missouri State Fair queen in Sedalia," Landewe recalled, chuckling. "I did miserably there."

If you are a former queen or know how to find one, e-mail Penzel, lpenzel@yahoo.com or call the Jackson Chamber of Commerce, 243-8131.

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Today, Gov. Matt Blunt recognizes the late Rosa Louise McCauley. Born Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala., she's better known as Rosa Parks, the mother of the modern day civil rights movement. Her 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus sparked a yearlong boycott of that transit system. Countless streets have been named in her honor, including a stretch of Interstate 55 after the state was forced by court order to approve an adopt-a-highway application by members of the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK reportedly never cleaned Rosa Parks Highway and lost its status and signs on that stretch.

"I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people," she said at age 77. Parks died in Detroit in 2005.

Registered voters have the freedom to make important choices on Super Tuesday. Another civic duty is checking out today's city hall meetings: Cape Girardeau City Council convenes at 5 p.m.; Jackson Board of Aldermen meet at 7:30 p.m. Cape Girardeau County Commission meets at 9 a.m.

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Questions, suggestions or tips for Lost on Main Street? E-mail me at pmcnichol@semissourian.com or call 335-6611, extension 127