Week of April 17 - 23

April 23, 1924

THRONG SEES NEW STEAMER 'GIRARDEAU' DEDICATED

Five Thousand Persons on Levee to See Eagle Packet Company's Newest and Fastest Boat Dedicated and Christened

More than 5,000 persons gathered at the riverfront here today to welcome the new Steamer Cape Girardeau.

Crowding the levee from the lower end of Broadway to Independence Street and packed hundreds deep along the landing place, Cape residents enthusiastically greeted the beautiful new steamer in one of the biggest demonstrations here in years.

Swinging downstream with full steam ahead, the steamer swept majestically past the landing place, giving onlookers a good opportunity to see her "do her stuff." Racing on down to a point near St. Vincent's College, the steamer wheeled and made her way swiftly back to the landing place...

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April 18, 1979

Search continues for missing Illmo girl in station abduction

SCOTT CITY -- Authorities are searching for a 19-year-old rural Illmo girl who apparently was abducted Tuesday during the robbery of a self-service gasoline station where she works as an attendant.

The missing girl is Cheryl Ann Scherer, who is employed at Rhodes Pump-Ur-Own Station in Scott City.

Scott County Sheriff Bill Ferrell said about $480 was taken from the open cash register of the station.

No witnesses to the robbery have been found. The sheriff said his office was notified of the robbery and Miss Scherer's disappearance about noon Tuesday by a relative of Miss Scherer who happened to stop by the station.

Scherer's purse was found inside the service station office. Her car was parked next to the office with the keys inside, according to Scott County deputy Roger Bartolo...

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April 20, 1995

Blast stops time in Oklahoma City

By Judy Gibbs

The Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A car bomb ripped deep into America's heartland Wednesday, killing more than 20 people and leaving 300 missing in a blast that gouged a nine-story hole in a federal office building. Seventeen of the dead were said to be children.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the deadliest U.S. bombing in 75 years.

At least 200 people were injured -- 58 critically, fire chief Gary Marrs said -- and scores were feared trapped in the rubble of the Alfred P. Murrah Building more than nine hours after the bombing...