Out of the past 1/28/06

25 years ago: Jan. 28, 1981

Absenteeism because of influenza is running as high as 30 percent in four Illinois school districts, and in the Cairo School District, flu has forced the cancellation of classes; the flu bug may have leveled off in the Cape Girardeau public schools, with only 10 percent of the district's 4,348 pupils absent last week.

Two of the 11 sets of new traffic signals in Cape Girardeau's continuing intersection improvement project have been activated, and a third set of signals, at Independence Street and West End Boulevard, is expected to be switched on today.

50 years ago: Jan. 28, 1956

Survey parties from the St. Louis office of the Corps of Engineers have been at work this week, and a conference with the prospective contractor has been arranged for next week as preliminaries in the start of construction of the North Main Street levee system.

Tentative plans for the construction this year of a new $80,000 rectory for St. Mary's Church on William Street immediately behind the church building are announced by Monsignor Marion F. Forst, pastor; while the rectory could probably be built without removing the existing parish house, Forst says razing of that structure will allow for the expansion of the school playground.

75 years ago: Jan. 28, 1931

Dr. L.F. Popp appears before the city council inquiring about the legal steps necessary in laying out a special sewer district; Popp, a member of the Popp & Springer Realty Co., says a number of property owners in the western end of the city desire to have a connection for their property made with one of the sanitary sewers near that section of the city.

Sale of the Alexander Telephone Co., in Illinois to the Southeast Missouri Telephone Co., has been approved by the Illinois Commerce Commission; the purchase price is reported to have been $6,000.

100 years ago: Jan. 28, 1906

The Rev. U.G. Robinson, assistant state superintendent of the Missouri anti-saloon league of St. Louis, preaches at several church here; at 11 a.m. he speaks at the Presbyterian church on "Church Cooperation"; at 3 p.m. he is at the Methodist Church for a union mass meeting, where he talks on "The Liquor Traffic: Not a Business, But a Crime."

The Rev. Johannes C. Jaech, pastor of the German Evangelical Salem Church, preaches at the Evangelical Church in Cape Girardeau in the afternoon.

-- Sharon K. Sanders