Out of the past 12/18/06

25 years ago: Dec. 18, 1981

The Noon Optimist Club of Cape Girardeau donates a decorated Christmas tree to the Kinder Care day care center here; those contributing to the project are the Evening Optimist Club, Otasco, Dollar General Store, P.N. Hirsch Store, Sterling's, Super D and the Cape Girardeau County Juvenile Office.

Robert E. Jones, a loan officer at Colonial Federal Savings and Loan and a part owner of Kingsway Skate Land in Cape Girardeau, has been named an Honorary Kentucky Colonel by Kentucky Gov. John Y. Brown.

50 years ago: Dec. 18, 1956

WARDELL, Mo. -- A landowners group in the Little River Drainage District has voted to remove the district's offices from Cape Girardeau to a more central point, possibly Morehouse, Mo., and to change the district's attorneys, Oliver & Oliver of Cape Girardeau.

Stockholders of the SEMO District Fair Association has approved a $10 per member assessment, the first since it was organized in 1939; the decision came after it was explained that the fair's operating deficit last year was $407.61 and that certain permanent improvements must be made before the 1957 fair to meet state health requirements.

75 years ago: Dec. 18, 1931

Investigation into the disappearance eight days ago of Imogene Hector turns to a search centering in Cape Girardeau for the author of an extortion letter demanding payment of $100 for the safe return of the missing Delta school girl; a typewritten letter, postmarked in Cape Girardeau, was received by her father, Louis Hector, yesterday.

H.H. Haas of Cape Girardeau is reappointed by the county court as a member of the county highway commission for a four-year term.

100 years ago: Dec. 18, 1906

P.A. Hoch returns from Chicago with his two little girls after an absence of almost two months; one of the girls has always had an affliction of the throat, which impaired her speech; Hoch took her to Chicago, where she underwent an operation which promises to be entirely successful.

J.T. Williams, the night watchman at the Normal School, and his wife go down to Edna to close a deal for a big lot of land in that village.

-- Sharon K. Sanders