Out of the past 12/22/13

1988

Three people are killed when a Saint Francis Medical Center Air Evac helicopter crashes and burns in a fog-shrouded field southwest of Cape Girardeau; dead are James Rhodes, 7, son of Sandra Wilson of Marion, Ill.; flight nurse Karen Scherer, 22, of Anna, Ill., and respiratory therapist Julie Huttegger, 22, of Cape Girardeau; the pilot, Sheldon Rudzek, 39, of Cape Girardeau, is in critical condition at a local hospital.

Unable to reach an agreement on an annexation dispute, the city councils of Cape Girardeau and Jackson are vowing to battle it out in the courts.

1963

Winter's first snowstorm rides into Southeast Missouri on the wings of a biting northwest wind and an icy 10 degrees in Cape Girardeau; Lee L. Albert, local weather observer, measures the depth of the snow at 4 1/2 inches.

Members of the congregation of Westminster Presbyterian Church approve the construction of a $127,500 education building, the first of three units to be built on a 6 1/2-acre site at the northeast corner of Cape Rock Drive and Perryville Road.

1938

"Legs" Lottes, in a letter to The Missourian, reports he will quit growing lima beans in San Diego; he says he and three other fellows found a gold mine at Black Mountain; he predicts: "One of these days I am going to be a rich boy instead of a poor boy, if our gold mine holds out long enough."

Around 150 boys participate in the first Jackson Optimist Club's Christmas Turkey Chase at the public school football stadium; those boys who catch their birds are Melvin Kasten, George Sandvoss, Harold Illers, Charles Wolters, John Blaylock and William Lewis.

1913

The beautiful little bungalow Jennie Crowder recently built in Commerce, Mo., was destroyed by fire at midnight last night, and Crowder barely escaped the flames herself; Lucy Masterson of Cape Girardeau, who was spending the night, also had a narrow escape.

Engelbert R. Whitney, 67, a once prominent resident of Cape Girardeau County, died at the county poor farm Saturday; Whitney was the second superintendent of the county farm, from 1876 to 1880.

__Sharon K. Sanders __