Out of the past

25 years ago: March 21, 1984

Eighty-seven Southeast Missouri State University students are evacuated from a Greek housing unit by an early morning fire; members of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and the university's football team return to their rooms after little more than an hour.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Bishop Bernard Law, after years of serving the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Catholic Diocese, is making his pilgrimage to Boston, where he will be consecrated archbishop; Law delivered the prayer yesterday to open Congress.

50 years ago: March 21, 1959

Opening new streets in Cape Girardeau isn't an unusual thing, but crews chose a pretty rough spot for the latest street, which will run south from Independence Street through a dense growth of willows and other underbrush to the location of a proposed shopping center lying north of William Street.

Southeast Missouri's 140th Infantry will undergo an extensive reorganization; the plan won't affect location or strength of present companies, but will separate the regiment into two battle groups.

75 years ago: March 21, 1934

Yesterday, Cape Girardeau voters elected two candidates for mayor and six for the three commissioners' posts; mayoral winners were Edward L. Drum and H.H. Haas; commission candidates are Frank Batchelor, Paul R. Brooks, Lewis H. Butler, Harry L. Coffman, Phillip H. Steck and Louis Wittmor.

Jackson High School's 1934 state baskeball champions were honored by the Rotary Club yesterday; the team consists of Capt. Hugh Seabaugh, George Godwin, Doris Nothdurft, Robert Rodgers, Wilson Godwin, Harold Kiehner, Grover Crites and Elwood Godwin.

100 years ago: March 21, 1909

The Rev. J.I. Ayers, the new pastor of the Jackson Baptist church, delivers his first sermon at his new charge in the morning; previously, Ayers was pastor at Aux Vasse, Mo.

The Rev. Dr. W.F. McMurray, corresponding secretary of the board of church extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, occupies the pulpit at both the morning and evening services.

-- Sharon K. Sanders