Out of the past 2/8/12

25 years ago: Feb. 8, 1987

Meadowlark Lemon and Betty Jean Robinson are guests at special meetings held at New Life World Outreach Center.

Jim Starnes of Sikeston, Mo., has purchased the Last Chance building at the southwest corner of Broadway and Pacific Street; the building, built in the mid-1800s by F.C. Krueger, will be restored to its original appearance; it has housed a bar or tavern for more than 100 years.

50 years ago: Feb. 8, 1962

Joan Lynn Baker of Cape Girardeau received a sympathetic reaction from Vickie Sue Bailey, right, during a dental check at Alma Schrader School in 1962. Dr. Richard Brown, president of the District Dental Study Club, made the examination, while Steve Paul Berkbigler watched carefully. (Missourian archive photo by G.D. "Frony" Fronabarger)

Hundreds of Cape Girardeau elementary school children undergo inspections of their teeth; the inspections are conducted by about a dozen dentists under the auspices of the Division of Health in Jefferson City, Mo.

The Cape Girardeau School District has withdrawn from the planning of an area vocational school, after Sikeston, Mo., was named the most logical location for such an institution; superintendent L.J. Schultz says a half-day's instruction wouldn't justify the distance to an area school.

75 years ago: Feb. 8, 1937

The traffic bridge tollhouse was damaged when it was struck by a large truck yesterday afternoon; 7 1/2 tons of coal the truck was hauling were scattered over Spanish and Morgan Oak streets; both the driver and the toll collector, Robert Zimmer, escaped injury.

NEW MADRID, Mo. -- In a courtroom jammed to capacity, a formal inquest by state authorities into the sinking of a government barge in the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway on Jan. 30 is started shortly before noon by coroner L.A. Richards and a jury of New Madrid men; witnesses include survivors of the tragedy, which took the lives of 24 levee workers.

100 years ago: Feb. 8, 1912

The suburban run of the Cape Girardeau & Chester has a mishap just before reaching the city that rattles the passengers considerably; three drummers, along with three other passengers, were aboard; they were coming up the grade approaching the west city limits, with the drummers singing hymns lustily; as they neared the refrain of "Nearer My God to Thee," they were shot up into the air and turned completely over; no one is injured in the mishap.

The pupils of Goshen School near Oak Ridge are now summoned to their books by the clarion tones of a fine new bell that was installed through the efforts of Zola English, the energetic teacher of that school.

-- Sharon K. Sanders