Out of the past: April 11

1997

Four Cape Girardeau educators have been named 1997 Chamber of Commerce Educators of the Year: Dr. Barbara Capshaw Kohlfeld, administration; Catherine L. Kapfer, elementary education; Kathy Wright, secondary education; and Dr. Keith Russell, Southeast Missouri State University.

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Carr Textiles Inc. has decided to hang its hat in Chaffee; Carr Textiles, a manufacturer of hat components and materials, signed a five-year lease with the city for the old Thorngate building on Main Street; the lease has five, five-year renewal options that could put the growing company in Chaffee for 30 years.

1972

A Cape Girardeau officer, Navy Ens. Daniel A. Beatty, son of Mr. and Mrs. C.E. Beatty of Cape Girardeau, is aboard the destroyer John R. Craig, which was hit by Communist gunfire yesterday off the Vietnamese shore; the Associated Press says the Craig was hit by enemy shore batteries, but there were no casualties; the Craig received hull and equipment damage.

There is now a candidate on both the Democratic and Republican tickets for the office of Cape Girardeau County coroner; R. Gene Wiggins of Jackson, an insurance company representative, filed yesterday for the Democratic nomination; George F. Rouse of Jackson, who operates the Cape County Private Ambulance Service, previously filed as a Republican candidate for the office.

1947

Surging upwards under pressure of overnight torrential rains, which covered a wide area, the Mississippi River reaches a stage of 33.2 feet at Cape Girardeau in the morning, surpassing the predicted crest of 33 feet, which wasn't scheduled to arrive until tomorrow; heavy rain before midnight flooded streets, and all streams in the area overflowed; Jackson saw its first real test of the newly cut channel of Hubble Creek and saw the water carried away without overflowing surrounding territory as it formerly did many times a year.

Almost 2,000 high school pupils are again at State College for the second round of activity in the annual Southeast Missouri High School Music Festival, to which have been added numerous agricultural contests.

1922

River watchers warn that the Mississippi will be at 36 feet tomorrow at noon in Cape Girardeau and possibly 37 or 38 feet by the end of the week; upon receipt of the warning, those in charge of business houses along Water Street begin moving goods to the upper stories of their buildings or take merchandise to other parts of the city; early in the day, Frisco Railroad workers begin piling sandbags along the east side of its tracks, in an effort to keep the water out of the passenger station on South Main Street; in South Cape Girardeau, Leming Lumber Co. and other lumber firms are procuring cables with which to fasten lumber piles to keep them from floating away.

The stiffest fine yet doled out to a violator of the national prohibition law in Federal Court here is imposed by Judge C.B. Faris, when he sentences Tom Reems, farmer of Stoddard County, to four months in the Cape Girardeau County jail and a fine of $250 for possessing a still and for making liquor; in court Monday, Herman Herbst, former proprietor of the Central Bar, was fined $190 without costs, after he pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing liquor.

-- Sharon K. Sanders