Out of the past: April 16

1996

G. Warren Smith, president of Southeastern Louisiana University at Hammond, and his wife are scheduled to visit Southeast Missouri State University this week; a finalist for the presidency of the local university, Smith will meet with the Board of Regents, faculty, staff, students and public in a series of meetings Wednesday and Thursday.

Port authority officials opened bids on a half-million-dollar project yesterday, the first step toward getting sewers, railroad tracks and paved roads to port businesses; last fall port authority board members let a contract for street work on Harbor Road and River Road near the port; now contractors will have to grade and pave part of Rushing Road, grade an area for railroad tracks, loop a water line to prevent supply cutoffs and install a sanitary sewer system.

1971

Vandals transferred the rifle held since 1911 by the Union soldier atop the memorial fountain in Common Pleas Courthouse Park to the flagpole just outside the entranceway to the courthouse Monday night; no one noticed the gun missing from the statue until Thursday; a reporter for KZYM radio, David Hente, cutting across the lawn yesterday, noted the rifle was missing.

Speaking at a meeting yesterday of the Cape West Rotary Club, Lt. J.W. Kinder of the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department said narcotics of all kinds are so readily available in Cape Girardeau you can buy them "along any block on Broadway"; he warned the situation is going to get worse unless a concerted program is undertaken at once to deal with the problem; a recent investigation identified 24 pushers in Cape and eight in Jackson.

1946

The Rev. Charles H. Morton of Potosi, Missouri, and for 21 years pastor of the Cape Girardeau church and the senior minister of the area, is elected moderator of the Potosi Presbytery as it opens its centennial meeting at the Presbyterian Church with ministers, elders and church representatives in attendance.

The first work on the new 249-acre senior camp site for Southeast Missouri Area Council of Boy Scouts, located at Moore's Point on Wappapello Reservoir, was done Saturday when 15 scouts from Senior Troops 4 of Cape Girardeau and 51 of Chaffee, Missouri, cleared the right of way for a half-mile road from a farm-to-market route to the site; the tract was recently acquired by lease from the federal government and is one mile above the lake's big dam and on the south side of the reservoir.

1921

Submarine chasers, numbers 63 and 64, assigned to the Naval Reserve District as training ships and manned by officers and men of the Naval Reserve of St. Louis, anchored at the Cape Girardeau levee late yesterday afternoon; the boats are commanded by Capts. W.G. Veatch and W.P. Post, both of St. Louis; both boats, as well as the entire complements of both, saw service during the World War.

KENNETT, Mo. -- Al Nenninger, lightweight boxer from Cape Girardeau, sent "Battling Babe" Marford through the ropes on the reverse end of a sleeping punch in the first 40 seconds of a scheduled eight-round match here last night; unable to take the severe punishment dolled out by Nenninger, Marford hit the mat twice in the 40 seconds before the knockout punch.

-- Sharon K. Sanders