Out of the past: April 17

1996

PATTON, Mo. -- Despite petition drives and new faces on the Meadow Heights Board of Education, an earlier decision not to rehire former high school principal Rick Chastain will stand; the board voted 4-3 last night not to renew Chastain's contract as high school principal; Chastain maintains he was fired because he blew the whistle on the district's former superintendent, who added fictitious names to attendance records.

Cape Girardeau will make legal history April 24 when three female state appeals court judges hold court here; it will mark the first time in Missouri that state appeals court cases have been heard by an all-female panel of judges; chief judge of the Court of Appeals Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis Kathianne Knaup Crane and judges Mary L. Rhodes and Mary Kathryn Hoff will hold court at 9 a.m. in the Common Pleas Courthouse; they will hear oral arguments in five cases.

1971

Thomas Lemmons, a Sikeston High School sophomore, and Glyn Jarrell, a senior at Dexter High School, are the top winners at the Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair; they will compete with youth from around the world in the International Science and Engineering Fair at Kansas City, Missouri, May 11-14.

The ever-expanding retail business picture in Cape Girardeau is reflected in a report from the Missouri Department of Revenue which, for the first time, elevates the community to the $100 million category; based on the three cents on the dollar state sales tax, buyers of goods on the local retail market during 1970 paid a total of $99,935,770; for this the purchasers paid a sales tax of $1,799,027.10.

1946

Relocation of a portion of Highway 74 from a point on South Sprigg Street to Highway 61 is favored by the Chamber of Commerce transportation committee as the No. 1 road improvement project for Cape Girardeau; this view was expressed last night at a dinner meeting of the committee at Colonial Tavern attended by State Highway Department officials from Jefferson City and Sikeston, Missouri, and members of the Special Road District Commission.

The board of trustees of Southeast Hospital has appointed a committee to investigate the possibility of building an addition to the hospital, which would include a department for the isolation of contagious disease cases; several weeks ago the Southeast Missouri Medical Society went on record as favoring establishing an isolation ward or hospital for handling contagious cases in the district.

1921

The Rt. Rev. Frederick F. Johnson, Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Missouri, celebrates the rite of Holy Communion in the morning at Christ Episcopal Church; no morning worship service is held at the church, in order to allow the congregation to attend the service at Teachers College; Bishop Johnson delivers the baccalaureate sermon there.

Louis Hecht has bought the store property at 49 Main St., from E.G. Gramling, now occupied by the Men's Toggery; it has a frontage of 30 feet and depth of 100 feet; Hecht says he bought the property as an investment and doesn't expect to occupy it himself.

-- Sharon K. Sanders