Out of the past: April 22

1999

​

Attorney Ben Lewis encouraged volunteers to continue building the walls of the community during the Volunteer Recognition Awards program sponsored by Area Wide United Way and Ameritech yesterday; recipients of awards for the volunteer work they do were Lillian Dean, outstanding youth volunteer; Vicki Rhew, outstanding adult volunteer; Irene Eaker, outstanding senior volunteer; and CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), outstanding volunteer organization.

Doors to the second Wal-Mart Supercenter in Cape Girardeau County opened yesterday; the newest Supercenter, a 112,000-square-foot store on East Jackson Boulevard in Jackson, includes 36 general merchandise departments; it has a full-line grocery store, vision center and pharmacy.

1974

​

G.B. Current, a national director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Saturday that President Richard Nixon, teetering on the brink of impeachment, is trying to take “Blacks and the poor and throw them to the wolves” in order to convince conservatives that he is still a “good risk”; Current told over 100 persons gathered for the association’s Region IV banquet at Holiday Inn that even today the NAACP “wrestles with racism and corruption in high places.”

Flash floods and tornadoes swept across parts of Missouri and Illinois yesterday, while in Cape Girardeau 1.69 inches of moisture was measured in nine hours of rainfall; at Alley Springs in Shannon County, the search continues for two persons reported missing after their camping trailer washed off the roadway into Jacks Fork River.

1949

​

Baptist ministers and laymen from over the district assemble at 465 N. Pacific St. in the afternoon as the Rev. S.D. Aubuchon, dean of the Southeast Missouri Baptist Foundation, turns the first spade of earth during ground-breaking ceremonies for the foundation’s new $75,000 building; the Foundation’s goal is to have the building program completed by Sept. 11, the 10th anniversary of the Foundation; the building program consists of construction of an annex to the rear of the present brick structure and refacing the entire building with Ste. Genevieve limestone to correspond with the other buildings on the State College campus.

A concert by 1,500 district high school pupils in the State College auditorium in the evening climaxes the second annual district music festival; guest conductor William B. Heyne of St. Louis and professor J. Clyde Brandt of the college music faculty, direct the 800-voice girls’ glee club, while Heyne and Frieda Rieck of the college music department direct the 500-voice mixed chorus; Heyne also conducts a 212-voice boys’ glee club.

1924

​

The ax falls, and two appointive city officers are removed outright, another is reduced in rank, and the duties of a third are divided, in one of the most extensive shakeups in city offices in Cape Girardeau in years; among actions taken by the City Council, Acting Chief of Police H.F. Wickham, head of the police force for 18 months, is reduced to a patrolman, and Arthur S. Whitener, a former chief of police, is named to fill the vacancy; F.A. Kage, police judge for the past several years, is removed in favor of Gust Schultz, present justice of the peace and Broadway barber.

The Cape Girardeau City Council last night awarded contracts for the paving of nearly two miles of streets here to W.P. McGeorge & Co. of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on a total bid of $81,985.64; the company’s bid on the 10 separate projects were the lowest of four submitted.

Southeast Missourian librarian Sharon Sanders compiles the information for the daily Out of the Past column. She also writes a blog called “From the Morgue” that showcases interesting historical stories from the newspaper. Check out her blog at www.semissourian.com/ history.