Out of the past: April 26

1999

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It began with a false rumor about a bomb threat, a rumor that may have been started by students wanting to get out of a test; last week’s school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, certainly fueled the spread of the rumor; the result Friday was that about 300 of the 950 students at Jackson High School and about 200 of the 600 students at Jackson Middle School stayed home for the day; the number of students who stayed home from Jackson Junior High School and the elementary schools is unavailable.

Housing construction is up in Cape Girardeau, surpassing both state and national percentages in an increase over building of a year ago; the city’s Division of Inspection Services reports that construction of single-family homes rose slightly over 1998 totals during the first quarter of 1999; that increase came despite one of the slowest January construction starts in the past five years.

1974

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The Delta Queen, one of the last survivors of the Mississippi riverboat legacy, stops here in the morning to let its passengers take a look at Cape Girardeau; the Queen, which has Cincinnati, Ohio, as its home port, departs from the Broadway wharf at noon on the return leg of a two-day excursion out of St. Louis; about three-fourths capacity — 141 passengers — mostly St. Louisans, are aboard for the boat’s first trip of the season.

Kindness, friendship, creativity, scholarship and work — these and many other attributes of 18 faculty members and administrators who served Southeast Missouri State University with distinction during its first century are saluted at a dinner on the campus; six of the 18 are living, and they and their guests are on hand to hear Dr. Fred B. Goodwin, a graduate of the university and chairman of the school’s Division of Language and Literature, declare that “No better symbols exist by which to chart the direction of our second 100 years.”

1949

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The third annual session of the Moore Institute of Human Relations gets underway at State College in the evening with professor Phillips Bradley of the University of Illinois speaking on “The Process of Collective Bargaining”; more lectures will be held tomorrow and an open forum will conclude the institute Thursday morning.

Dr. D.B. Elrod escaped injury yesterday afternoon in a minor mishap to his airplane, when it struck a hole in a field near Bertrand and nosed over on its propeller, bending it; Elrod was flying the plane and was taxiing on landing, when the aircraft hit the hole; he was en route to see a patient when the accident happened.

1924

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Solution of the problem of the installation of the proposed Normal sewer, in so far as the question of the property to be included is concerned, is no nearer settlement after a meeting of interested property holders with the City Council last night; the council will lay out the sewer district as far as possible to accommodate all who want in and to leave out many of those who don’t want in; for those who seriously object, the courts will be called upon to settle the question.

Goodyear III, the large racing balloon that passed over Cape Girardeau late Thursday night in the national balloon elimination race, comes to earth in southeastern Minnesota, having covered a distance of approximately 110 miles from the starting point, Kelly Field, Texas, to win the race.

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.