Out of the past: April 29

1996

April showers bring May flowers, but they also brought flash floods, hail and rising creeks to Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois yesterday; severe thunderstorms, hail and strong winds ripped through the area early Sunday evening, but no major damage was reported; no severe flooding was reported, despite the 1.26 inches of rain that fell Sunday; but rising waters coupled with sudden downpours threatened to overflow the banks of Cape La Croix, Apple and Byrd creeks in Cape Girardeau County.

Funding for the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport traffic control tower soared in the Missouri House but crashed in a Senate committee; the House had included $77,000 in the 1996-97 budget to help fund the airport tower in the wake of the Federal Aviation Administration's decision no longer to fund it; but the Senate appropriations committee removed the funding from a transportation bill before it reached the Senate floor.

1971

Cape Girardeau Postmaster Russell J. Fowler confirms what had been rumored for some time: Beginning May 29, the Cape Girardeau Post Office will offer call window service for a one-hour period Saturdays, or adjusted as required to meet local needs; all first-, second- and third-class post offices in the Cape Girardeau Sectional Center will have reduced Saturday window service.

CAIRO, Ill. -- Authorities remain without explanation as to the origin of explosives, ammunition and a few homemade bombs found in an abandoned building here; a truck driver, whose vehicle was being loaded nearby, found the cache Tuesday in an unused building associated with a grain elevator and warehouse.

1946

CAIRO, Ill. -- A contract between the Board of Commissioners and the Sarjem Corp., for purchase of the traffic bridge at Cape Girardeau by Alexander County, Illinois, has been extended 30 days apparently due to the filing of litigation attacking the proposed sale.

Rural teachers of Cape Girardeau County for the school year now closing averaged earning less than $1,000 each for the year -- an average of $914 -- according to the current issue of Missouri Schools, published by the State Department of Education; the county's 72 rural teachers average having 40.1 hours of college credit each, which is better than the average preparatory work for instructors in all counties of the State College district.

1921

Speaking last night at the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce meeting, Ben Dietrich of Blue Ribbon Ice and Fuel Co., charged that his two ice-manufacturing competitors have united to control the local retail business and freeze him out; Dietrich filed a statement with the chamber declaring a monopoly now exists which will have a bad effect on the general public; Dietrich's competitors are Cape Brewery and Ice Co. and Morrison Ice and Fuel Co.

Fire Chief Fred Meyers, keeper of Cape Girardeau's new police bloodhound, has received instructions from Charles Griffith of Sebree, Kentucky, from whom the animal was purchased, telling him how to keep the man-hunter in trim; he will, in the future, have practice runs almost every day.

-- Sharon K. Sanders