Out of the past: Aug. 13

1996

The lights were off, the classrooms and offices empty Monday at Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff, Missouri; the community college's 120 employees, from administrators to custodians, boarded three buses and traveled to Southeast Missouri State University for a day-long visit with their higher education counterparts; officials from both schools say the visit will improve the working relationship between Three Rivers and Southeast.

After consulting several wildlife biologists, local Humane Society officials say botulism caused the deaths and sickness among ducks at Capaha Park last week.

1971

As expected, the County Court establishes the county revenue tax rate at 50 cents per $100 assessed valuation for this year, some four cents higher than last year and the maximum permitted without a vote of the people.

PORTAGEVILLE, Mo. -- A new Missouri Delta Council is formed by the Missouri Cotton Producers Association at a meeting here; it is likely Cape Girardeau, Bollinger and Ripley counties will be asked to join the new council; in a single step, the board of directors and members of the MCPA vote to end its operations as a cotton group and to become an organization dedicated to helping the social and economic interests in the delta area.

1946

A suggestion that Cape Girardeau County do away with its County Home -- a proposal which had been discussed by the County Court -- and the property to be turned over to the state for enlargement into a state tuberculosis hospital was presented to the Rotary Club Monday by County Clerk Louis H. Schrader; he said more than one-third of the total annual county revenue is spent on indigents and in institutional care; the fact that old age assistance has come into being does nothing to relieve the situation, as residents of the County Home waive their rights to the maximum $40 per month to become wards of the county.

A new diagonal runway, 3,600 feet long, forming a triangle with the east-west and north-west runways, is being constructed at Consolidated School of Aviation, giving a three-way landing surface for planes using the field; the strip, longest of the three, has been graded, and grass is to be sown soon; it will then be rolled.

1921

Graduation exercises of the largest class in the history of Southeast Missouri Teachers College, at the close of the college's most successful year, were held last night in front of Academic Hall under the light of the stars; a large number of townspeople as well as students were on hand to witness 393 graduates receive their diplomas and to bid farewell to Dr. W.E. Dearmont, who is leaving the office of college president after 21 years.

Will Shivelbine, who has been an orchestra leader at Little Rock, Arkansas, for a year or more, has resigned his position and will return to Cape Girardeau; he will have charge of the music at Park Theater and will begin his duties Monday night.

-- Sharon K. Sanders