Out of the past: Aug. 19

1992

A group of businesses that want to form a health care alliance in an effort to reduce health insurance costs pitched the idea yesterday to local physicians, who said they are fed up with high health care costs but aren't to blame; 29 local businesses are involved in the group, called the Southeast Missouri Business Group on Health.

Washington Elementary School playground equipment is getting a new look; a group of youngsters who are members of the Cape Girardeau Junior Optimist Club from the nearby SEMO Community Treatment Center is using bright red, yellow and green paints to give swings and climbing bars a brilliant boost of color.

1967

The Southeast Missouri Boy Scout Council this week expressed its appreciation to R.B. Potashnick, Cape Girardeau contractor, for his construction of a seven-acre lake at Camp Lewallen; Cub Scouts Pat and Mike Ray, sons of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Ray, presented him a reproduction of the Norman Rockwell painting, "The Scoutmaster," as a thank you gift.

A new curriculum for teaching basic skills and a new staff member in the special education department of Central High School are expected to provide greater opportunities for handicapped youths of Cape Girardeau this year; Sue Dockins of Cape Girardeau has been hired as special education instructor to carry out the added Vocational Adjustment Counseling program.

1942

Preliminary to the actual start of construction of the new Texas to Illinois oil pipeline, survey, right of way and clearing crews are working along both the Missouri and Illinois sections of the line's route; construction should begin in the next few days.

With more than half of the ground broken, considerable progress is taking place in the preparation of the site for the new Army aviation training field on Highway 61; building construction is likely to begin within three weeks; all but a small amount of the corn crop has been removed from the site and the remainder should be gone by tomorrow; all but one of the 38 trees on the site have been felled; 12 tractors, pulling plows, discs and drags are operating on the site, while a couple dozen trucks and other pieces of equipment are engage in other operations; most of the work is being done by farmers who own land on or adjacent to the site.

1917

Mrs. J.C. Handy, wife of the pastor of Centenary Methodist Church, fills the pulpit during the evening worship service at Second Methodist Church, Ellis and Maple streets.

The two long blocks on William Street between Sprigg and Pacific streets stand a chance of being redeemed from the quagmire claiming them these many years; city officials have learned that the last legislature passed a law which gives the city the right to pave such blocks, whether the property owners fronting the street protest or favor the work.

-- Sharon K. Sanders