Out of the past: Aug. 25

1997

Former Southeast Missouri State University standout Marquis Walker has apparently once again secured an opening-day roster spot in the National Football League; Walker, a defensive back, survived the St. Louis Rams' final round of cuts on Sunday; he played in eight games for the Rams last season.

For the third year in a row, the Sixers from St. Louis were winners of SlamFest '97 at Indian Park yesterday; it was the sixth year for the 10-team double elimination basketball tournament; teams came from Cape Girardeau, St. Louis, Malden, Sikeston and Charleston, Missouri, and Chicago, Cairo and Mounds, Illinois.

1972

Armstrong Cork Company's sale of 29.5 acres of land this week to the Greater Cape Girardeau Development Corp., is the second Armstrong has made to the corporation; the first was in 1963, when the corporation purchased 120 acres north of Nash Road for industrial development; Armstrong purchased a little over 1,100 acres of land in the Diversion Channel-Municipal Airport area about 12 years ago, and retains slightly more than 1,000 acres for possible future development.

VIP Industries, formerly the Community Sheltered Workshop, is applying for federal funds both for a new building and for additional equipment; Jerry Householder, new manager of the workshop, says the operation needs more space despite the fact it recently moved from its original home on Good Hope Street to a larger building at 533 Good Hope.

1947

Pure Ice Co., 314 S. Ellis St., circa 1920s.Southeast Missourian archive

Jim Dean, manager of Pure Ice Co., says an ice rationing program has been put into effect at the platforms of both of the plants, and that they will be closed at night to platform sales in order to aid in alleviating the acute ice shortage in Cape Girardeau; he says there is no rationing from the eight or nine truck which are in operation.

Tractor trailers, hauling rides and shows, and house trailers and trucks arrived Saturday and Sunday in Jackson, all crews of the Mound City Shows which will open Wednesday for Jackson Homecomers; the vehicles are all parked on the lower drive in the City Park by arrangement of the American Legion, but by tomorrow they will be pulled into the business district; this will be the first Homecomers in six years because of the war.

1922

The mystery surrounding the disappearance of R.D. McKinnis of Cape Girardeau deepened yesterday, when his automobile was found in the Mississippi River at the foot of Themis Street; McKinnis, married with six children, disappeared from his home June 8.

President Joseph Serena, Teachers College president, says a six-week delay in the shipping of stone for the new education building on the campus will probably mean a similar delay in completion of the structure next year; the building will be three stories high, with suites of rooms for the kindergarten, primary, intermediate, junior and senior high schools, a combination auditorium and gymnasium, a domestic science room and a laboratory for physics and biology classes.

-- Sharon K. Sanders