Out of the past: Aug. 26

1995

The Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents voted to hire consultant Allan Ostar of Academic Search Consultation Service of Washington to aid its search for a new university president; board president Donald Harrison is the only regent who was on the board when the university went through a lengthy search to hire Dr. Kala Stroup five years ago.

The Motor Vessel Mississippi, the largest diesel towboat ever built in the United States, is moored at the foot of Themis Street; it's here to pick up the members of the Mississippi River Commission, who on Sunday will head south on its annual low-water tour of the Lower Mississippi River Valley.

1970

Voters in the Jackson School District will decide Oct. 13 the fate of a bond issue to build a new elementary school at Jackson; this is the second time this proposition has been submitted to voters, having been defeated in May; the only major change between the two propositions is the cost; in May, the figure was $705,000, but this has been raised to $745,000, reflecting new labor contracts in the building trades as well as increasing cost of materials.

New plans for the improvement of the hazardous Bloomfield Road-Kingshighway intersection have been completed and may be submitted to the Cape Girardeau City Council and State Highway Department for consideration in the near future; the plans call for the straightening of Bloomfield on both sides of the highway and some widening of the pavement.

1945

Christ Evangelical Church congregation holds its annual picnic at the old fairgrounds on Gordonville Road; the picnic begins immediately following the morning worship service; a covered-dish luncheon is served, meat and coffee being furnished; a supper is also served on the grounds.

Home only a short time from European battlefields, Capt. B.J. West, chaplain, is the guest speaker in the evening at First Baptist Church.

1920

Expecting to reach the 500 mark in the high school the first week of enrollment, Aug. 30 to Sept. 4, and to near the 3,000 mark in the city's public schools, superintendent J.N. Crocker and his staff of 68 teachers are arranging for a big opening this year; in the last 10 years, the total public school enrollment has increased from 1,307 in the year 1909-1910 to 2,596 last year.

Concrete foundation material for the new ward school building in Fort D Highlands was poured into the forms this week, and brick-laying will begin at once; practically all the material, held up all summer by a congestion of freight and strikes and general upset in industrial conditions, is now assembled, and construction will proceed.

-- Sharon K. Sanders