Out of the past: Aug. 27

1998

Administrators were met with no unpleasant surprises during the first day of Jackson public school classes yesterday, and enrollment continued its four-year climb when 4,332 students reported for classes; the opening went smoothly throughout the district, including the new South Elementary School, where newly installed flashers on Highway 25 alerted drivers to changes in traffic flow.

Missouri's circuit clerks should be appointed rather than elected, the state's top judge says; Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Duane Benton, speaking Wednesday at a luncheon meeting of the Cape Girardeau Lions Club, said circuit court offices need to be run by professionals; under the current system, circuit clerks don't have to have any expertise in court administration.

1973

Summer fun and jobs end for thousands of youths, as Cape Girardeau pubic and parochial schools open the 1973-74 academic year; in the public schools here, attendance is down 111 from opening day last year, with 4,927 reporting this morning.

The Southeast Missouri, which in the past has published a Sunday edition when there has been a prolonged strike of St. Louis newspapers, was unable to do so yesterday because of the tight supply of newsprint; use of the newsprint on hand would have created a critical situation for publication of editions during this week; a supply of paper is en route, but it's arrival date is indefinite.

1948

Employees of the shoe factory in Cape Girardeau voted 1,025 to 95 at an election at the plant yesterday to authorize the union to negotiate with the International Shoe Co., for establishment of a union shop; the election was sought by the union and held under the direction of the National Labor Relations Board, with J.M. Schobel, a representative, on hand to supervise balloting; the result empowers representatives of the union to bargain with the company for a union shop, which provides that all employees must become members of the union.

An army of workers is laboring feverishly six days a week to complete rooms for occupancy of 180 men students in Myers Hall, new men's dormitory at State College; although college officials insist rooms will be ready for students when they arrive over the Labor Day weekend, the building itself won't be fully completed until after classes have started.

1923

The Cape Girardeau Northern Railway plans to ask the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Public Service Commission for permission to suspend steam train service between Cape Girardeau and Jackson; the move will likely bring a vigorous protest from shippers who use the C.G.N. as a connecting link between the Frisco Railroad at Cape Girardeau and Jackson; John R. Mabrey, head of the Cape County Milling Company at Jackson, declares his company is unalterably opposed to such a change and that he will fight such an effort.

Allan H. Hinchey, extension director for the Cape Girardeau Teachers College, was elected president of the Cotton States Merchants Association at the closing session of its three-day meeting at Memphis, Tennessee, Friday; the choice of the Girardean was unanimous, 4,000 delegates acclaiming him when his name was put forward for the nomination.

-- Sharon K. Sanders