Out of the past: Dec. 14

1992

The Cape Girardeau Board of Education sacks Central High School head football coach Gary Lynch and assistant coach Gary Emmendorfer; assistant football coach Larry Clemens resigns his coaching position; board president Ed Thompson says the board is seeking a new direction in the football program.

Three finalists for Cape Girardeau fire chief meet with city officials and firefighters; they also tour the city and its four fire stations; the finalists are Hugh Wood of Fairfax County, Virginia, Jerry Kerley of Largo, Florida, and Robert Ridgeway of Mashpee, Massachusetts.

1967

The Missourian Litho & Printing Co. will occupy its new $100,000 quarters at Middle and William streets over the coming weekend and will open for business there Monday morning; the move will bring to an end 63 years of direct association by the printing concern with The Missourian companies, and for the first time will remove the enterprise from the same building.

Fran Sue Manes, a Jackson High School pupil, was chosen first-place winner in the county American Legion Oratorical Contest last night; she is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Stone Manes of Jackson.

1942

Everything goes dark but the moon and the stars in the evening in Cape Girardeau -- except for a few isolated instances -- as the city joins the rest of Missouri and eight other states in the Midwest in a vast practice blackout; from a vantage point outside the dome of Teachers College, observers can see only a haze of mist and smoke overhanging the city; the only lights visible are navigation lamps on the traffic bridge and the short-wave radio tower at Erlbacher Bros., left on to safeguard against hazard to two observation planes flying over the city.

The first squadron of planes to be placed in service soon at the new Army airfield arrives here; the planes are immediately put to use by flight instructors, who give them test hops and at the same time familiarize themselves with the ships; actual flight training for cadets will begin around Jan. 1.

1917

Because of the low water and ice in the Mississippi River, the water intake pipe has failed, leaving some residents of Cape Girardeau without a regular supply of water; most of what water is now being pumped is coming from Sloan's Creek, which some consider an open sewer; Dr. R.L. Wichterich, a member of the city board of health, advises all water be boiled before being used for drinking or cooking.

Louis Hecht, Main Street clothier, returns from St. Louis, where he went several days ago to take examinations for the aviation corps of the Army, having been rejected by recruiting officers; he says he passed the physical easily, but failed on the mental examination, owing to not having a good knowledge of motor works.

-- Sharon K. Sanders