Out of the past: Dec. 27

1997

Kadin Boardman, 20, of Jackson and his 17-year-old brother, Cimarron, make up one of 800-plus teams vying in a team roping competition this weekend at Flickerwood Arena; ropers are here from eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee; the top team will drive away with cash and a horse trailer.

Passenger totals at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport soared out of the stratosphere during the first two months of the quarter which ends Dec. 31; “Enplanements have been up all year. But the totals of the past two months have to be among the best in history,” says Bruce Loy, airport manager; more than 1,000 boardings were reported in October, at 1,082, and the count was even better in November, with 1,110 passengers.

1972

Missouri Utilities Co. announces it will draw the strings a little tighter on its natural gas supply in an effort to provide continued service to current customers; effective Jan. 1, 1973, the company won’t connect any new natural gas customers excepting those residences and small commercial buildings under construction on that date.

Southeast Missouri farmers, burdened by millions of dollars of crop losses this fall, shouldn’t expect much financial help from the Nixon administration; President Nixon orders a shutoff of emergency disaster loans to farmers, saying it’s another move to hold federal spending to the $250 billion ceiling he has imposed.

1947

The County Highway Commission doesn’t at this time plan any action looking toward immediate construction of a new highway leading west from Whitewater, it is learned; construction of such a road, asked recently by residents of the community, would entail the building of a $30,000 bridge over Whitewater Creek.

Cape Girardeau Mayor R.E. Beckman announces he has received the resignation of Dr. R.A. Ritter as chairman of the Board of Health, but that action on acceptance of the resignation will be postponed until he can confer with Ritter.

1922

An increase in freight rates on grain shipped from Southeast Missouri points to St. Louis and Memphis, Tennessee, has been suspended by the Interstate Commerce Commission, following a hearing in St. Louis last week; grain dealers and shippers who presented petitions to the commission were Cape County Milling Co. in Jackson, the Scott County Milling Co. in Sikeston, Sikeston-McMullin Grain Co. in Sikeston, Mississippi County Elevator Co. in Charleston and the Whitehead-Davis Grain Co. in Charleston.

Cape Girardeau retailers, checking their stock after a busy Christmas buying season, say sales the two weeks prior to Christmas were the best merchants here have ever had; in spite of the cutting off of the day trains between Cape Girardeau and Poplar Bluff, Missouri, making it impossible for shoppers from Stoddard County and the lower part of Cape Girardeau County to reach here by rail, many of them made the trip by automobile.

­— Sharon K. Sanders