Out of the past: Dec. 30

1997

The Area Wide United Way went over the top, surpassing the 1997 campaign goal of $550,000; and contributions are still arriving; the exact amount raised will be announced at a victory party planned for Jan. 8 at the Dempster Hall Commons Area at Southeast Missouri State University.

In an effort to combat a growing number of family law cases, the Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney's Office hired a new assistant prosecutor to handle child support and juvenile cases; Cape Girardeau Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle says Angel M. Woodruff, a former Missouri assistant attorney general, will join the prosecuting attorney's staff Jan. 1.

1972

When kid New Year arrives Monday, he'll have to assume some unfinished business the old year left behind; but for the most part, the youngster will have considerable material to work with, even starting some new things of his own; the first new project for 1973 surfaces with today's announcement for construction start in the early spring on the Cape Rock Village Shopping Center, a mall-type complex to be located on the north side of Cape Rock Drive in Cape Rock Village.

Gerald B. Rowan, a vice president of the Kansas City Life Insurance Co. and a former Cape Girardeau attorney, has been elected chairman of the Missouri Park Board; in Cape Girardeau, Rowan was associated with the Oliver and Oliver law firm and served as city attorney in the terms of Mayor Narvol A. Randol and the late Mayor Walter H. Ford.

1947

Cape Girardeau meat packers, meeting with the City Council yesterday, asked for an inspection program that would check the health of each animal before and after slaughtering, pass on the sanitation of plants and provide continuation of federal grading of meat processed here; the packers -- A.A. Bollack and A. Herman of Central Packing Co., Howard H. Boyd of Pipkin-Boyd-Neal Packing Co. and Otto Wulfers -- explained to council members that during the war, OPA required the grading of meat; this was continued by the Federal Grading Service, but an Act of Congress ended the program Jan. 1.

The Cape Girardeau Public Library building isn't to be considered by appraisers when they fix the value of the post office site in Courthouse Park, rules Judge Rubey H. Hulen in Federal Court; defendants in the case had asked that the court instruct the appraisers to consider the fact that the library building is located on the proposed post office site and that it must be removed eventually.

1922

L.L. VanDervoort, proprietor of the VanDervoort Hotel at Paragould, Arkansas, and known as the most popular hotel in that state, is expected in Cape Girardeau next week to work out the final details of a contract that may provide a magnificent new hotel for this city; he proposes to form a corporation to build and equip a 125-room hotel -- 100 sleeping rooms, dining room, banquet room, private dining room, sample rooms, etc. -- to cost about $300,000.

New Year observances begin in the evening and will continue through Monday, which is New Year Day, owning to the first day of the year coming just after Sunday; many will hold their New Year's Eve celebrations this evening instead of on the night before the first day of 1923, preferring not to enjoy the festivities on the Sabbath.

-- Sharon K. Sanders