Out of the past: Dec. 6

1998

Some 900 of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Diocese's 57,439 parishioners will receive tickets to attend the papal Mass on Jan. 27 in St. Louis; the tickets will be distributed by the parish pastors based on the number of members in each parish, the number of tickets alloted for each church ranging from as many as 62 to as few as two.

Five Sikeston, Missouri, men have become the first in Cape Girardeau County to be charged under a state law meant to provide police and prosecutors with additional tools in prosecuting drive-by shooting cases; the men -- ranging from ages 19 to 25 -- have been charged with the felony of unlawful use of a weapon for their alleged roles in two separate shooting incidents in Cape Girardeau within the past two weeks.

1973

Thomas M. Utterback of Columbia, Missouri, is Cape Girardeau's new city attorney; his appointment was confirmed by the City Council last night upon recommendation of city manager W.G. Lawley; Utterback, 26, will begin his duties here Jan. 1, replacing A. Robert Pierce Jr., who is now a member of the Missouri Public Service Commission.

By a vote of two to one, Cape Girardeau County Court decides not to accept the offer of the Jackson Industrial Board to trade the site of the present county jail for the six-acre tract in north Jackson that the board offered as a location for the proposed county law enforcement complex; instead, the court takes under consideration the board's offer that it would give the county six acres abutting Route D and Highway 61 North under the agreement that the complex would be built on the site.

1948

The remains of six Southeast Missourians, including one from Cape Girardeau, who lost their lives in the Pacific area during World War II, have been returned to the United State aboard the Army Transport Dalton Victory; the Cape Girardeau service man is 2nd Lt. Harold A. Thacker, Air Forces, husband of Doris Friese Thacker of Cape Girardeau.

CAIRO, Ill. -- Michael P. O'Shea takes office as state's attorney for Alexander County, saying no gambling will be permitted in the county; the order doesn't affect the eating and drinking portions of places where gambling was formerly permitted.

1923

J.E. Umbeck, vice consul to Romania from the United States, is spending a four-month leave at his home in Cape Girardeau; regarding conditions in Romania, he notes that, while the country was devastated by the war, it is attempting to solve its own problems of deflated currency; he says there is a growing spirit of liberalism in Romania which may result in a revolution.

The Lions Club has completed the marking of Cape Girardeau streets; 564 street names were painted either on the curbing or on posts at intersections, four at each intersection, and every street in the city was covered at a cost of more than $100 to the club; the names of the streets were painted in bright yellow, with letters 4 inches in height and are easily seen from across the street.

-- Sharon K. Sanders