Out of the past: Feb. 15

1997

Hemp farming may return to Missouri; two Southeast Missouri lawmakers have introduced legislation to allow the growing and marketing of industrial hemp; it would be grown on research plots supervised by the Missouri Department of Agriculture; the goal is to determine the crop's potential in Missouri, said state Sen. Jerry Howard, D-Dexter, who introduced the Senate bill; State Rep. Larry Thomason, D-Kennett, has introduced similar legislation in the House.

KENNETT, Mo. -- Anything can be rented -- even honeybees; Neal Bergman, a beekeeper at Kennett, has more than 45,000,000 bees currently leased to California almond growers; Bergman, who owns Delta Bee Co. near Kennett, shipped about 1,500 hives of Missouri honeybees to California by tractor-trailer truck.

1972

The campaign to get State College students registered to vote in Cape Girardeau city and county elections has a long way to go to meet the goal of at least 1,000 students; by the end of the first day of registration yesterday, only 131 students had signed up.

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Residents of Chaffee's low-income public housing project evacuate their units early in the morning when a gas fire breaks out; no one is injured, and damage is relatively minor; Chaffee Fire Chief Charles I. Uhr says the fire started in the area of the vaporizer on the LP gas standby system located at the rear of Second Street and Martha Drive about 100 feet behind the housing units.

1947

Managers of local hotels, motor courts and tourist homes indicate they won't raise transient rates despite the fact that such establishments that had been under Office of Price Authority rent ceilings became eligible for de-control today; one tourist cabin operator remarks, "I don't think I will (raise rents), not unless the price of sheets comes up."

The freezing and thawing type weather now being experienced here is making the harvest from maple trees ideal; A.L. Seabaugh, veteran maple syrup maker, is busy with some 60 trees on his own farm and on others nearby in the Patton, Missouri, community.

1922

William J. Segraves tenders his resignation as chief of police of Cape Girardeau at a special meeting of the City Council; the council votes unanimously to accept the resignation, which is effective March 1; the action comes as a climax to rumors that have been circulating the past four weeks of a coming shakeup in the police department; personal investigation of the force has been made by Mayor James A. Barks; the mayor states, "When the people of a city lose confidence in their police department, there must be change."

A.S. Boucher, state high school inspector of the State Department of Education, is named acting head of the Teachers College Training School and principal of College High School by the Board of Regents.

-- Sharon K. Sanders