Out of the past: Feb. 20

1993

Traffic began rolling across the new Bloomfield Road bridge over Cape La Croix Creek, after a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday afternoon; work on the bridge was started May 1, 1992; it measures 36 feet wide, 16 feet wider than the old bridge.

Southeast Missouri State University Regent Mark Pelts has proposed creation of a community college division at the school; Pelts suggests such a division would allow students -- who don't meet the new, tougher admission requirements -- an opportunity to go to college.

1968

Jack O. Kramer, district manager of the Automobile Club of Missouri office here, has filed for a place on the Cape Girardeau Board of Education; he is the second candidate to file for a like number of vacancies to be filled at the April 2 election.

The Cape Girardeau Airport Board yesterday cleared the way for installation of a counter at the terminal for Krueger's Rent-A-Truck and Car Service; board members passed a motion to recommend the City Council approve a contract after Joe Krueger met with the board and made his proposal.

1943

The USO center at 632 Broadway is gaining in popularity with service men; it won't be long before a greatly expanded facility will be needed to take care of the visitors; around 200 service men have been using the place weekly in recent weeks; most are aviation cadets from Harris Field and the personnel of the District Coast Guard Training School at Wolf Lake, Illinois.

Grading of Bertling Street, along the north edge of Cape Girardeau, connecting West End Boulevard and North Sprigg Street, has been finished; gravel is to be placed on the street, probably in the near future.

1918

George Nitsch, son of Wenzel Nitsch, a farmer living near Jackson, receives an official notice from President Woodrow Wilson saying he would be excused from military service for agricultural reasons; this, so far as is known, is the first exemption in Cape Girardeau County on those grounds.

In the circuit court in the morning, Judge E.M. Dearing takes up the case of the state of Missouri against J.R. Parmenter, charged with murder in the death of Cape Girardeau policeman Fred Demortiers in November 1917.

-- Sharon K. Sanders