Out of the past: Feb. 20

1998

A meeting yesterday with superintendent Dr. Dan Tallent left some Cape Girardeau school teachers hoping for the best but expecting the worst when board members begin considering salary schedules and budget cuts for 1998-99; teachers say Tallent's cost-cutting proposals include a freeze in spending on anything that isn't funded with state or federal money; that includes all operational spending on items such as textbooks, equipment, utilities and, most importantly, teachers' salaries.

A study to determine cost savings through a permanent affiliation between Cape Girardeau's two hospitals will be finished by the end of March; a study committee made up of representatives from Southeast Hospital and Saint Francis Medical Center have hired the Arthur Andersen consulting firm to carry out the study.

1973

The cost of operating the Chester, Illinois, toll bridge in 1971 again was over a quarter of a million dollars, audit reports obtained by the office of Missouri Attorney General John C. Danforth show; the latest reports, furnished The Missourian by Rep. Vernon E. Bruckerhoff, R-St. Marys, who for more than two years has been attempting to get the bridge free of tolls, shows that the bridge operating expense in 1971 was $254,007; this compares to a total cost of less than $25,000 for operating the free bridge at Cape Girardeau, Bruckerhoff noted.

Missouri Pacific Railroad Co. has orally indicated it will repair the deteriorated portion of Independence Street utilized by the railroad; asphalt on the railroad's right of way in the street has been cracked and broken for some time, causing rough and unsafe conditions for motorists; the city had notified Mo-Pac in January that if the railroad didn't make repairs, the city would either do the job and collect twice the money expended as liquidated damages or prepare litigation for damages resulting from the failure to comply with the city ordinance.

1948

State College President W.W. Parker was notified yesterday by Lewis Wallace, chairman of the House appropriations committee, that a request for a $500,000 appropriation for the construction of a new physical education building to replace Houck Field House has been included in the pending omnibus bill; a hearing on the appropriation may be held next week.

An audience of more than 200 persons crowds into the tiny courtroom at Common Pleas Courthouse in the evening, filling the benches, jury box, court chairs and lining the hall to hear the city manager form of government debated by two opposing teams; presenting the affirmative side are attorneys James A. Finch Jr. and Albert M. Spradling Sr., both of Cape Girardeau; the negative position is taken by George Starrett, former prosecuting attorney of Boone County, Missouri, and Ralph Alexander, also a former city attorney of Columbia, Illinois.

1923

The Cape Girardeau Red Cross is completing its work and expects to have all cases well disposed of by the time the health center is discontinued March 1; new cases are being refused on the grounds that it might be impossible to have the work completed by the time the Health Center will be closed; the Red Cross Health Center has been in operation in Cape Girardeau three years, but was refused funding by the County Court recently.

After receiving orders to three different locations and actually getting to only one, Capt. Venus McAlearney has received orders by the St. Louis headquarters of the Salvation Army to return to her post at Cape Girardeau.

-- Sharon K. Sanders