Out of the past: Feb. 5

1997

Plans for the week-long April inauguration of Dr. Dale Nitzschke as Southeast Missouri State University's 16th president have yielded some big name participants; Dr. Maya Angelou, a distinguished author, poet, actress and playwright, will speak at the April 10 inauguration; earlier that day, former Democratic presidential candidate and conservative commentator William Buckley will debate in Academic Auditorium; former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon from Illinois will kick off inauguration week with a speech April 4 at Dempster Hall's Glenn Auditorium.

Eight Cape Girardeau civic groups Tuesday -- Cape Girardeau County Rotary Club, the Exchange Club, the Noon Lions Club, the Cape Evening Lions Club, the Excelsior Optimist Clubs, the Downtown Cape Girardeau Rotary Club, the Cape West Rotary Club and Community Caring Council -- pledged manpower and money to help form a Southeast Missouri Crime Stoppers; the impetus to form the organization came after a rash of home invasions targeting the city's elderly.

1972

Nine Southeast Missouri funeral home operators and an insurance company are accused of fixing prices and cutting prices of all funeral services in an alleged attempt to drive a new Sikeston, Missouri, funeral home out of business; a suit asking an undetermined amount of money in damages for Christian Memorial Funeral Homes Inc. of Sikeston is filed in Cole County Circuit Court in Jefferson City.

Preliminary work is to begin next week on the new hangar at Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport, to replace the one destroyed by fire last July; Rogers Construction Co. of Dexter, Missouri, will build the fabricated metal and masonry structure at an area just south of the administration building; the main portion of the hangar will be 100 by 150 feet, with attached structure of 48 by 170 feet.

1947

Ramon A. Evans announces his resignation, effective March 1, as vice president and cashier of the First National Bank, to accept the presidency of the Central National Bank at Carthage, Missouri, an old institution with $6,000,000 total assets.

JEFFERSON CITY -- Gov. Phil M. Donnelly recommends 1947-49 biennial appropriations totaling $11,419,910 for Missouri's institutions of higher education, a figure not including any expansion money for the crowded schools; Southeast Missouri State College at Cape Girardeau would get $617,390 under the governor's recommendations; the school, with $653,037 for the current two-year period, asked for $972,390 for the new biennium, as well as $1,448,000 for construction.

1922

Location of Cape Girardeau's new Baptist church is decided upon at a meeting of the congregation of the church; the new edifice will be built on lots across the street from the Broadway School on West Broadway; the lots will be purchased from W.C. Bahn; the location is one of the best in the city for a church, having a frontage of 240 feet and a depth, at the greatest point, of 369 feet.

Louis Schuppan, 83, one of the pioneer residents of Cape Girardeau County, died yesterday at the home of his daughter, Mrs. E.F.W. Vogel, at Pocahontas; Schuppan was born on a farm in the Hanover district near Cape Girardeau Aug. 22, 1838, the son of Adolph and Amelia Schuppan, emigrants to America.

-- Sharon K. Sanders