Out of the past: Jan. 15

1996

A variety of activities highlighting the life and works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. begins at Southeast Missouri State University and will continue through Jan. 25; the 11th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast kicks off the observance; guest speaker is Mark L. Stransbury, interim president of Shelby State Community College in Memphis, Tennessee.

If Jackson officials get their wish, the next officer on the city's police force will have four legs; Detective Richard Rushin is leading the city's drive to raise $25,000 for a drug-detecting dog, soliciting donations from area businesses and organizations.

1971

The sun finally makes its appearance in the morning after five days of rain and fog; accompanying it is cold weather more typical of mid-January in Southeast Missouri; the temperature fell from a high of 56 degrees here Wednesday -- the highest in the state -- to a low this morning of 24 degrees.

Officers and committee chairmen, divisional and district officers and representatives on the international level arrive in Cape Girardeau for the annual mid-winter conference of the Mo-Ark District of Kiwanis International; around 300 persons are expected for sessions this weekend at Colonial Restaurant and Town House Motel.

1946

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- Hahn Chapel, the 62-year-old Methodist church located east of Marble Hill on Highway 34, has ceased existence as part of the Methodist denomination and now becomes, by virtue of a sale consummated Saturday, the Hahn Chapel General Baptist Church; members of Hahn Chapel have reserved the right to conduct funerals at the chapel for former members of the Methodist organization, and the chapel cemetery will be maintained as a Methodist adjunct.

Although in no way involved, the truckers' strike in St. Louis has cost Cape Girardeau wage earners heavily in dollars and cents; many wage earners, particularly shoe workers and over-the-road truck drivers, were thrown out of work, innocent victims of the work stoppage.

1921

At a meeting of the directors of the Casquin Orchards Co. on Friday evening, it was decided to buy 100 acres of the George McBride farm on the Gordonville Road, two miles west of Cape Girardeau, and to plant 50 acres in fruit trees in the early spring.

Emory Masterson, 34, head lineman of the Missouri Public Utilities Co. here, is electrocuted at 10:30 a.m., when he comes in contact with wires carrying 2,300 volts of electricity, while working on a pole on Sprigg Street, half a block north of Broadway; after receiving the shock, his body drops to the side of the pole and is held suspended by a safety strap until lineman Linus Abernathy, plant manager E.A. Hart and others bring it down with a rope.

-- Sharon K. Sanders