Out of the past: Jan. 17

1997

Former Meadow Heights High School principal Rick Chastain, who was fired after blowing the whistle on financial improprieties in the school district, has filed a lawsuit asking for his job back and unspecified monetary damages; the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau, names the school district and former and current members of the school board as defendants and asks for a jury trial.

Another bout of bitter cold moved into Southeast Missouri yesterday, sending temperatures plummeting; with predictions of temperatures below zero, and wind chills making it feel even colder, many schools remain closed today, including Cape Girardeau and Jackson schools.

1972

The first real blitz of winter, which zeroed in on the Cape Girardeau this weekend, is broken today, as residents begin to thaw out in slowly rising temperatures; Saturday and Sunday, however, as skaters were slipping and sliding on ice on the lagoon at Capaha Park, thermometers were doing the same; Sunday, a low of minus 2 was recorded at the airport.

KELSO, Mo. -- The first bond issue in Kelso's history will go before voters tomorrow in a special election; city officials are seeking passage of a $130,000 revenue bond for a municipal water system.

1947

Officials with the Marquette Cement Mfg. Co. in Chicago announce the purchase of the plant of Hermitage Portland Cement Co. at Nashville, Tennessee, and that of the Cumberland Portland Cement Co. at Cowan, near Chattanooga, Tennessee; the Marquette company will operate these two plants for those respective companies.

Cape Girardeau's two hospitals, swamped for several years by demands for service, have noticed an even greater trend upward since Jan. 1; serving a wide Southeast Missouri territory and a two-county Illinois area, both Saint Francis and Southeast hospitals are at capacity.

1922

Will Taylor, a building contractor of Kennett, Missouri, and former resident of Jackson and Cape Girardeau, arrives here in the morning to price various kinds of building material and to visit relatives; Taylor is completing a 12-room brick high school building at Marston, Missouri; business conditions have improved materially in Dunklin and other counties south of here in the past few months, says Taylor, and the prospects for a good building program to open up in six weeks or two months are bright.

COMMERCE, Mo. -- A $10,000 mausoleum for the last resting place for himself and his wife will be erected in Oakdale Cemetery, three miles from Commerce, by Capt. William Anderson of St. Louis, a former resident of Commerce; stone for the construction of the mausoleum has been assembled at the cemetery.

-- Sharon K. Sanders