Out of the past: Jan. 25

1994

Carl Ritter, Southeast Missouri State University's all-time leading scorer in men's basketball, had his jersey number retired during half-time of Monday night's game against Tennessee-Martin at the Show Me Center; his number, 32, is worn this season by Keith Brooks; therefore, the actual retirement will be at the end of this season.

Four downtown business groups endorse the Boyd Group's proposal for a riverboat casino in Cape Girardeau over a competing proposal by Lady Luck; the $51 million Boyd Group complex -- which includes a riverboat casino, multilevel parking garage, restaurant, and offices and shops in the renovated Buckner-Ragsdale building -- would be built at the foot of Broadway.

1969

Cape Girardeau would be linked to Rolla, Missouri, by an improved two-lane highway and from there to Jefferson City by four lanes of pavement under a 10-year, $825 million highway program announced by the State Highway Department; the department says the system would require a bond issue of less than $450 million and an increase of two cents a gallon in the present five-cent gasoline tax.

Cape Girardeau's traffic bridge won't be exactly psychedelic in the spring and summer months, but it will be colorful; the State Highway Department has announced the bridge will be painted, top to bottom, Missouri to Illinois; first there will be a red lead prime coat; next will be a maroon second coat; and then a final coat of aluminum.

1944

A special called meeting of the Potosi Presbytery is held at the Presbyterian Church here to formally receive the Rev. Bruce C. Boney, new minister of the Presbyterian Church at Jackson, into the presbytery; Boney, who comes to Jackson from Warren, Arkansas, will be installed as pastor the night of Feb. 6.

William O. DeWitt, vice president and business manager of the St. Louis Browns, and Charles DeWitt, the club's traveling secretary, are in Cape Girardeau to look over the spring training camp facilities to be used here by the Browns and the Toledo Mud Hens; they are accompanied by W.J. McGoogan of the sports department of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

1919

State Rep. A.J. Speer of Bollinger County Wednesday introduced a bill in the Legislature providing for the amendment of the drainage law, so that drainage district will have to build bridges over established highways cut by drainage ditches; if the bill passes, Little River Drainage District will have to build permanent bridges over the public highways that were cut by drainage channels.

Maj. Giboney Houck, state representative from Cape Girardeau County, is spending the weekend at home; he says he has introduced a bill in the Legislature to change the name of the State Normal Schools to State Teachers' Colleges.

-- Sharon K. Sanders