Out of the past: Jan. 29

1999

The Kelly school board has decided to seek a $4.5 million bond issue to build a new high school at Benton and furnish it; school patrons will vote on the bond issue April 6; a building committee made up of faculty, parents and students developed the bond issue proposal; bonds would be repaid over 20 years.

With two successful Neighborhood Watch programs already operating in rural Cape Girardeau County, formation of another is being explored in the Fruitland area; the Pocahontas Town Board will hold a public meeting Feb. 11 to discuss the proposed district; speaker will be Cape Girardeau County sheriff's deputy Rob Watson, coordinator of the Neighborhood Watch Program in the county.

1974

Whether St. Joseph Catholic School in Scott City will remain open next year with lay teachers or be closed at the end of this school year will come before a vote of parishioners, but not before a campaign has been waged by the school board to inform them of the options; three religious sisters from the order of School Sisters of Notre Dame are currently teaching at the 50-year-old school, which serves 90 pupils in grades one through eight; however, the order has advised the school board that a shortage of sisters will mean they won't be staffing the school next year.

James J. Below of Delta, elected chairman of the central committee of the Cape Girardeau County Democrats last year, says he is resigning that post because of his candidacy for clerk of the Common Pleas Court in Cape Girardeau; a new chairman will likely be elected tonight when county Democrats meet in Jackson.

1949

Colder weather generally, giving hope that a major flood of the Ohio River will be averted, cheers residents of the Bird's Point Floodway in Mississippi County, as they await a prediction of the probable crest of the stream; although plagued by surface water from rains falling this week and, in the south end of the spillway from backwater, most residents of the big basin plan to remain in their homes, at least until told what stage the river will reach on the gauge at Cairo, Illinois.

Unless something unforeseen occurs, the Missouri Utilities Co. expects to begin laying pipe in April to bring natural gas to Cape Girardeau, Illmo and Fornfelt, with the schedule calling for home delivery in August; the pipe is 6 inches in diameter and will be welded together into a continuous line approximately 8 miles long; it will run from the Big Inch pipeline at Gray's Point to Cape Girardeau.

1924

Bulldogs, hounds, shepherds and almost every other species of dogs seen in Cape Girardeau are represented in the lot of 20 canines held at police headquarters as a result of the initial activity here of the dog catcher against animals running at large; the dogs raised such a din last night that nearby residents were led to complain; Otis Pruitt, the official dog catcher, says the 20 dogs represent nearly two days' work; how he catches the animals is his secret.

The ice gorge which formed in the Mississippi River two weeks ago and has completely blocked the river since then, succumbs to the higher temperatures of the last two days and a sudden rise of the river.

-- Sharon K. Sanders