Out of the past: Jan. 31

1995

Local ice skaters Matt Buttrey and Sarah Booth have qualified for the U.S. Figure Skating National Championships in Rhode Island; they placed fourth in the Midwestern Sectional Championships in Denver in November to advance to the championships.

A group plans to protest the opening Friday night of Regina's House of Dolls by carrying signs outside the business reading "no strippers"; the Cape County American Family Association is hoping peaceful protests and new city laws will cut down on the strip club's business.

1970

John J. Schade, a former Cape Girardeau resident, is elected president of the Missouri Association of Republicans in Kansas City, which sponsors the annual GOP Lincoln Day observances; Schade is presently serving with the Army.

A group of interested citizens from Jackson and Cape Girardeau are to meet this morning with Jackson city engineer Guy A. Lowes to help plan an access route to Old Bethel Cemetery; the cemetery, south of Jackson, is the site of the first non-Catholic church west of the Mississippi River; Old Bethel Church was also the place at which the first county government was conducted and where plans for the county seat of Jackson were developed.

1945

Cape Girardeau's "brownout," by comparison to the present brilliant display of lighting, will be a virtual blackout when it goes into effect at midnight; the War Production Board's order, designed to save coal, effects every other community in the nation as well; the brownout will mean the extinguishing of all outdoor lighting except street lights, directional lights and the 60 watts of lighting permitted in a display window or the interior of a building as protective lighting.

Capt. Wayman R. Thompson is spending a 21-day leave here with his wife and little daughter, Nancy Carolyn, at the home of Mrs. Thompson's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred McGowan, 100 Longview Drive; Capt. Thompson, son of Mr. and Mrs. W.Z. Thompson of Langdale, Alabama, has been in service since Sept. 12, 1938; while in the Italian area, Thompson completed 50 missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters and the European Theater Ribbon with two battle stars.

1920

Twenty-three new cases of influenza for the 24-hour period ending at 2:30 p.m. are reported; two cases of pneumonia -- Mrs. F.K. Davis and Elbert Vogelsanger -- have developed.

The Light Sandless Cement Co. of Des Moines, Iowa, will probably build its factory of "petrified wood" on the ground lying north of the Cape Manufacturing Co.; this site has been offered to the company by the Commercial Club.

-- Sharon K. Sanders