Out of the past: Jan. 31

1998

A Festival of Music is held in the evening at the Salvation Army's center at 701 Good Hope St., as the Army celebrates the 100th anniversary of its coming to Cape Girardeau; along with a brass band that hearkens back to the earliest days of the Army in Great Britain, a vocal sextet and a soloist from the local corps, the Teen Challenge Chorus and the Euclid Avenue Singers from St. Louis perform.

The Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department has its own DARE (Drug Alcohol Resistance Education) officer; Deputy Ty Metzger is working with county schools, teaching pupils to just say no to drugs; Oak Ridge Elementary School is the first county school to adopt the DARE program, but Delta Elementary School will be the second this spring.

1973

Promotions and duty changes for two Troop E patrolmen have been announced by the Missouri Highway Patrol; Trooper Bill J. Adams of Jackson has been promoted to corporal and placed in charge of motor vehicle inspections in Troop E; Cpl. Robert F. Miller of Poplar Bluff has been promoted to sergeant and placed in charge of driver examinations for Troop E.

Cape Girardeau Civic Center's board of directors and members gain food for thought at an evening public meeting keyed to gathering the community's views on the future of the center; its previous home at 1232 S. Ranney St. was destroyed by fire Jan. 2; a variety of thoughts are expressed by many of the 60 persons in attendance.

1948

A 12- to 18-hour battering from intermittent snowfall, which this morning adds up to 2 inches, is in prospect for Cape Girardeau and Southeast Missouri as another in a series of weather disturbances which have given the area more snow than in many years strikes during the early morning hours; the snow blanket covers the state roughly from the Missouri River south.

Hecht's store, a portion of its merchandise badly damaged Thursday night by water from a "bursted" sprinkler pipe, is open for business after employees and workers spent yesterday making repairs and putting undamaged stock back on display; Martin Hecht, who is in charge while his father, Louis Hecht, is in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he recently purchased a shop, says there is still no estimate of the damage and insurance adjusters are still working on the report; but it is expected the loss to stock and building will run into the thousands of dollars.

1923

Capt. Venus McAlearney, who has been in charge of the work of the Salvation Army in Cape Girardeau for the past 16 months, has been transferred to Galveston, Texas, to take up similar work; a farewell service will be held at the Salvation Army barracks tomorrow night.

Rudolph Dietrich has sold the Sinclair Oil filling station at Broadway and Pacific Street to Zeno Heisserer of the T.S. Heisserer Mercantile store in Oran, Missouri, and Harry Womack, drug store owner of the same town; Heisserer and Womack will operate the station; Dietrich is planning to enter into the automobile industry.

-- Sharon K. Sanders