Out of the past: Jan. 8

1999

Concerned that a planned merger between Cape Girardeau's only two hospitals would harm competition in the local health-care market, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon announced his opposition to the proposal yesterday afternoon; officials at Saint Francis Medical Center and Southeast Hospital were disappointed by the decision; they received word of Nixon's position through their attorneys shortly before he went public with his opposition at a hastily called press conference at his local office.

Southeast Missouri State University and the state will pay $100,000 to settle a civil suit brought by the former director of the school's earthquake center; terms of the settlement were announced Thursday in a written statement issued jointly by the university and the lawyer for plaintiff Dr. David Stewart; Southeast will pay $50,000; the other $50,000 will be paid by the state from its legal expense fund as approved by the attorney general's office; the settlement was reached during a day-long session with a state mediator in St. Louis on Dec. 28.

1974

School buses loaded to capacity with 66 children and weighing nearly 11 tons are being driven daily across Cape Girardeau County bridges with 6-ton limits, and the Jackson Board of Education is worried about the situation; Board President Cecil J. Unger, accompanied by superintendent of schools Dr. Frank A. Wiley and board members, brought the dangerous condition to the attention of the County Court yesterday; Unger requested that the court authorize the bridges to be strengthened to accommodate the heavy loads to avoid a possible tragic accident, improve bridge floors, widths and approaches and raise railings on bridges that have low railings; he also asked that weeds growing alongside approaches be cut more often.

Two more families and a single man have joined the contingent of German families in Cape Girardeau to train at the Charmin Paper Products Co. plant; the families are Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Gerwe and Mr. and Mrs. Peter Hentschel; also arriving was Walter Hecker; six German families are now here.

1949

Following a meeting of the Cape Girardeau City Council, attended by 54 residents, Mayor Walter H. Ford announces the council will act in the near future to select a site for the National Guard armory, which a Chamber of Commerce committee has proposed to locate in Capaha Park, at the approximate site of the old community building; along with chamber supporters, the council also heard a number of others voicing objections to the location in Capaha Park, including A.R. Trapf, Wayne B. Rust, R.R. Hill, U.G. Pettigrew, L.H. Strunk, Irvin A. Keller and Denzel F. Slinkard.

John T. Seesing has been appointed manager of Consolidated School of Aviation and of the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport; Seesing succeeds John E. Godwin Jr., who resigned the first of the year.

1924

At a meeting of the official board of First Baptist Church, a call is extended to the Rev. J. Pendleton Scruggs to return as pastor; it is understood he will take up his work here either on Feb. 10 or 17; Scruggs, who is now pastor of the Baptist church at Franklin, Kentucky, came here and preached for the congregation on Dec. 16; he was pastor of the Cape Girardeau church beginning in 1916, but responded to the call to take up war work in 1918, moving to the East.

The last of the $39,000 in bonds issued by the City of Cape Girardeau as a "bonus" for erection of new buildings at the State Teachers College in 1904 have been paid off; the last installment of the bond issue, amounting to $10,225, was paid off to Sturdivant Bank, depository for the fund, and the bonds were taken up.

-- Sharon K. Sanders