Out of the past: July 21

1997

Beverly Strohmeyer, executive director of the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri for 12 years, resigned last week to become a program specialist with the Missouri Arts Council in St. Louis; she's been with the local council in one capacity or another for more than 20 years.

Mark and Wendy Lamont open Kids R Us, a child care center for children ages 1 to 12 at 525 N. Silver Springs Road; the new center is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and is licensed for 40 children.

1972

A new Cape Girardeau Area Transportation Study, prepared by the city and the State Highway Department Division of planning, proposes a four-lane extension of New Madrid Street, that would one day replace Broadway as a major east-west route through the city.

Prolonged hot temperatures and high humidity caused record peaks in electrical consumption the past two days, but Missouri Utilities Co. officials say there is no threat to curtailment of power; some customers between Jackson and Interstate 55 may have thought hot weather forced interruption of their services last night, during a two-hour power outage; but the interruption of power was caused when a snake got against a live wire along Highway 61.

1947

The State College Board of Regents recommends to the state purchasing agent that the low bid submitted for construction of two new buildings on the college campus be accepted; to be erected will be a dormitory for men, to be located just south of the present Leming Hall dormitory, and a student service building, to be built south of the Agriculture Building and west of Academic Hall; a low bid of $894,000 for the work was submitted by Ray Dilschneider of St. Louis.

Typhoid fever immunization clinics are held at four points under the direction of the Red Cross and with physicians and a state health nurse cooperating to give inoculations to those residing in high water areas; at Neelys Landing, 48 persons are immunized; at the Smelterville shelter, 24; at the Black shelter, 17, and at Consolidated School of Aviation, 36.

1922

William B. Schaefer, 59, president of the Cape Exchange Bank, former judge of the County Court, ex-mayor of Jackson and one of Cape Girardeau's most prominent men, died at his home at 245 N. Pacific St., yesterday following an illness of several months.

Characterizing Sen. James A. Reed as a "White House skunk" and a "slimy serpent attempting to follow the glorious deeds of Missourians," Charles M. Hay, St. Louis attorney, flayed the senior senator from Missouri in a two-hour discourse in Courthouse Park last night in a way that delighted the majority of a crowd of approximately 1,000; mixed in with his withering attack on Reed, Hay praised Woodrow Wilson as "the greatest of all Americans."

-- Sharon K. Sanders