Out of the past: July 31

1992

The price of gasoline in Cape Girardeau has dropped below 90 cents a gallon at some service stations. Gasoline prices plummeted to 89.9 cents a gallon at some Cutmart, Kwik Pantry and other stations yesterday, marking the lowest gasoline prices seen here since November 1991.

Richard Schmidt, the dean of the College of Business Administration at Southeast Missouri State University, has resigned to take a similar post at St. Thomas University, a small Catholic university in Miami.

1967

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- Missouri's Bootheel is among the nation's most backward areas in equal opportunities for blacks, according to Roy Wilkins, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who spoke here yesterday. About 1,000 blacks and whites gathered in Charleston's Lincoln School to hear Wilkins speak at a meeting that opened a five-week training education program in the Bootheel.

Site work begins on the new 23,000-square-foot Naval Reserve Training Center by Crites and Sailer Construction Co.

1942

Business firms and individuals, anxious to do whatever they can to provide a United Service Organizations Center for service men on stopovers in the city, jump wholeheartedly into plans with offers of furniture, fixtures, refreshments and a location. John Knaup has offered the use of his building at 632 Broadway; centrally located, near both of the larger bus stations, the building is regarded as ideal for the purpose.

Curtis L. Childs begins his 27th year with the Cape Girardeau police force, on the same beat he patrolled when he first donned his uniform, pistol and billy back in 1916. He is over in the Good Hope Street section of town.

1917

Next Thursday through Saturday, the examinations of those to be called up to supply the 135 men the county must contribute to the first National Army of 687,000 will be in Jackson at the courthouse. County Clerk Blucher Sperling and Sheriff Jeff Hutson, both members of the county exemption board, have agreed those days will be best suited for the examination of the first lot of men.

Because two men, Shirley and Sherman Hargis, were discharged by manager Charles Fluhrer of the Roth Tobacco Co., all other tobacco twisters walk out in sympathy in the morning, when the force was to start work; 16 men in all quit. With the twisters gone, twice as many stemmers are automatically thrown out of work. As a result, the whole plant closes down for the day and may remain closed for some time.

-- Sharon K. Sanders