Out of the past: June 22

1998

Vi Keys arrived in Cape Girardeau from Kansas City, Missouri, in 1959 to play a one-month booking at the Marquette Hotel; nearly 40 years later, hardly a musician who grew up in the area doesn't know her; the Holiday Inn yesterday hosted a celebration of Keys' 20th anniversary of playing at the motel; the party also marked her 80th birthday June 1.

Receiving the R.A. Fulenwider community service award is bittersweet for Mayor Paul Sander; his father, Leonard, is unable to see his son honored because he is in critical condition at Southeast Hospital, having suffered a heart attack a week ago; the Fulenwider award is given annually by the Jackson Chamber of Commerce.

1973

Southeast Hospital has reached 88.5% of its fund-raising goal in its $1 million capital improvements campaign; the campaign can be considered a success at this point, because the $750,000 minimum goal set has been surpassed; the first part of the four-stage hospital expansion program wouldn't have been started unless the minimum goal was assured.

A malfunction in one of Southeast Missouri State University's three turbine generators, which for the past three weeks has forced the school to purchase supplemental power from Missouri Utilities, should be repaired within the next week, says Dr. Mark F. Scully, university president; the problem is in the newest and largest of the university's three generators, which produces about half the school's daily power supply.

1948

Puzzled National Guard personnel, seated by their telephones with application blanks ready, wait in vain for an expected deluge of 19-through-25-year-old youths to join the Cape Girardeau's two companies; announcement in Washington yesterday that men of those years who join the Guard before the president signs the draft bill will be exempt from regular military service had brought forth the expectation.

Cape Transit Co.'s request for a 10-cent bus fare in the city was lopped to 7 cents by the Cape Girardeau City Council yesterday afternoon, when it authorized the mayor to sign a finding, the outgrowth of a hearing April 26, which agreed that an increase was justified; the new rate, with its hike of 2 cents, will go into effect July 1.

1923

The Memphis Boys' Band, 100 strong and supported at a cost of $3,000 a year by the Memphis Rotary Club, parades in Cape Girardeau in the afternoon; the band parades from the Frisco depot up Main Street to Broadway and out Broadway to Frederick Street; there, the boys turn and march back to the depot over the same route; the boys were rewarded for their efforts with ice cream from I. Ben Miller's drug store; the band accompanied the Rotarians to a meeting in St. Louis, and Col H.L. Albert, president of the Cape Girardeau Rotary Club, arranged for their brief -- 30 minutes -- appearance here.

A budget calling for the expenditure of $63,000 in Cape Girardeau next year with an increased tax levy of 4 cents on the $100 valuation over that of last year has been approved by the City Council; increased tax levy brings the total tax on the $100 valuation for all purposes to 60 cents.

-- Sharon K. Sanders