Out of the past: March 17

1990

Heavy rains in Missouri and other Midwestern states have pushed the Missouri and Mississippi rivers to near flood stage; by early next week, the Mississippi at Cape Girardeau could be the highest it has been in nearly three years.

The Southeast Missouri State University Indians captured their seventh regional basketball title in nine years last night, sending them to Springfield, Massachusetts, as one of the NCAA Division II "elite eight"; the Tribe advanced another step in their quest for a national championship by defeating Missouri Western, 88-73, in the South Central Regional title game at the Show Me Center.

1965

Keller, Washington, Ranney, Chestnut and Park Drive will no longer be the names of Cape Girardeau streets, if action approved yesterday by the City Council is carried out; in an attempt to reduce confusion, the council agreed to change the names of those roads to correspond to the streets from which they extend.

Members of the Daughters of the American Colonists begin their state convention at the Holiday Inn here; guest speaker at a candlelight banquet in the evening is John P. Bradshaw, a Cape Girardeau attorney, who speaks on "Our American Heritage."

1940

Palm Sunday. Seventy-four members of three confirmation classes are received in Cape Girardeau churches; there are 43 children and six adults in the class at Trinity Lutheran Church, 18 at Christ Evangelical Church and seven at the English Lutheran Church.

Having completed a course of instruction in church membership under the leadership of the pastor, the Rev. Don Schooler, 30 junior and intermediate boys and girls are received into the fellowship of Centenary Methodist Church.

1915

The big pipe organ for the new Centenary Methodist Church arrives by freight in the morning from Battleboro, Vermont, and is hauled to the church; drays are required to make several trips from the railroad yards to convey the hundreds of pipes and the woodwork of the big instrument to the new building; the organ manufacturer will send an expert erector to the city to assemble the organ.

Mrs. Maria Luckmann Vasterling dies in the morning after an illness of 18 months; she was 70 years, one month and 16 days old.

-- Sharon K. Sanders