Out of the past: March 17

1995

Cape Girardeau School Board president Ed Thompson withdrew his name yesterday from the April election; a court order signed by Circuit Judge John W. Grimm instructs Circuit Clerk Rodney Miller to accept Thompson's withdrawal.

The Industrial River Advisory Committee supports the new location proposed on the Mississippi River for a Boyd Gaming Corp. riverboat docking site; the group approved the new downtown site at Cape Girardeau following a safety test conducted earlier this month; a letter approving the site about 750 feet north of the Broadway floodwall entrance will be submitted to the U.S. Corps of Engineers St. Louis District; the new location is about 150 feet farther north than its original location.

1970

Mother Nature picks St. Patrick's Day to cover early spring's faint green with a blanket of white; while the airport measures 9 inches of snow, Cape Girardeans find 10 to 12 inches of the white stuff; the snow is the 16th of sufficient amount this winter to cover the ground here.

Eugene Sifford, principal of Cape Girardeau Central High School, has filed his answer in Common Pleas Court in a damage suit brought against him as the result of an alleged paddling administered a 16-year-old high school boy on Feb. 19; his answer, in part, claims the court has no jurisdiction to direct or restrain school officials from maintaining discipline in the school system and from administering disciplinary measures upon pupils who violate school rules or are guilty of misbehavior in the classrooms.

1945

A brief, but severe, electrical and rain storm strikes Cape Girardeau and vicinity at 1:10 a.m., pouring another inch of rain on the community; the storm follows the warmest day in Cape Girardeau County in six years for that date; the mercury jumped to 85 degrees in Jackson, while at Cape Girardeau, thermometers register 78 degrees.

The large gymnasium and community house at Pocahontas is destroyed by a fire of unknown origin at noon; Henry Lichtenegger, passing by, first notices the fire blazing near the large chimney in the roof of the building; nothing can be done to check the flames; with the building are destroyed a large furnace, piano, stage curtain, sets and scenery, seats, fully-equipped kitchen with large stove, tables and chairs; the loss is about $16,000.

1920

T.C. Tade, who has been a teacher in the Cape Girardeau Business College since 1912, has given up his position there and will leave next week for Vincennes, Indiana, to visit his mother for a month; after that, he will go to Greeley, Colorado, where he will attend school this summer.

Luther L. Yarberry, for three years clerk of the Idan-Ha Hotel and a resident of Cape Girardeau 14 years, has purchased the Juanita Hotel in Perryville, Missouri, from J.E. Lottes and will take possession April 15; Yarberry will take with him two of the women now employed at the Ian-Ha, Gertrude and Sarah Schenck; one will have charge of the upstairs at the Juanita, and the other will supervise the dining room.

-- Sharon K. Sanders