Out of the past: March 2

1994

The Cape Girardeau City Council met yesterday behind closed doors to iron out final details in the city's process to endorse one of two riverboat gaming proposals; that process will culminate Monday, when the council is slated to recommend that either Boyd Gaming or Lady Luck Gaming be granted a license to operate a riverboat casino in Cape Girardeau.

After serving as county auditor during Cape Girardeau County's transition from third-class to second-class status, H. Weldon Macke says he is seeking re-election in the hopes of being part of moving the county toward first-class status in 1996.

1969

The Rev. Lester B. Butler, a native of western Kentucky assumes the pastorate of Bethany Baptist Church; he has been pastor of the First Baptist Church of Delta for the past five years.

ST. LOUIS -- James E. Reeves of Caruthersville, Missouri, yesterday was sworn in as the interim successor to Veryl L. Riddle as U.S. attorney for eastern Missouri; Riddle of Malden, Missouri, resigned to become a senior partner in the St. Louis law firm of Bryan, Cave, McPheeters and McRoberts.

1944

William "Mush" Lawson, assistant to Coach Abe Stuber of the State College Indians, has signed a contract to coach the Cairo, Illinois, High School Pilots; Lawson, a former center on the Indians' football team as well as with the Poplar Bluff, Missouri, High Mules, has considerable coaching experience, most of this being in Hawaii.

Twenty-five dozen baseballs have been received by Cape Girardeau Mayor R.E. Beckman from Bill DeWitt, vice president and business manager of the St. Louis Browns, to be used here during the 19-day spring training of the Browns and their farm club, the Toledo Mud Hens, March 20 to April 7; Beckman has placed the horsehides in safe keeping in a vault in the courthouse.

1919

The Rev. Leo P. Foley, C.M., celebrates his first Mass in the morning at St. Vincent's Catholic Church; a sermon appropriate to the occasion is delivered by the Rev. T.J. Levan, C.M.

The ownership of the street railway company of Cape Girardeau has been settled; the Missouri Supreme Court yesterday affirmed the decree of Judge Frank Kelly of the Cape Girardeau Circuit Court in requiring the Light & Development Co. to specifically perform its contract entered into Feb. 17, 1913; by the contract, the company agreed to purchase all of the stock, franchises and the line of street railway for $153,000.

-- Sharon K. Sanders