Out of the past: March 26

1992

About 85 Cape Girardeau Central High School band students and parents met last night to organize a petition drive against school-district plans to cut one of three band directors; proposals to cut Mark McHale's position as band director and reduce the overall band budget by 20 percent are among the district's budget reduction plans.

Arson complaints in Cape Girardeau have dropped sharply in the last four years, falling from 23 in 1987 to four in 1991; one arson investigator said he hopes the decrease is because of better arson enforcement.

1967

Easter Sunday. A fine mist starts falling at 4:30 a.m., and the annual Easter sunrise service sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance is moved from Capaha Park to Grace Methodist Church. About 200 people attend the service; the Rev. Elvis O. Wilson, pastor of the General Baptist Church, preaches the sermon.

Excavation began Wednesday afternoon on Cape LaCroix Road for the first unit of the new St. Mark Lutheran Church; the edifice will be built on a hill overlooking a panorama to the west.

1942

Completing negotiations that have been underway for more than a year, the Cairo (Illinois) Bridge Commission has purchased and taken over the Mississippi River bridge at Cairo. The commission also owns and operates the Ohio River bridge at Cairo.

A notice, signed by the management, is posted at Superior Electric Products Corp. plant here announcing, effective April 1, virtually all production, with the exception of one department, will be suspended. A government order restricts by 50 percent the production of nickel-plated heating appliances, and that production will be eliminated April 1. The company will continue to make fans.

1917

Floesch Construction Co., digger of the big diversion channel that is to head off the waters from the hills of Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties and send them into the river instead of letting them flow down on counties farther south, is having a tremendous argument with the Little River Drainage District over its contract for digging the channel; the district contends the company must maintain the big levee after it is constructed; the district also insists it will pay only what the contract calls for, for the big levee bordering the channel, even though Floesch had to excavate more ground from the channel than the contract specified.

Frederick Fischer and his group of musical artists arrive on the noon train and will give a recital in Normal Auditorium tonight.

-- Sharon K. Sanders