Out of the past: March 5

1991

Yolanda King, daughter of slain civil-rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke to a crowd of 344 people at the Show Me Center last night; she urged them to wage war on America's "enemies" of unemployment, hunger, lack of education and poverty.

Pupils at Hawthorn School meet one of the newest members of the Cape Girardeau Police Department; Greif, the department's 5-year-old German shepherd, is partnered with officer Dennis Horn.

1966

Cape Girardeau businessman Bill C. Hollenbeck and his wife, Laveta, are apparently killed in the crash of a British jetliner at the foot of Mount Fuji near Tokyo, Japan; the Hollenbecks are among a group of 75 Americans on a tour of the Far East as guests of the Thermo King Corp. of Minneapolis, Minn.; members of the family here say they haven't received any official information or notification.

Four sleeping State College students are awakened by a fire in the morning and are forced to flee from their asphalt-covered frame house at 612 Bellevue; the fire is roaring full blaze in the second-story living room adjacent to two of the three sleeping rooms, when the boys are awakened at 5:45 a.m.; all are uninjured.

1941

George "Torchy" Godwin, the sorrel-thatched ex-footballer and basketballer at Teachers College, is going to be an ex-football coach, at least for a year; Uncle Sam has given him the nod for a year's military training under the Selective Service Act; Godwin has coached at Poplar Bluff, Missouri, for the last two years, after graduating from Teachers College in 1938 with one of the greatest athletic records in school history.

Branch Rickey of St. Louis, vice president of the St. Louis Cardinals, stops off in Cape Girardeau for a short time at noon on his way to the spring training camp at St. Petersburg, Florida; he is accompanied by two other men and a woman of his staff.

1916

The Rev. J.P. Scruggs of Fredericktown, Missouri, preaches at the Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau; the committee looking for a new pastor says Scruggs isn't on trial for the pastorate, but some view him as a likely candidate for the position.

One of the delivery automobiles of the Bergmann-Bartels store was destroyed by fire last evening at the corner of Spanish and William streets; the car was driven by Richard Behrens, who had to exit it early to escape the flames; Behrens had delivered groceries to a family on Spanish Street and, as he turned around to start back to Broadway, the engine backfired; a few minutes later, he noticed the bed of the auto was on fire.

-- Sharon K. Sanders