Out of the past: May 16

1995

Cape Girardeau's proposed $54.9 million budget for fiscal 1996 includes a merit pay hike of 2.5 to 3% for most city employees but no across-the-board raises; rank-and-file police officers had requested a 10% hike, but city officials insist there isn't sufficient money to give employees a more substantial raise.

The threat to close Jackson High School's lunch schedule has students cleaning up their act; littering complaints, caused by high school students who travel to nearby fast-food places at lunch and deposit cups and wrappers on the streets near the campus, had principal Vernon Huck threatening to close down the campus; but recently, 75 students stepped forward and volunteered to clean up streets and school grounds, doing so during study hall and after classes.

1970

With the use of a hacksaw, a young prisoner cut his way out of the Cape Girardeau city jail last night and escaped; the 18-year-old Cape Girardeau man was serving a sentence of $135 in labor on four counts of traffic violations; he cut a 10-by-18-inch hole through the door of a cell in the downstairs jail at police headquarters and made his escape through a door leading outside.

Two University of Missouri professors will receive this year's State College Alumni Merit Awards during commencement exercises May 31; they are Dr. William Milton Hart, chairman of the department of ophthalmology at the University of Missouri Medical Center, and Dr. E.M. Funk, professor emeritus of poultry husbandry at the University of Missouri.

1945

Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Grebe of Oak Ridge have been advised by the War Department that their only son, Sgt. Nelson Lee Grebe, 19, lost his life in Germany April 20; the parents had received a letter from him, written Apri1 18 from southern Germany, in which he said he was well, that he was on patrol duty and that the Nazis were offering little resistance; he added he hoped the war would be over soon.

After 21 years as manager of the J.C. Penney Co. store here, J.B. Carpenter turns over the store to his successor; in a few days he will move with his family to Grand Junction, Colorado, where he will direct operation of a large retail grocery business.

1920

Morning worship services are suspended at several Cape Girardeau churches, allowing the congregations to attend Central High School's baccalaureate service at the school; delivering the sermon is the Rev. C.H. Swift, pastor of the First Christian Church.

Christian Stein, who will be 95 years old this week, has received the good news that, through the efforts of Cong. E.D. Hays, he is entitled to a substantial increase in his Civil War pension; "Father" Stein is still as active as a man of 60, and still walks with a soldierly bearing despite the weight of years; he is the oldest man in Jackson, perhaps in the county.

-- Sharon K. Sanders