Out of the past: May 18

1998

BENTON, Mo. -- What began yesterday afternoon as a routine traffic stop on Interstate 55 south of Benton ended in an all-out manhunt involving law enforcement officers and canine units from Scott, Cape Girardeau and Mississippi counties, as well as members of the Missouri Highway Patrol; although the search was called off about 7:30 p.m. as darkness began to set in, police continued to patrol the area around the interstate looking for a St. Louis man who the patrol said was wanted on two felony warrants.

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Perry County School District board members agree a new high school is too costly a proposition to take to voters, and board members are considering a plan to build a new upper-elementary school to ease crowding; but nothing has been decided, said Dennis Martin, school board president; Dr. Rex Miller, superintendent of schools, said the new high school would have cost almost $15 million.

1973

Work on major construction jobs in Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area is practically at a standstill as a strike over a new work contract by Laborers Local 282 here is in its second day; jobs affected here are the Saint Francis and Southeast hospitals projects and the Farmers & Merchants Bank project; although pickets appear at Southeast Hospital in the morning as they did at other locations, pipefitters and electricians are doing emergency work so the new wing can be occupied by Monday.

Pfister's Drive-in, 2125 Broadway, which closed Dec. 23, is reopening under new management following the winter vacation; the restaurant facility, owned by Mildred Setzler, will be managed by Vernon Balogh, who has until recently been executive manager in St. Louis for Ponderosa Systems, a restaurant chain; he is also a former manager of the Burger Chef Restaurant, 2115 William St.; Clint J. Miller, who managed Pfister's for 10 years, has retired.

1948

Recommended for several years in the annual city audit, a sound basis of accounting for cemetery lots is incorporated in an ordinance passed by the Cape Girardeau City Council in the morning; it sets up a new scale of lot rates and a systematic collection basis for their sale; the ordinance provides that each funeral director, when a burial is to be made, must apply with the city clerk for a certificate to open a grave; the certificate will record the name of the deceased, name of the funeral director and name of the cemetery; in turn, the city sexton will note on the certificate the lot number, section and grave numbers, and return the document to the clerk within 24 hours for recording.

The result of almost nine months of labor by 14 members of the Vocational Building Trades Class of Cape Girardeau Central High School and their instructor, Hal B. Lehman, will be on display when the five-room dwelling they constructed at 1821 Lacy St. is put on exhibit tomorrow for public inspection; the house will be sold to the highest bidder.

1923

Mrs. E.B. Watson of St. Louis is unanimously elected president of the St. Louis Conference of Missionary Societies of the Southern Methodist Church; Mrs. B.F. Johnson, president of the Centenary Church Missionary Society of Cape Girardeau, is named superintendent of the Social Service work of the conference, an honor bestowed last year upon Mrs. Jeptha Riggs, also of Cape Girardeau.

Forty-two hours after leaving his home 4 miles west of Whitewater, the body of Homer Huffman, 23, is found at 7 a.m. on the banks of Crooked Creek, 1 mile west of Whitewater; it is believed Huffman drowned in the flooded creek Wednesday afternoon, when the horse he was riding stumbled off a concrete culvert on the flooded road near Crooked Creek, throwing him into the water.

-- Sharon K. Sanders