Out of the past: May 20

1995

With the Mississippi River climbing, the Cape Girardeau County Commission declared a curfew for the flooded areas of the county, effective at 6 p.m. yesterday; those going around barricaded roadways are subject to arrest; at Dutchtown, dump trucks coordinated by the Corps of Engineers, are pouring rock and gravel onto Highway 74 for a makeshift levee.

Wayne Hughes went on an unscheduled dive Friday morning; Hughes, a master diver, went underwater to shut off a stuck valve at one of the city's water intake pumps near Cape Rock Park.

1970

The Cape Girardeau Police Department, represented by attorney William S. Rader, last night confronted the City Council with a packaged proposal calling for substantial pay increases, among other factors; under the plan, starting pay for patrolmen increases from $425 per month to $625 per month; sergeant, from $450 to $700 per month; lieutenant, from $475 to $775 per month; captain, from $500 to $850 per month; major, from $525 to $925 per month, and chief, $615 to $1,200 per month.

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- Coach Arnold Ryan, 54, who led the Puxico, Missouri, basketball Indians to prominence during the early '50s, was fatally injured by a thrown baseball at Charleston High School yesterday; Ryan, who was in his first year as head basketball and baseball coach here, was directing his Bluejay diamond men in pre-game warm-ups at the time of the accident.

1945

The Rev. Robert C. Hollinday, superintendent of the Cape Girardeau district of the Methodist Church, delivers the baccalaureate sermon in the evening for State College in the school's auditorium; earlier in the afternoon, the Rev. Bernard A. McIlhany, pastor of the Presbyterian Church, gave the baccalaureate sermon before the 101 members of the Cape Girardeau Central High School graduating class at the school.

Thousands of dark gray worms, called army worms since they move in hordes, are doing much damage on a farm west of Cape Girardeau owned by A.E. Birk; known as the Ringwald place, it is four miles from town on the Hopper Road.

1920

Louis Houck plans to give the sugar beet industry a try; he will plant an acre of beets on one of his own farms, a half acre on the Teachers College farm and a half acre on the Thilenius farm; in addition, beet seeds will be distributed to 15 county farmers, who will be asked to plant and cultivate them; Houck and the college will care for marketing arrangements.

A.F. Lorberg, a prominent farmer living between Cape Girardeau and Gordonville, has announced his candidacy for the nomination for county judge from the First District, subject to the Republican primary; he is a brother of Martin Lorberg, the Cape Girardeau furniture dealer.

-- Sharon K. Sanders