Out of the past: May 21

1999

Dr. Dale Nitzschke is stepping down as president of Southeast Missouri State University; the Board of Regents has promoted the school’s executive vice president, Dr. Kenneth W. Dobbins, to the top spot; the 49-year-old Dobbins will serve as Southeast’s 17th president beginning July 1; Nitzschke will remain with the school for the next two years in the newly created position of chancellor; in that role, he will oversee the development of the River Campus visual and performing arts school and the Polytechnic Institute.

Ron Skaggs, a former police chief in Festus, has been named interim executive director of Southeast Missouri Weed Inc., filling a vacancy left by the resignation of Calvin Bird in mid-April; Weed and Seed is a program operated by the U.S. Justice Department that aims to “weed” out drugs and crime in a targeted area and “seed” that area with other resources and community programs.

1974

The City of Jackson plans to appeal Circuit Judge Marshall Craig’s ruling yesterday that the proposed county law enforcement complex may be built on the County Farm in Cape Girardeau; meeting last night, the Jackson City Council accepted a recommendation by city attorney Kenneth L. Waldron to appeal the Circuit Court decision to the Missouri Supreme Court; it’s likely that Albert C. Lowes, attorney for a citizens committee against locating the proposed $750,000 complex outside the county seat, will recommend that group also appeal the ruling when members meet Friday night.

The deactivated submarine USS Marlin sailed up the Mississippi River yesterday, passing Cape Girardeau about 1 p.m. aboard a barge pushed by the towboat Albock, owned by Luhr Brothers, Inc., of Cape Girardeau; the Marlin is on its way from Orange, Texas, to Omaha, Nebraska, where it will be placed on display next to the USS Hazard by the Greater Omaha Historical Society.

1949

Seventy-five years ago -- May 21, 1949 -- a tornado tore through Cape Girardeau. It left devastation in its path from Gordonville Road to the Mississippi River, just south of Cape Rock.Elaine Houseman ~ Southeast Missourian archive

Striking in the darkness at 6:56 p.m., a tornado attacks Cape Girardeau, first hitting the Gordonville Road area; it then follows an almost undeviating path across Highway 61, wrecking the Airline and sweeping to Clark Avenue and Broadway; from there it moves up Broadway to Perry Avenue and on to Missouri, Dunklin, North Sprigg Street and the Marble City Heights and Red Star areas, where the loss is heaviest; first reports are that 15 persons lost their lives in the wreckage.

MAUPIN, Ore. — Capt. Ray H. Littge, 25, a wartime ace, was killed yesterday when his jet fighter crashed on a desolate tableland near here; Littge attended school at Altenburg and was a graduate of Perryville High School; he had 23 1/2 German planes to his credit and held the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with 15 clusters; after the war, he remained in service and most recently was stationed at Hamilton Field, California; besides his mother, wife and children, he is survived by five brothers and a sister.

1924

The State Teachers College Board of Regents refuses to revoke the teaching certificate of Phyllis Perkins, principal of the Fairview school in St. Louis County, and approves her action in punishing Virgil Walls, 14; Perkins, a 1917 graduate of the Cape Girardeau Teachers College and a teacher for 13 years, appears in person before the board with three witnesses, all teachers in the school, to contradict the charges that her thrashing of the youth had been too severe; the board deliberates only a few minutes in reaching its decision.

Approximately 1,700 ex-service men in Cape Girardeau County, more than 700 of these in Cape Girardeau, will be entitled to share in the bonus that Congress approved Monday, according to estimates of officers of the local American Legion post; an estimated 88% of these will receive the bonus under the insurance plan; of interest here is the ruling that members of the Students Army Training Corps, a branch of which was established at the Teachers College during the war, will not share in the bonus.

Southeast Missourian librarian Sharon Sanders compiles the information for the daily Out of the Past column. She also writes a blog called “From the Morgue” that showcases interesting historical stories from the newspaper. Check out her blog at www.semissourian.com/history.