Out of the past: May 24

1997

Cape Girardeau County Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones stood alone against his colleagues during a recent vote on hiring an engineering firm from outside the county to design a local bridge; the commission hired Smith and Co. engineering of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, to build a bridge on County Road 351, with Larry Bock and Max Stovall voting for the contract and Jones against.

Former Southeast Missouri State University head men's basketball coach Ron Shumate learned of his dismissal through his attorneys and never met face to face with school officials; Shumate declines to comment about the way his dismissal was handled or the ongoing NCAA investigation that led to the Board of Regents' decision to terminate his contract last week.

1972

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Bill Bradley may trade the basketball court for the political arena to run for Congress in Southeast Missouri in 1974; the professional basketball star and former Rhodes Scholar who has family ties in Cape Girardeau emerged at the 10th Congressional District Democratic convention here last night as a strong potential challenger to Rep. Bill D. Burlison, D-Cape Girardeau; clearly, Bradly was a favorite of the 106 delegates in attendance.

In answer to a query by a the city building inspector, City Attorney Howard C. Wright Jr., has ruled that Cape Girardeau property owners can no longer enclose their carports or garages in residential areas and use the driveways in front of the newly-enclosed structures for off-street parking; when a carport or garage is enclosed, the driveway to this area becomes part of the required front yard.

1947

Jesse L. Rose, foreman of the state highway maintenance department with headquarters at Jackson, is on the warpath and dire disaster awaits the thieves who stole a beautiful magnolia tree from the Ten Mile Garden one night this week; the tree, about 6 feet tall, had been set out a few weeks ago near the old gravel road leading from Highway 61 to the County Farm; the State Highway Patrol, emissaries of the garden, are making an effort to locate the culprits.

BENTON, Mo. -- In a partition sale here yesterday of the real estate owned by the late William Oliver, an attorney of Chaffee, Missouri, bids for a large farm and town property in Chaffee totaled $76,350; a 400-acre farm on the Base Line Road, three miles west of Morley, Missouri, was bid in by Earl Watkins of Oran, Missouri, for $57,000.

1922

Suit for $10,000 damages for alleged injuries sustained when a brick falling from the upper part of the stage of the New Broadway Theatre struck William H. Anderson, contracting decorator of St. Louis, on the head while he was arranging stage decorations, has been filed in Common Pleas Court; Cape Theatre and Realty Co. and S.E. Brady, manager of the theater, are named as defendants.

A majority of the alumni of the Teachers College here -- especially the men -- are in either the teaching or the law profession, according to statements of many of the alumni at the annual banquet held last night at Centenary Methodist Church; there were more than 100 alumni and friends present; most of the women graduates of the college are either teaching or are married.

-- Sharon K. Sanders