Out of the past: May 31

1992

Missouri voters will decide the fate of riverboat gambling at a statewide election in November. Rep. Herb Fallert, D-Ste. Genevieve, sponsor of the riverboat gambling bill, said he feels the measure has a good chance of passing.

Pat Long, who will retire as Alma Schrader School's music teacher, has been chosen as a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and will move to Salt Lake City when the school year ends. Long has taught music at Schrader for the past 20 years.

1967

A 1 1/2-inch downpour hit Cape Girardeau late last night and in some areas left streets flooded to curb tops. City street crews are spending today removing mud and gravel the rain, falling in sheets, washed onto streets and sidewalks.

Believing "every little bit counts," members of the Saint Francis Hospital Auxiliary have started their own projects for raising money toward the million-dollar fund needed to build a new hospital. In their gift shop at the hospital, the women are selling bars of soap and Christmas cards toward this end. Close of the campaign drive is nearing, and at last report, $123,164 was needed to hit the million-dollar goal.

1942

Henry A. Nussbaum, 72, chairman of the board of directors of Farmers & Merchants Bank, a former president of the institution and a widely known Cape Girardeau resident, dies at his home in the evening.

Fate streaks down the speedway in the afternoon at the police-sponsored automobile races at the new city park, sending Everett Ellsworth Saylor, 32-year-old national dirt track champion of Dayton, Ohio, hurtling to his death as his speeding race car slams through a north-turn guard rail.

1917

The tornado that swept through Southeast Missouri in two sections last evening took at least 25 lives and possibly a great many more. In the vicinity of Zalma, Missouri, in Bollinger County, nearly 15 lives are reported as lost. There is a possibility near there, the whole W.F. Boyer family -- mother, father and several children -- was wiped out. No trace of the farmhouse, barn or family can be found.

The case of the city of Cape Girardeau against the Frisco Railroad, to cancel the contract under which the road operates through the city, is sent to Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, on a change of venue by Judge John A. Snider in Common Pleas Court.

-- Sharon K. Sanders