Out of the past: May 31

1999

Memorial Day. A number of Memorial Day services are held, including at Anna, Illinois, Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Perryville and Scott City; at the Mound City National Cemetery at Mounds, Illinois, the 7,500-plus veterans and some of their spouses were honored Saturday; the program, titled “Roll Call,” recognized veterans from the Civil War through Desert Storm.

Latricia Purham is in some pretty select company; since Southeast Missouri State University made the move to the NCAA Division I level in 1991, only one of the school’s track and field athletes had qualified for the National Championship Meet — until now; Purham, a SEMO junior, will become only the second Southeast track athlete — and the school’s first female track athlete — to compete at Division I nationals when the NCAA Championships begin Wednesday in Boise, Idaho; Purham qualified in the shot put with a school-record toss of 50 feet 9 3/4 inches; the only other SEMO athlete to qualify in District I is Terrance Branch, who finished a remarkable fourth in the 400-meters in 1994.

1974

The Southeast Missourian’s first news agency to be established outside the city of Cape Girardeau is changing hands, marking the end of nearly a half century of dedicated newspaper delivery service by Gilbert H. Sievers and his family; the agency, established about 1907 and operated since 1925 by Sievers, has been purchased but Wayne Kight, who begins management of deliveries in and around Jackson tomorrow.

A Cape Girardeau man is listed in critical condition at a St. Louis hospital, following a plane crash yesterday near Sikieston; William L. Long, 47, was the pilot of a single-engine plane which crashed and burned after takeoff from Holyfield Airport at Sikeston; he was crop dusting for Ag-Air Inc., and had just refueled.

1949

Bond issue proposals for fire stations, a new swimming pool and completion of the Arena Building will be deferred indefinitely, says Cape Girardeau Mayor Walter H. Ford at a City Council meeting called to discuss with a government representative the status of money advanced the city for planning purposes; in light of the tornado, the mayor says he cannot “see that now is the time to go ahead with bond issues”; he says that materials needed for the work are more essential to rebuilding the tornado-stricken areas than for construction of municipal additions.

Missouri Gov. Forrest Smith asks the Missouri Legislature in Jefferson City to grant $20,000 tornado relief to the city of Cape Girardeau; the governor last week asked President Truman to allot $30,000 in federal relief, and $15,000 was advanced.

1924

The sanitary line of the West End sewer, broken two months ago in the southwest section of Cape Girardeau, will be repaired by the city under the direction of engineer J.B. Heagler, unless the Dunnigan Construction Co., which originally installed the line, takes steps at once to repair the break, city officials declare; the company has been notified twice of the arrival of the replacement cast iron pipe, but so far has not responded to the city’s demands for repairs; city fathers have now notified the company they will recover the deposit of $1,000 made by Dunnigan to pay for the work; sewage from the entire West End has been flowing through an open sewer since the pipe broke.

More than 1,000 persons packed the auditorium of Centenary Methodist Church last night for the commencement exercises of Cape Girardeau Central High School; the 57 students of the graduating class occupied the front rows of the center section and formed a pretty picture, the girls in white and the boys in black; the commencement address was made by J. Adams Puffer, an entertainer of Boston, Massachusetts.

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 semissourian.com/history.