Out of the past: May 7

1998

Cape Girardeau is taking a new approach to routing truck traffic through the city; the existing truck traffic ordinance specifies streets and roads on which truck traffic is prohibited; a new ordinance before the City Council spells out routes on which truck traffic is allowed and sets up a permit process for truck drivers who need to use other routes to make deliveries or reach construction sites.

Members of the Cape Girardeau education and business communities came together to celebrate the art of teaching at the Chamber of Commerce Educators of the Year banquet; this is the fifth year the chamber's education committee sponsored the event to recognize honorees for excellence in elementary -- Joan Haring -- and secondary -- Donna Ellis -- education and administration -- Washington School principal Barbara Blanchard; for the second year, the chamber's university relations committee also honored a fourth individual for excellence in university education -- Dr. David Kunz, professor of finance.

1973

A price of $33,000 for a Cape Girardeau tract on which the new county juvenile detention home will be built has been accepted by the County Court; the 188-by-465-foot tract in the 300 block of Merriwether Street will be purchased by the county from Mr. and Mrs. W.E. Walker Jr., of Cape Girardeau.

Over 120 persons victimized by the record-setting Mississippi River flood have applied for assistance at the Office of Economic Opportunity's disaster assistance center since it opened in the Arena Building Saturday morning; other centers have opened in Charleston, Caruthersville and Ste. Genevieve in Missouri, and Olive Branch, Illinois.

1948

Apparently in an attempt to enter the Cape Cut Rate drug store, 635 Good Hope St., last night, thieves broke into the rear room of the Gladish-Walker Furniture Co. building, 633 Good Hope, and chiseled a 16-by-24-inch hole in the brick wall between the two businesses; police theorize that, after taking their time removing the first layer of bricks, the thieves discovered a second wall of bricks, which either disgusted them or frightened them away; nothing was reported missing.

Spray crews, who applied DDT to a part of the Smelterville section of the city this week, have returned to the south part of the county; they will move back here next week to complete the job, says Milfred D. Plummer, regional supervisor; discussing the program, Plummer denies the DDT application is harmful to human beings; he adds that its purpose is to rid houses of bugs and disease-bearing insects; a number of residents in Smelterville had expressed a fear it might prove harmful.

1923

Cape Girardeau Central High School won the 18th annual high school track and field meet Saturday afternoon at Fairground Park, scoring 52 5/6 points; the nearest opponent, Sikeston, Missouri, bagged 23 points; Central won four trophies in the meet, and Horace Dalton, the Tigers' star athlete, copped the loving cup for scoring the highest number of individual points.

Twelve men were arrested when Cape Girardeau police and deputy sheriffs raided a craps game on the bank of the Mississippi River, north of Sloan's Creek in the Red Star suburb, early yesterday afternoon; a half dozen others escaped after the officers chased them into the willows along the river bank, firing several shots from their revolvers.

-- Sharon K. Sanders