Out of the past: Nov. 14

1992

Six "pride teams," made up of nearly 40 people, collect trash in the morning in an area bordered by Sprigg, Olive and Roberts streets and the Mississippi River; the event is the second city clean-up project sponsored by the Cape Girardeau City Council.

William Douthit, an attorney for the NAACP in St. Louis, and Ina Boon, regional director of the NAACP in St. Louis, are speakers at a "Family Summit" at Southeast Missouri State University; the summit, sponsored by the university and Cape Girardeau chapter of the NAACP, is attended by about 75 people.

1967

GALE, Ill. -- Assailants in a speeding car fire several shots at a Southern Illinois motel operator and a Cape Girardeau man in a truck near here early in the morning; Illinois authorities won't release details, but other sources say Howard Baker, operator of Town and Country Inn near McClure, Illinois, and Charles Dunn, 25, of Flint Hill Road, escaped serious injury when about four shotgun blasts and possibly pistol or rifle fire riveted their pickup's windows.

Pfc. James O. Thomas, 20, the son of former Cape Girardeau residents Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Thomas, now of Fieldon, Illinois, was killed in action last Wednesday in Vietnam; he was the nephew of Mrs. Arlie Huckstep of Cape Girardeau and Mrs. John Diebold of Oran, Missouri.

1942

Lt. James C. Whittaker, native Cape Girardeau County and a member of the Eddie Rickenbacker plane lost Oct. 22, is rescued on his 43rd birthday on a South Pacific Island; Rickenbacker, America's ace of ace in the first World War, was picked up from a raft bobbing in the sea by a Navy Catalina flying boat along with two other members of his crew.

The flow of railroad passenger traffic in Cape Girardeau, boosted by thinning tires and the approach of gasoline rationing, has reached an unprecedented peak; J.F. Neal, Frisco passenger agent, estimates that in the last four or five months passenger traffic here has doubled, and the end isn't yet in sight.

1917

With tomorrow being the last day on which unvaccinated children may remain in Cape Girardeau schools, the doctors of the city have been called to attend a meeting at Cape Girardeau Central High School that morning to arrange a schedule for the vaccination of pupils at the various schools; between 200 and 250 pupils are now in the public schools whose parents refuse such consent; members of the school board say these children will be dismissed after Thursday and not be permitted to attend classes until they are vaccinated.

The Perfection Furniture and Manufacturing Co. is the name selected for the new organization at Wittenburg, Missouri, growing out of the defunct Miesner Manufacturing Co.

-- Sharon K. Sanders