Out of the past: Nov. 17

1990

During a six-hour hearing at the Common Pleas Courthouse, the need for a mediation system in divorce cases and a statewide system of victim advocates is voiced; the daylong hearing on possible gender bias in Missouri courts is one of six being held across the state by the Missouri Task Force on Gender and Justice.

The biggest weekend of the year for buying homemade crafts in Cape Girardeau gets underway. Craft fairs at the Show Me Center, A.C. Brase Arena Building and Holiday Inn Convention Center draw an estimated 7,500 people. The fairs will continue tomorrow.

1965

The 1965 SEMO District Fair was probably the "biggest and best" in the line that goes back 110 years, Fair Association members learned last night. LaRoy R. Roper, association president, reported the local fair has become the largest in the state in point of entries in livestock and other classes, outside the heavily subsidized Missouri State Fair in Sedalia.

Willard Winder of Cape Girardeau, a salesman at Biederman Furniture Co., has won a six-day trip to Paris, France, as part of a courtesy sales contest held by the company. Winder is also eligible to win a trip for his wife in the follow-up phases of the contest.

1940

Fred Rawlins, 24, of Cape Girardeau sustains a broken right arm when the motorcycle he is riding overturns on a curve at the foot of Cape Rock hill, north of the city. He says the brakes on the vehicle failed to work. Rawlins teaches in the public schools at Wardell, Missouri.

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- Fire breaks out in the Presbyterian Church in the middle of Charleston during Sunday School services, destroying the building at a loss of about $35,000; about 100 persons in classes hear a roar, then discover the attic, over some of the Sunday School rooms, is ablaze. No one is injured.

1915

Principal Oliver O. Nance of Lincoln School holds memorial services in the morning in honor of Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, who died recently. The flag on the building is placed at half staff, and several addresses on the life of the distinguished educator are given; the whole school takes part in the service.

Otto Hanny, a former saloonkeeper in Haarig, who has been spending the past six weeks in Hot Springs, Arkansas, for the benefit of his health, returns home in a much improved condition.

-- Sharon K. Sanders