Out of the past: Oct. 12

1997

FROHNA, Mo. -- Concordia Lutheran Church of Frohna hosts a special worship service in the morning in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod; guest speaker is the Rev. John W. Fair of Fort Wayne, Indiana, former pastor at Concordia.

Grace United Methodist Church will soon implement a new system of lay caring ministry within the congregation; the program involves training lay members who will work with Jerry Statler and Kay Blanchard in the ministry of Christian caregiving through the Stephen Ministry; the ministry provides support for those facing terminal illness, grief, hospitalization, job crisis, spiritual crisis, separation or divorce, birth, adoption, disabilities and more.

1972

The eastern walls of old Leming Hall were the first to go when Crites and Sailer Construction Co. began demolition of the structure to make way for a Student Union building at Southeast Missouri State University. A group of interested students watches as a one-ton ball does the job. (Southeast Missourian archive)

The eastern walls of old Leming Hall were the first to go when Crites and Sailer Construction Co. began demolition of the structure to make way for a Student Union building at Southeast Missouri State University. A group of interested students watches as a one-ton ball does the job. (Southeast Missourian archive)

The demolition of a Southeast Missouri State University landmark -- old Leming Hall -- began yesterday morning when a one-ton steel wrecking ball took its first blow, and the structure began to tumble stone by stone; a victim of progress, the 67-year-old building is destined to be replaced by the university with a Student Union building.

There's a new organization in town catering to young people interested in the theater, either as actors and actresses or as behind-the-scenes workers; the Cape Girardeau Children's Theater Association will meet Saturday morning at Centenary United Methodist Church to map plans for the group's first production, a fantasy called "King of the Golden River," which will be directed by Ann Abbott, a sophomore theater major at Southeast Missouri State University.

1947

The Rev. Dale Porter of Lutesville, Missouri, has assumed his duties as pastor of General Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau, replacing the Rev. E.D. Winstead, who resigned the pastorate effective Oct. 1, to enter the evangelistic field; the Rev. and Mrs. Porter and two children, Bobby and Don, are making their home temporarily at 830 S. West End Blvd., awaiting the completion of the parsonage at 819 N. Sprigg St.

In the presence of a crowd of 250 persons interested in Cape Girardeau County's rich history, Cape LaCroix Cross is unveiled in an afternoon ceremony at the base of the 9-foot monument erected near the intersection of Cape LaCroix Creek and Highway 61; the cross was planted on the banks of Cape LaCroix Creek by the Associated Committees of Historic Cape Girardeau; the monument recalls the erection of a cross at the stream's mouth near Gray's Point in 1699 by three French missionaries.

1922

Hundreds of Southeast Missouri teachers are descending on Cape Girardeau for the opening session of the annual meeting of the Southeast Missouri Teachers Association tonight in the Teachers College auditorium; Vest C. Myers, president of the association, who is city superintendent of schools at Charleston, arrives early in the day to make final arrangements for the opening.

Three gallons of "moonshine" whiskey are found by Wilson Gibbs, 12, in a cave in Fort A at the east end of Bellevue Street shortly before noon, when he chases a rabbit into the hole; the liquor is in two jugs, a two-gallon and one-gallon receptacle; Deputy Sheriff Ed. Frenzel took the jugs into his custody.

-- Sharon K. Sanders