Out of the past: Oct. 29

1998

On Monday, Cape Girardeau's two hospitals begin a joint venture aimed at improving care for patients without a local doctor; Dr. Matt Shepard has been hired jointly by Southeast Hospital and Saint Francis Medical Center as a hospitalist; he will be joined within a month by Dr. Teena Sharrock.

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- Charlton Heston, star of "Ben Hur" and "The Ten Commandments", stumped for Republican candidates Christopher "Kit" Bond and Jo Ann Emerson here yesterday; he was the key speaker at a "Preserving Our Heritage Rally" at Three Rivers Community College, a joint fund-raiser for the GOP and the National Rifle Association; but Heston emphasized he was attending the rally as a private citizen, not in his formal capacity as national chairman of the NRA.

1973

The driver of a flatbed truck that crashed on Interstate 55 near Morehouse, Missouri, Aug. 1 killing 10 of 47 Mexican farm workers he was unlawfully transporting, is sentenced to 18 months in the custody of the U.S. attorney general; Judge James H. Meridith sentences the Orange Grove, Texas, man during the opening day of the fall term of Federal District Court in Cape Girardeau.

John W. Popp, 68, a long-time Cape Girardeau Realtor and businessman, died yesterday at a local hospital after an illness of three months; Popp, a former cashier at Sturdivant Bank, was with Popp and Springer Insurance and Realty Co. 35 years, and in the early 1960s formed the John W. Popp Insurance and Real Estate Co.; he was also one of the developers of the Town Plaza Shopping Center and was a partner with his sister, Alma Younghouse, in the Plaza Way shopping area.

1948

Old grads and former students by the hundreds mingle together at State College, renewing school-day friendships and participating in opening events of a weekend entertainment program celebrating the college's 75th anniversary; final touches are being made on official activities which begin tomorrow with group dinners in the evening; classes from 1873-1917 will dine at Leming Hall; 1918-1929, Albert Hall, and 1930-1948, Cheney Hall; at 8:30 p.m., the Black Mask organization will present "A Comedy of Errors" in the college auditorium; that will be followed by organization parties; at midnight, a pep rally will be held at Houck Stadium.

Genevieve Hoche, a former resident of Cape Girardeau who now lives in Chicago, is here for the weekend as a guest of her sister, Bernadette Hoche; the two have just returned from a 10-day trip through the Smokey Mountains and are enjoying a family reunion; their brother, Philip A. Hoche, is here from Winter Park, Florida, for the college diamond jubilee; he is the guest of a brother, David E. Hoche, 143 S. Spanish St.

1923

The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce is to act as a clearing house for Black labor in this vicinity, chamber president Clyde D. Harris announces; Harris says a number of Black workers have come here from the South within the past few weeks and are attempting to find employment in nearby cotton fields and in other occupations; because they are meeting with some difficulty in finding jobs, the chamber will assist them, funneling them to farmers who need laborers.

The widely-discussed Statler case has ended; Celia McGowan-Statler of Muskogee, Oklahoma, who nearly two years ago instituted legal proceedings to secure a part of the estate of the late David Statler, former resident of near Daisy, valued at $50,000, has dropped the case, according to Albert L. Orr, attorney for the Statler interests; the case was called last week in district court at Medicine Lodge, Kansas, but was dismissed by the woman's attorneys when she failed to appear.

-- Sharon K. Sanders