Out of the past: Sept. 30

1996

The St. Louis Cardinals won the Central Division title last week, and that's good news for Cape Girardeau clothing merchants; Cardinals caps, T-shirts and sweatshirts are selling like hotcakes; and since is was the team's first playoff berth since 1987, people are spending even more money to identify with the team.

Southeast Missouri State University is accepting nominations until Oct. 15 for recipients of honorary doctoral and professional degrees to be presented at spring commencement exercises next May; the university began awarding honorary degrees for the first time at spring commencement; the late Rush Limbaugh Sr. posthumously received the university's first doctoral degree.

1971

Two Country Music Hall of Famers -- stars of Nashville's Grand Ole Opry -- arrive in Cape Girardeau about noon for two performances of the Country Music Jamboree benefiting the record $117,750 United Way fund-raising campaign; accompanied by the Smokey Mountain Boys and the Blue Grass Boys, Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe will perform on the Arena Building stage this afternoon and again tonight.

Hoping for an earlier start on construction of its proposed medical center, Saint Francis Hospital's Board of Directors is seeking bids for site preparation; the work at the site -- Gordonville and Mount Auburn roads -- will include bringing the ground to within 6 inches of the required grade and clearing some trees; the work is expected to take 60 days.

1946

The College Barber Shop, located for 17 years at 909 Broadway and operated by Raymond Runnels, is moving to its new location across the street in the new building of the Cape Girardeau School of Beauty Culture; Runnels, who has been operating the shop alone for some time, has a new assistant, Henry Wilson, who recently completed his course in the Kansas City Barber College at Kansas City, Missouri.

A sorghum-making operation in Southeast Missouri was photographed in the fall of 1946.G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive

It's sorghum time again; scattered over Southeast Missouri are acreages, not large fields, of sugar cane which will furnish some of the sweetness for tables this fall and winter; time was when the choice brownish-yellowish syrup sold from 30 to 45 and 50 cents per gallon, but not any more; sorghum has joined all other items in the high-price brackets; this year's syrup is retailing from $2.25 to $3 per gallon.

Read more about sorghum-making in Southeast Missourian at https://www.semissourian.com/blogs/fromthemorgue/entry/67086

1921

MALDEN, Mo. -- The 1921 baseball season ended for Homer Smetzer, manager of the electric light plant here, when he got tangled with a live wire, carrying 2,300 volts, yesterday and had both hands badly injured; the physician isn't certain the infielder will ever play the national game again, so severely were both hands burned; Smetzer has been playing with the Capahas of Cape Girardeau the past two months.

Cynthia Ivy, former matron of Albert Hall, boys' dormitory at Teachers College, leaves for Nashville, Tennessee, to join her son and daughter; she was presented a brooch following the evening meal at the dormitory last night by the men of Albert Hall, who wished to show their appreciation for favors done them; Robert Stubblefield of Ellington, Missouri, a student, made the presentation.

-- Sharon K. Sanders