Out of the past: Feb. 16

2000

The Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center, the new name for what had been called the Cape Girardeau Vocational-Technical School, yesterday received a national award for outstanding adult education during its annual recognition breakfast; Dr. Carroll Towey, branch chief for the U.S. Department of Education’s adult education division, was on hand to present the the Secretary’s Award for superior programming.

Boys basketball games at Jackson just won’t be the same next year; Steve Burk, Jackson’s coach for the last 20 years, will be retiring upon season’s end; Burk has compiled a 387-199 record over his career; before coaching at Jackson, he coached two years at Chester, Illinois, and was the girls basketball coach at Francis Howell two years.

1975

PERRYVILLE – The family of the late Rev. Oscar L. Huber, C.M., who administered the last rites of the Catholic Church to President John Kennedy in Dallas, has received a telegram offering the condolences of the Kennedy family; Huber, 81, died Jan. 21 in Perryville.

Col. Jess Henson, Recruiting and Retention Officer for the Missouri National Guard in Jefferson City, is in Cape Girardeau this weekend instructing 43 guardsmen from the area on how to be a salesman for the National Guard, what to look for in recruiting, and how to find quality enlistments.

1950

On the Birds Point-New Madrid spillway, a valiant fight is being waged to hold a 3,000-foot stretch of dike near Dorena, which has been weakened by the relentless month-long pounding of floodwaters; it is the first serious damage reported from seepage and soaking of the bulwark, which protects the 131,000-acre farm corridor between the riverside and landside levees; there is one piece of good news; the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois, has crested, and the Mississippi River has also begun to fall.

Joseph J. Yuracko, 43, manager of the Montgomery Ward & Co. store here for nearly seven years, dies at a local hospital in the morning; active in the community, Yuracko joined in worthwhile civic enterprises and was a member of the Knights of Columbus, the Kiwanis Club, the Loyal Order of the Moose and in other towns had been associated with the Elks, Lions and Rotary clubs.

1925

The new, $40,000 school building erected by the congregation of Trinity Lutheran Church is formally opened after the briefest of services; a formal dedication service is scheduled for April 19; the 188 pupils yesterday paid their last respects to the old building near the church on Themis Street, and then moved their books into the new structure for classes which will start at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow.

Teachers College president Joseph A. Serena leaves for Jefferson City, where he will present the local college’s plea for additional funding before the appropriations committee; the school’s budget request of $626,900 has been slashed to $334,000; this includes the funds for a new gymnasium building, as well as $10,000 for teachers’ salaries; it is probable the college teaching staff will have to be reduced, if the funds aren’t restored.

Southeast Missourian librarian Sharon Sanders compiles the information for the daily Out of the Past column. She also writes a weekend column called “From the Morgue” that showcases interesting historical stories from the newspaper.