1999

Weed and Seed will regain its funding in Southeast Missouri now that a new executive director has been hired; Lisa Lane of Sikeston was selected Wednesday to head the regional effort; the program saw its $750,000 funding revoked earlier this year because it had no executive director and had unauthorized budget adjustments, inappropriate expenditures and insufficient details about community projects.

Guy and Claudine Pinckley of Allardt, Tennessee, have been chosen as the 1999 “Friends of the University” by the Southeast Missouri State University Foundation; the award will be presented the couple Oct. 9 at the annual Copper Dome breakfast in the Student Recreation Center.

1974

Petitions calling for a vote on establishment of a county health unit are presented to the Cape Girardeau County Court by members of the County Health Advisory Council; the proposal, which will face county voters in the Nov. 5 general election, calls for a 10-cent tax per $100 of assessed valuation; the tax would finance the long-proposed health unit.

The Cape Girardeau Police Department begins its transition from old to new as Chief Irvin E. Beard leaves the position he has held the last 10 years; effective at midnight, Lt. William W. Stover, chief of detectives, will take over as interim chief; he will be followed Nov. 16 by Lt. Donald R. Roberts, head of the traffic division, who will remain interim chief until Jan. 1, when Col. Henry H. Greece assumes his new duties as permanent police chief.

1949

Cape Girardeau is nipped by its first heavy, near-killing frost of the season early in the morning, as the mercury skids to 36 degrees; out in the county several residents report a heavy frost, especially at Shawneetown and Burfordville.

Letters are going out from the State College Alumni Association office to 10,000 former students, informing them of the plans for the event-filled program scheduled for the 1949 Homecoming on Oct. 14 and 15; Homecoming this year is dedicated to the late Louis Houck, for 39 years a member of the Board of Regents and one of those who worked toward establishment of the school here.

1924

The Cape Girardeau Northern Railroad apparently successfully weathers another crisis; Judge John A. Snider in Common Pleas Court grants a 30-day continuance of the general sale order, giving the receiver a “breathing spell” in which to consummate a private sale of the line; he sets the next date to decide the fate of the road on Oct. 30, when he declares he will demand a report of what has been done in an effort to sell the property.

All children in the Cape Girardeau public schools must be vaccinated against smallpox before Nov. 1, the board of education decided at a meeting last night, at which a representative of the Cape Girardeau Board of Health ordered that this preventative measure be taken; in other action, the school board hired an additional teacher for Lincoln School.

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.