Out of the past: Aug. 31

1996

In five days, members of SEMO Lifesavers, a chapter of Missouri Right to Life, arranged for two national speakers, 4,400 white, wooden crosses, and more than 2,500 persons for a prayer vigil prior to President Clinton's arrival yesterday; speaking at the anti-abortion rally at the Cemetery of Innocents on Siemers Drive near Interstate 55 were Phyllis Schlafly of St. Louis, president of Eagle Forum, and Penny Lea of Boone, North Carolina, director of "I Believe in Life."

NationsBank Corp. and Boatmen's Bancshares Inc. have announced an agreement to merge into a company that would serve more than 13 million customers in 16 states; NationsBank has agreed to pay about $9.5 billion in cash and stock for Boatmen's Inc. in the third-biggest U.S. banking merger on record; Boatmen's has eight locations in Cape Girardeau County.

1971

Workers have moved into Arena Park to begin readying the grounds for the annual SEMO District Fair to open Sept. 14 and run through Sept. 19; Willie Ruesler, grounds superintendent, and his crew are placing fencing around the park and starting to assemble exhibit booths inside the Arena Building.

That longstanding "washboard" surface of Kingshighway between the intersections of Broadway and West Cape Rock Drive is disappearing; District 10 maintenance workers of the Missouri Highway Department, using a borrowed heater-planer, are attempting to smooth out the surface.

1946

State College is given authority to take over the administration and link trainer buildings at Harris Field to provide housing accommodations for student war veterans and their families; from 12 to 15 couples can be accommodated in the two buildings, in which temporary partitions will be installed and ice boxes and kitchen sinks placed.

Cape Girardeau today has a companion union for its Service Company of the 140th Infantry Regiment; Capt. Laurence B. Adams, regimental adjutant, announces the adjutant general of Missouri has assigned Regimental Headquarters Company to the city.

1921

The Teachers College Board of Regents has instructed architect Arthur Kriehn of the J.H. Phelps Co. of Kansas City, Missouri, to prepare plans for a $125,000 educational building; the site for the building as selected by a committee and President Joseph A. Serena is east of the present Science Building, where the tennis courts are located; the building will face Pacific Street on the east.

Gov. Arthur M. Hyde will make the keynote address at the first annual convocation of the Southeast Missouri Teachers College to be held in mid-September, the first week of school; the convocation -- to be attended by citizens, members of the Board of Regents, members of the faculty and students -- will be a general get-acquainted meeting; Serena has employed this plan at other colleges.

-- Sharon K. Sanders