Out of the past: March 8

1995

Three Cape Girardeau councilmen have recommended changes in the operation of city advisory boards, including requiring board members to be city residents; the special committee of councilmen Richard Eggimann, Melvin Kasten and Tom Neumeyer also agreed that no one should be allowed to serve on more than one board at a time.

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee approves a bill that would reform the nation's $27 billion food stamp program and could impact more than 5,000 Cape Girardeau County residents who depend on the welfare system to buy groceries; U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, who votes for the measure, says it will cut food stamp spending by $16 billion over the next five years and tighten controls to prevent waste and abuse.

1970

A fourth candidate, Willie J. Newbern, filed Friday for one of two seats on the Cape Girardeau City Council to be filled at the April 7 election; Newbern, 28, is a teacher at the Adult Vocational Center in Cairo, Illinois, and a part-time graduate student at State College.

Doing a fair imitation of spring, temperatures rise to 68 degrees in Cape Girardeau, the warmest day of the new year; Capaha and Arena parks are filled with residents, young and old, wanting out in the warm sunshine.

1945

CAIRO, Ill. -- A stage of 54 feet on the Ohio River at Cairo by Monday, being forecast by a government meteorologist, is just one foot below the mark at which the "fuse plug" dike would be opened to put into use the 133,000-acre Birds Point-New Madrid spillway to relieve pressure on the Illinois community; U.S. Engineers, as a precaution, have moved equipment to the fuse plug site near the upper end of the spillway.

Pfc. Ira E. Hellwege, 25, son of Nina Hellwege of Cape Girardeau and the late Martin Hellwege, was killed in action in the European war theater Feb. 24.

1920

Byrne Peterman, son of George W. Peterman, is visiting in Jackson after an absence of several years, having served in the U.S. Navy and held other positions with the government; in his absence from his home town, he has seen many parts of the word: the Hawaiian Islands, China, South America and made four trips to Europe; he finds Jackson little changed.

A law partnership has been formed by A.M. Spradling and Kenrick Burrough, with offices in the H.-H. Building; Spradling has been a lawyer with a large practice for 12 years, beginning in Jackson in 1908 and moving to Cape Girardeau in 1916; Burrough graduated from Yale in 1914, from Harvard Law School in 1917, and then served in the infantry; after the war, he came back to Cape Girardeau and established a law office in the First National Bank building.

-- Sharon K. Sanders