25 years ago: March 18, 1985

Vandals struck Central Junior High School here Saturday, doing several thousand dollars' worth of damage to interior portions of the building and materials; the vandals entered the building by removing a door from its hinges.

Cape Girardeau firefighters, acting as arsonists, intentionally burn an abandoned house near the Southeast Missouri State University track complex as part of a training exercise; it gives two rookies, Brad Golden and Mark Hasheider, experience in a firefighting situation.

50 years ago: March 18, 1960

Good crowds were on hand yesterday morning for the formal opening ceremonies of two new shops: Gaylor's Shoe and Libson's; to formally open the establishments, Mayor Walter H. Ford cut a ribbon stretched across the entrances of each business on the site of the former First National Bank building on Main Street.

District educators in the afternoon close their 84th annual convention with a series of professional meetings by departments, after hearing their state executive secretary and a concluding major address by Dr. Carl S. Winters of Oak Park, Ill., in the morning at Houck Field House.

75 years ago: March 18, 1935

Stricken just as he completed a funeral sermon yesterday afternoon at the Baptist Church at Oak Ridge, the Rev. F.D. Baughn, pastor of the church, collapsed in the pulpit and dies at his home today; Baughn was 67 years old.

KENNETT, Mo. -- Still moving a great volume of water southward, the St. Francis River is 4 feet below its crest of the weekend, with more water going out through Arkansas levee gaps than through those on the Missouri side.

100 years ago: March 18, 1910

William Ellis, an old veteran of the Civil War and a pensioner, feeble and nearly totally blind, fell down the stairs at the Green Tree Hotel on Good Hope Street yesterday and was killed; his funeral will be handled by the Sons of Union Veterans today.

Will Schrader, the brick contractor, has moved to his new home on South Sprigg Street; he has one of the nicest houses in Cape Girardeau.

-- Sharon K. Sanders