Out of the past: Dec. 5

1990

Terry Risco is the new director of the Cape Girardeau Public Library; Risco, who began his duties Monday, was formerly a reference librarian at Utica, Michigan; he succeeds Martha Maxwell as director.

Southeast Missouri State University plans to spend $67,000 this fiscal year on attracting and retaining minority students and promoting ethnic diversity on campus; approximately $35,000 of the cost is being funded with state money earmarked especially for recruitment and retention of minority students.

1965

Dr. Kenneth W. Bonham, medical missionary serving in India for the Christian Church, is guest speaker for Women's Day Sunday at the First Christian Church; Bonham is in charge of the 32-bed Christian Hospital in the central India state Madhya Pradesh.

Volunteer workers are making headway on the construction of the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses located on Bloomfield Road just east of Interstate 55; the building, with approximately 2,569 square feet, will replace the present facilities at 313 N. Fountain St.

1940

One hundred fifty-four Missouri National Guardsmen from St. Louis and Mexico pass through Cape Girardeau at noon, stopping at the Colonial Tavern and Alvarado for lunch before continuing on their way to Caruthersville, Missouri, where they will spend the night.

While final official orders haven't been given, members of the two National Guard units here are preparing for mobilization on Dec. 23; members of Service Company, of which Capt. Percy R. Little is commander, and Headquarters Detachment, with Lt. Robert Roth in charge, are to mobilize at the Arena Building in the new city park on Dec. 23; 84 men are expected to be there until about Jan. 1, when they will move to Camp Robinson, near Little Rock, Arkansas, for a training stretch to last a year.

1915

Fred E. Kies Sr., of Jackson died last evening after an illness of over a year; "the machinery of the editor, preacher, teacher wore away until it could no longer run and furnish the spark of life and then came death, as peaceful and gentle as death could be hoped for"; Kies was 77.

The drug store of Harry C. Wasem in Haarig is visited by a robber early in the morning and relieved of about $15 in cash and several articles valued at about the same amount; entrance is gained through a rear window, the burglar tossing a rock through the upper pane of glass and then reaching through to unlatch the sashes so he can lower the upper one and crawl over it.

-- Sharon K. Sanders