Out of the past: Dec. 3

1991

Drug Enforcement Administration agent Shirley Armstead of St. Louis spent six years undercover, busting people for using and selling drugs; this week she is in Cape Girardeau and Jackson, educating students and parents about drugs.

Edith Davidson, president of Scott City's Community Betterment Association, has been appointed Ward 2 councilman to fill the seat of former councilman Jim Cauble; Cauble informed city officials last week he intended to resign.

1966

The Cape Girardeau school district, the city and the county have indebted themselves, by voter consent, a total of $8,034,000 over the past two decades to pay for public improvements of various kinds; retirement of $2,379,000 in bonds leaves the outstanding local public debt at $5,655,000.

The Marquette Cement Co. plants here will begin piecemeal stoppage of production tomorrow and will be completely shut down by the end of the third shift early Monday morning; the company is temporarily interrupting production for a period of about eight weeks; the industry employs 375 persons, most of whom will be laid off for that period; among those who will remain working will be packing and shipping personnel.

1941

The Missourian's carrier boys in Cape Girardeau have volunteered their services to the government in the defense program by agreeing to sell defense savings bonds to their customers; the carriers will take orders from residents along their routes and deliver and collect for the stamps on Saturdays, when they make collections for the newspaper.

Serving as the "guinea pig" for a proposed training program for aviation workers throughout the United States, Cape Girardeau has been selected by the U.S. Office of Education as the site for the first mobile training unit for aircraft sheet metal workers in the nation; under the program, 60 men will be trained in an eight-week period; upon completion of the first class, 60 more workers will be trained for a similar period of time, the program continuing until all eligible men in this section have been trained; then the shop will be dismantled and moved by truck to some other point in the state.

1916

A horse and buggy, the property of D.E. Masterson, the dairyman, is stolen from Good Hope Street around 10 p.m., while the Masterson children -- Helen and Dewey -- are attending the picture show at the Orpheum; they had hitched the horse near the corner of Frederick and Good Hope streets, close to the theater; following the show, they are surprised to find horse and buggy are gone.

A fine calf weighing about 400 pounds is struck by an automobile and instantly killed on the far end of Bloomfield Street in the afternoon, and the auto is turned completely over; Joe Culotta, proprietor of a candy store on Main Street and the owner of the car, is thrown into the street and bruised considerably.

-- Sharon K. Sanders