Out of the past: Feb. 21

1992

PATTON, Mo. -- The Meadow Heights School District is asking voters to approve a tax hike or face budget cuts, including school programs and athletic teams; on April 7, voters will be asked to raise the tax rate 98 cents. If the measure fails, school programs totaling $113,000 will be cut.

U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. says Southeast Missouri should have its first federal grand jury within 45 days. All that remains is approval of an order by the Council of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit. The jury would operate out of the Eastern District of Missouri's Southeastern District, based in Cape Girardeau.

1967

Gammon, Barter and Zeller Construction Co. of Keokuk, Iowa, submits the low bid for construction of a new airport runway at the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport. At $1,197,449.45, the bid is well below estimates for the work, giving assurance the project can proceed and offering the possibility some additional work at the port might be possible.

In light voting in a special Scott City election, a proposal to set up a city police department is defeated, 211 to 64. The plan would have dropped the present system of having a marshal as the peace officer of the community.

1942

Fire, thought to have caught around a stove used as a heater in the 71-year-old building, destroyed the three-story former flour mill in Millersville last night. The intense heat rolled the metal roofing into crooked balls; most of the machinery from the mill had been sold and removed, part of it a few years ago.

Deferred once because of bad teeth or poor eyesight, 71 men out of the first 1,034 in the initial list of Cape Girardeau County selective-service registrants have been reclassified and placed in a tentative 1-A division, pending further physical examination.

1917

A mother, whose life has been made miserable by a son who has been a liberal patron of the saloon, telephones The Republican office to say the newspaper was wrong in its statement there were at one time as many as 26 saloons in Cape Girardeau; she says she remembers the time when there were 33 saloons and one barrel house here. She is now rejoicing there are only 14 left and is praying for the day when there will be none.

The Frisco car shops in Cape Girardeau and Chaffee, Missouri, were shut down yesterday for the balance of the week. No official notice was posted in the shops, but all members of the force with the exception of one cabinet maker were told not to report for work until next Monday.

-- Sharon K. Sanders