SCHOOL HAS LONGSTANDING TRADITION

The year was 1927.

Calvin Coolidge was president. Charles Lindbergh completed the first New York to Paris non-stop flight. "The Jazz Singer," the talking motion picture, debuted in New York City.

That same year, The Southeast Missourian held its first cooking school -- a three-day affair. More than 7,000 enthusiastic housewives packed Houck Field House to see demonstrations by Mrs. Edna Riggs Crabtree.

It was a tradition that the newspaper continued until 1987, and resumes this year.

The advertisement for the first cooking school read: "In keeping with its policy of community development, The Missourian has contracted with the Home Economics Service Corporation to conduct in Cape Girardeau a cooking and home-making school, not merely to instruct the woman in cooking, but to demonstrate in a practical way how to improve the general condition of the home..."

During the first nine years of the school, about 40,000 women took part in the educational sessions.

In 1933, the school was moved to the Broadway Theatre, where it remained until 1942.

When World War II heated up, the cooking school cooled off. No schools were held from 1943 until the early 1970s.

Mary Blue, a longtime food and garden writer with the Southeast Missourian, remembers attending the cooking schools at the Broadway Theatre as a young bride.

"They were very good," she said. Blue said Southern Living sponsored several of the later schools.

John Blue covered the cooking school around 1940, in his early days as a reporter.

"I went in with all the ladies in their hats and gloves, and sat up on the stage," he recalled. "The show filled the auditorium."

Blue retired in 1980 after 40 years with the Missourian, 19 of those as editor.

He said the shows were very successful and a lot of fun for participants.