Out of the past: March 29

1996

Cape Girardeau public schools are looking at a shortfall of $200,000 to $350,000 in this year's budget; the district already budgeted to spend $550,000 more than it planned to receive; now, revenues may be less than projected; the district budgeted revenues of $22.1 million for this school year, but business manager Steve DelVecchio says best projections show the district will receive only $21.8 million.

Employees of M&W Packaging in Cape Girardeau soundly reject a union-organizing effort by the Teamsters in secret-ballot voting; nearly 72% of M&W workers eligible to vote say "no" to the union, defeating Teamsters supporters 107-32; only production, maintenance and shipping workers participate in the vote, which is monitored by an agent of the National Labor Relations Board.

1971

Teams using the baseball diamond in Capaha Park this summer will be playing on a dirt infield as the city begins a program of renovating the area; the center of the infield had protruded about 6 inches above the rest of the diamond; Saturday, the raised area was leveled to comply with the rest of the field.

A Cape Girardeau family of six is awakened by heavy smoke in its home, escaping a fire that badly damages the house and kills a mother dog and her seven puppies; Mr. and Mrs. Bill D. Hoffmeister, 1617 W. Cape Rock Drive, and their children, Kim, 3, Brian, 5, and twins, Jeff and Gwen, 8, are awakened about 3:45 a.m.; the fire apparently ignited in a car in an attached garage.

1946

At a special session of the Cape Girardeau City Council yesterday, unanimous approval was given to a resolution authorizing the city attorney to institute an injunction suit to prevent purchase of the traffic bridge here by Alexander County, Illinois; Judge Fred Clippard of the County Court, who was present at the meeting, indicates a similar suit, filed in conjunction with the city, will be authorized by the County Court on Monday.

Buried under nearly a ton of earth, which fell onto him from an earth slide in the Missouri Pacific Railroad cut on Fountain Street, between Good Hope and Morgan Oak streets yesterday afternoon, Malkiah Ross, 49, a section laborer, lost his life by suffocation; Ross and other crew members were working in a trench eight feet deep preparing a wall to keep earth from sliding onto the railroad tracks.

1921

Frank Compas, automobile dealer at Kelso, Missouri, has leased the building formerly owned by the Minton-Thompson Motor Co., corner of Independence and Spanish streets, and will reopen the garage and sales room from for business immediately; Compas has contracted for the Nash, Allen and Gardner cars.

That the proposed Carnegie Library cannot be built here, after plans submitted and approved by the Council of Women's Clubs for $30,000, is the opinion of the Carnegie Foundation, in a communication received by Mayor H.H. Haas; but J.H. Felt and Co., architects of Kansas City, Missouri, had assured the ladies their plans could be constructed for $30,000; more detailed designs will be sent to the Carnegie people.

-- Sharon K. Sanders