Out of the past: June 5

1996

They filed onto the bus, one city official at a time, preparing for a marathon tour of Cape Girardeau; their schedule didn't include the Mississippi River, the Show Me Center or any of the city's more popular attractions; instead, councilmen spent yesterday looking at roads, unfinished buildings and even junk cars; Councilman Melvin Gateley suggested the group outings in 1992, the first year he was elected; he says some on the City Council questioned the tour's value at first, but now willingly participate.

Two Southeast Missouri men will play key roles in election-year political campaigns in the state this fall; Cape Girardeau native Jack Oliver will direct the Missouri Republican Party's campaign on behalf of GOP candidates from Bob Dole on down to state House races; Roy Temple, who is from Puxico, will resign as Gov. Mel Carnahan's chief of staff Monday to manage the Democratic governor's re-election campaign.

1971

Gov. Warren E. Hearnes is hopping mad at State Rep. A. Robert Pierce Jr., R-Cape Girardeau; the result: The governor, a Democrat, and the young GOP legislator will confront each other in a televised debate on the state's financial situation, and the governor has asked the Missouri Revenue Department to release half of the $20 million withheld from state agencies for two months because of what Comptroller John C. Vaughn had said was a shortage of funds; the actions follow an attack on the governor and the department by Pierce and Rep. Richard M. Marshall, R-Webster Groves, who charged Thursday the Hearnes administration was perpetrating a state financial "hoax."

NEW MADRID, Mo. -- Archaeologists from the University of Missouri-Columbia and volunteers from many parts of the state have unearthed in New Madrid County what may be one of the major prehistoric sites of the southeastern and central United States; known as the Lilbourn Site, the area was scheduled for destruction when building started for a local school.

1946

Three World War II veterans -- George T. Alt of Cape Girardeau and Herbert M. Rauh and Ira F. Brice of Jackson -- take over the reins of the Cape County Selective Service Board, meeting in the afternoon at the board office in Jackson for organization; the previous board, composed of G.L. Heyde, F.E. Williams and Ott C. Kiehne, resigned effective Monday.

Cape Girardeau's business houses draw an unqualified stamp of approval from Fire Chief Carl Lewis following a checkup with his force on their inspection for fire and safety hazards; in only a half dozen of the some 500 places inspected by teams of firemen were conditions found to be hazardous and in all but one of these a second check disclosed that they had been remedied.

1921

Louis J. Schultz has returned home from Flat River, Missouri, where he taught school the past year; he has accepted a position as principal of the high school at Morning Sun, Iowa, for the ensuing year; he will leave for that place about the first of September.

The body of Jesse Fitzgerald, who enlisted in Cape Girardeau in 1917 and died of influenza in France in 1918, leaves New York in the morning and is expected to arrive in Cape Girardeau some time this week; burial will be in Fairmount Cemetery here after a brief military funeral; Fitzgerald was a member of a machine gun company of the 35th Division; he was 32 years old at the time of his death.

-- Sharon K. Sanders