Out of the past: June 7

1996

Cape Girardeau Fire Chief Robert Ridgeway has accepted a position in Gastonia, North Carolina, and will begin his new job July 8; Ridgeway, who came to Cape Girardeau in March 1993, will oversee seven fire stations and 130 employees in Gastonia; it is a step up from his current job, where he oversees 57 employees and four stations.

After hearing complaints from angry senior citizens who can't get to the doctor's office or to the grocery store because of a lack of transportation, Cape Girardeau County Commissioners want to know who needs to go where and how they can get there; commissioners have asked the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning Commission to draw up a proposal for a transportation study for Cape Girardeau County.

1971

Robert Burett Oliver Jr., who with his father wrote and became an authority on the laws which provide the means of drainage of the Southeast Missouri lowlands, died yesterday at the age of 90; born Nov. 28, 1880, at Jackson, he was a member of a family which settled in Shawnee Township in 1818, three years before Missouri became a state.

Mayor Howard C. Tooke says the proposed bill to give Cape Girardeau and Jefferson City authority to zone all property within two miles of their city limits is aimed mostly at control of commercial development on the cities' perimeters; the bill is now on the desk of Gov. Warren E. Hearnes awaiting his signature; it applies to all third-class cities over 30,000 population.

1946

Judge J. Henry Caruthers accepts the resignation of Ruby Walters, deputy clerk of Common Pleas Court, and Frieda Meyer is sworn in as her successor; Walters plans to go to New York City early in July to visit her son and daughter-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Don Walters, and grandson, Donnie; from there, she will visit other relatives on the west coast.

L.H. Strunk, director of the Training School, says a vocational agriculture course in the high school originally intended to have started next year will be postponed another year; the Board of Regents in February authorized construction of a new building on the campus to house the vocational agriculture program, but with the shortage of building materials it isn't probable, Strunk says, that anything can be done toward erecting the structure this summer.

1921

Joseph A. Serena, State College president (undated)Southeast Missourian archive

At a meeting of the Board of Regents of Southeast Missouri State Teachers College this afternoon, Dr. Joseph A. Serena, at present president of William Woods College at Fulton, Missouri, is elected president of the Cape Girardeau college, succeeding Dr. W.S. Dearmont; when the board met about a month ago, it was decided nearly unanimously to elect a new president in order to bring new life and complete unanimity to the college.

The city commissioners have asked the management of the Cape Girardeau-Jackson Interurban Street Car Co., to remove its tracks on Frederick Street, from Jefferson to College, as they are an inconvenience to the public and haven't been used in years; the tracks are much higher than the pavement, making it almost impossible for an automobile to turn around, crossing them.

-- Sharon K. Sanders