1997

State Sen. Peter Kinder's lake bill won't float this year; Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, says the issue is dead for this session; the bill made it out of committee but didn't get on the calendar for action by the full Senate; the legislation would have amended a 1990 lake law; supporters say it would have helped re-float the lake project by allowing for an initiative petition to get a sales tax issue before the voters.

Cape Girardeau Board of Education president Bob Fox was re-elected to a second term Tuesday and newcomer David Goncher joins the board; voters selected two people for three-year terms on the school board; in the Jackson school election yesterday, Jack Knowlan and Tom Ludwig were the winners.

1972

Easter Sunday. Worship services are followed by family outings, as sunny skies provide near perfect Easter weather; temperatures reach the mid-60s in the afternoon, although the morning air is chilly, making outdoor sunrise services a bit uncomfortable; attendance is heavy in local churches; for many, worship is followed by dinner out at one of Cape Girardeau's many restaurants.

ALTO PASS, Ill. -- More than 3,000 people brave the chilly morning air to gather atop Bald Knob Mountain for the 36th annual sunrise service, held at the base of the huge cross there; many in camping trailers arrived Saturday night to avoid the huge crowd.

1947

By a majority of more than 6 to 1, voters in Cape Girardeau yesterday approved an increase in the tax levy of 25 cents on the $100 valuation, with the entire amount to go for teachers' salaries; in addition, voters re-elected the incumbent school directors -- Professor A.C. Magill and Manning P. Greer -- and gave O.C. Kiehne a majority over Edwin W. Sander in the county superintendent's race.

A hungry line of customers waits to sample the products turned out by the Lions Club during their annual Pancake Day in 1947. This photo was taken at the height of the noon rush hour in front of the Millikan Motor Co. salesroom, where the event was held.G.D. Fronabarger (Southeast Missourian archive)

As usual, Pancake Day, the annual eating affair for the public sponsored by the Lions Club, is "packin' 'em in," so to speak, at the Homer Millikan Motor Co. salesroom; organizers believe that before the door is slammed shut tonight at 8, some 3,000 customers will have been accommodated; as soon as the door opens in the morning, Emmett Kelly, sports writer for The Missourian, has one foot inside the building; second and third to be served are youngsters, Larry McIver and Malcolm Shock, and next are City Commissioner Frank Bachelor and his son.

1922

More than 200 automobiles from Cape Girardeau, Illmo, Benton and other Southeast Missouri points feature in a record-breaking traffic jam on Kingshighway, near the Diversion Channel; the jam begins when drivers of cars going from Cape Girardeau to Illmo refuse to cross the bridge over the lateral ditch because of the high waters; cars keep creeping in closer and blocking the road until by 3 p.m. the road on both sides of the bridge is blocked for nearly a mile.

Train service between Cape Girardeau and Poplar Bluff, Missouri, is suspended because of the high water; the last train went through last night, but no trains are running today from this place to Poplar Bluff; water is over the tracks near Hodges Ferry on the Frisco road to Bluff.

-- Sharon K. Sanders