Out of the past: April 30

1998

A proposal for a new student center in the heart of campus was tabled yesterday by the Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents; the plan, put together by student leaders and the university administration, calls for a $12.5 million renovation and expansion of Parker Hall to provide a modern student center; about $10.6 million would come through the sale of bonds; but Regent Don Dickerson, who chairs the board, suggested it could be more economical to build a bigger addition to the Student Recreation Center to house a student center.

A closed session of the Cape Girardeau Board of Education during a noon meeting Tuesday may have violated Missouri's open meetings and record law; "If it wasn't urgent and could have waited 24 hours, the school board should have posted notice and held it at a later time," said Jean Maneke, legal adviser for the Missouri Press Association; the public meeting reconvened after a 20-minute closed session, and board president Dr. Ferrell Ervin said there was no announcement regarding action taken during closed session.

1973

With the Mississippi River edging toward the long-awaited record crest of 45.6 feet predicted for tomorrow, hundreds of area flood fighters can finally look forward to another respite -- only their second this month; hundreds of volunteers who have helped sandbag soggy, battered levees and Army Corps of Engineers personnel, many of whom have been working 12-hour, seven-days-a-week shifts, apparently has paid off; the corps reports all levees in the Cape Girardeau area are holding well, despite being pounded by strong winds and tremendous waves yesterday.

Robert R.E. Lamkin, who in 1919 helped establish the Cape Girardeau Rotary Club, received one of the international service organization's highest awards in ceremonies Saturday morning at the annual conference of the 40 clubs in the Southeast Missouri Rotary District; Lamkin was made a Paul Harris Fellow.

1948

Mayor Walter H. Ford assures a Southeast Missourian newspaper reporter, Cape Girardeau will have parking meters installed and in operation between June 1 and June 15; the only thing that may delay installation, Ford says, is the inability of the company chosen by the City Council to have them ready by that time.

At the prompting of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce, Elmer Luehring, an amateur photographer, is making color moving pictures of some of the local beauty spots and points of historic significance; he is using equipment owned by the State College for the task.

1923

Death, rapidly thinning the ranks of Civil War Veterans, sounds taps for Perry P.W. Hopper, ex-Confederate soldier and for years a familiar figure in Cape Girardeau; his passing comes only a few days before his 81sth birthday; Hopper first enlisted in the infantry under Jeff Thompson and, at the expiration of six months, he re-enlisted under Col. W. Jeffers of Dexter, Missouri, in the cavalry and was attached to the 8th Missouri Regiment, later under the command of Gen. John Marmaduke; Hopper remained in that regiment until the close of the war, fighting under Marmaduke in the Battle of Cape Girardeau, April 26, 1863.

The Cape Rock Association of Cape Girardeau, owners of the Cape Rock site north of the city,is allowed $600 damages for giving a part of the site for a right-of-way for the Frisco Railroad, according to an agreement announced in Circuit Court in Jackson; the railroad had asked for a larger strip of territory in order to move its rails farther away from the Mississippi River at the sharp curve at Cape Rock.

-- Sharon K. Sanders