Out of the past: March 17

1999

Southeast Missouri State University expects to spend about $71 million to educate students next fiscal year; university officials are crafting a budget that calls for spending some $3 million more for general operations than was budgeted for the current fiscal year that ends June 30; the increase is based on getting added state funding of more than $2 million plus about $755,000 in added revenue from hikes in student fees; none of this is set in stone; the Missouri Legislature has yet to approve an estimated $46.4 million in state funding for Southeast for fiscal 2000, and the Board of Regents still has to vote on the administration's plan to raise student fees.

Two persons have died within the week of bacterial meningitis, but health officials say no health emergency exists; a 37-year-old Cape Girardeau woman and a 3-year-old Fredericktown boy both died, but from different strains of the disease.

1974

Detailed plans of the proposed Westborough Mall were placed before the Cape Girardeau Zoning and Planning Commission last week, and a subsequent public hearing will be held April 10; the color renditions show an impressive complex of major stores and smaller shops of single and two-story levels surrounding spacious interior pedestrian areas and parking facilities for more than 4,500 automobiles.

The Rev. Carlton Palenske is installed as the first pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Cape Girardeau; the Rev. Roger R. Zehms of St. Louis, who has served the congregation as vacancy pastor, conducts the installation, assisted by the Rev. Rodney Busch of Memphis, Tennessee, and the Rev. J.B. Erhart of St. Louis; Peace Lutheran Church is a new mission congregation of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

1949

The report of three commissioners, appointed in Common Pleas Court to assess benefits and damages for right of way and easements for the new section of Highway 61, has been filed, showing awards on eight separate parcels of land in the amount of $81,445.04; the largest single sum was awarded to M. Cuskaden, the Federal Land Bank of St. Louis and Walter R. Brown, a trustee of the bank; it amounted to $42,451.20 for 22.99 acres of land.

Cape Girardeau, its heavy taxpaying period over at the end of last month, has entered into the financial doldrums which will continue until next fall, when the public again makes its annual visit to the city clerk's office to pay up; but in entering the dull period, it does so on the heaviest balance in history; the February financial statement shows that the balance on hand at the end of the month was $106,002.56; this compared to $77,301.45 at the corresponding time last year, and to $69,556.95 in February 1947.

1924

Judge John A. Snider in Common Pleas Court orders the sale of the Cape Girardeau Northern Railway at a price not less than $750,000; the sale will be held during the May term of the court in Cape Girardeau; having charge of the sale will be Clarence L. Grant of Jackson, present receiver of the road; James Grover, trust office of the St. Louis Union Trust Co., and Montague Lyons of St. Louis; the road may be sold either as a whole or in parcels, but it must bring more than $750,000.

According to the Banner Press newspaper in Marble Hill, Bollinger County has the champion wolf hunter of the country: "Jim Staats, he lives near Greenbrier, has taken up wolf hunting for the spring and summer, at least. Mr Staats has been unusually successful in taking these animals, as he has killed 13 this winter down in his neighborhood. He is hunting them in the edge of Wayne and Stoddard counties and in Bollinger County."

Southeast Missourian librarian Sharon Sanders compiles the information for the daily Out of the Past column. She also writes a blog called "From the Morgue" that showcases interesting historical stories from the newspaper. Check out her blog at semissourian.com/history.