Sharon Sanders

Winners in the Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair, accompanied by their instructors and officials of the annual event, departed by plane Tuesday, May 5, 1959, for the National Science Fair in Hartford, Connecticut. Shown as they prepared to board a Central Airways plane are, from the left, Corona Jansen, Sister Jean Ann and Sister DeLellis of Cape Girardeau Catholic High, James Singleton of Cape Girardeau Central High, pilot Arthur Woolson of Centralia, Illinois, pilot John Higgins of Cape…

Back in April, this blog re-published an article written by Peter Hilty that first appeared in the Heritage Review newspaper in November 1972. It provided readers a glimpse of Cape Girardeau in 1873, the year Southeast Missouri State University was founded...

One hundred years ago -- Feb. 13, 1923 -- the German Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau became Grace Methodist Church through a decision made by the church’s governing board. Up until that time, the German congregation had been known alternatively as Ebenezer Methodist, German Methodist and Methodist Episcopal. ...

An article published on the front page of the Southeast Missourian in January 1923 caught my eye. It lamented the passing of the harness maker from among the ranks of Cape Girardeau’s manufacturing establishments. Alas, the popularity of the automobile drove the trade to extinction...

Today’s blog is the last of three I’ve done featuring Warren E. Hearnes’ final days as Missouri’s 46th governor. This blog shares the story and images of Warren and Betty Hearnes’ return to Mississippi County on Jan. 8, 1973...

As his days as Missouri governor were drawing to a close, Warren Hearnes took time out of his schedule to give an interview to a Southeast Missourian newspaper staff writer. What resulted is an interesting look back on Hearnes’ years in office, what he considered his successes and his failures, and…

Many of my older readers will recall the name Frieda V. Rieck. She was associated for many, many years with Cape Girardeau’s musical life. A skilled violinist, she taught vocal music, string instruments and orchestras here at all levels — elementary, high school and college — for almost 40 years. R…

In the fall of 1947, the remains of America’s heroes who lost their lives in World War II and were buried overseas began coming home. Just as had been done after the War to End All Wars, families were given the choice of having their loved ones remain buried where they had fallen or disinterred fro…

The Missouri Humanities Council’s 275-square-foot U.S. Grant Bicentennial Exhibit, “Ulysses Grant’s Missouri” — paired with Grant memorabilia owned by Cape Girardeau businessman Earl Norman — opened last week at the former Chrisman Art Gallery, 32 N. Main St., in downtown Cape Girardeau. The exhibit…

Edward F. Regenhardt built the combination fire/police headquarters for Cape Girardeau in 1909 at the northwest corner of Independence and Frederick streets. Today, it houses the recently renovated River Heritage Museum...

Last week’s blog brought you the story of an old timers’ baseball game played in 1972 and featuring numerous former Capahas players. Some of those who played got their baseball starts in the 1930s and ’40s. While the blog didn’t mention it, another article published in 1972 to spark interest in the…

Mrs. Lois Travis and her son, Earl, 8, wait in front of the Union Bus Depot on Frederick Street in August 1960 to catch a bus for St. Louis. The depot served Cape Girardeau travelers from 1947 to 1990. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)...

Funny hats always catch my eye. But perch them atop the heads of some of the most dignified ladies of the 1963 Cape State College faculty and you really have my attention. I happened upon two photos in Garland Fronabarger’s collection of mature women wearing hats assembled out of their own imaginat…

I have always enjoyed doing research in the 1920s. Something about those roaring days has always fascinated me. Recently, in reading the offerings of 1922 published in the Southeast Missourian, I ran across several stories I found interesting. While nothing links them together except the year of pu…

As I research the “Out of the Past” column, I frequently run across stories that cannot be contained in the daily feature. They’re too interesting or too complicated to conveniently fit the structure of the “Past” column...

Big changes were coming to Cape Girardeau in 1972, and one of those changes caught the eye and ire of George McCue, urban design critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. McCue berated the town’s citizens and government for doing “too little, too late” to preserve a piece of Cape Girardeau’s Civil Wa…

Tom Harte has been writing a food column for the Southeast Missourian almost 25 years, his first offering in April 1997 being a recipe for Chocolate Plus Cheesecake. But that wasn’t his first brush with culinary fame in the pages of this newspaper...

In the fall of 1971, the Southeast Missourian was preparing for its 25th annual art exhibition, transforming its newspaper offices into an art gallery and inviting local residents to come in and enjoy. One of the newcomers to Cape Girardeau’s art scene that year was Grant Lund, a professor of art a…

One of the added perks of my job as the librarian of the Southeast Missourian is getting to read newspapers that date back to our newspaper’s founding: Oct. 3, 1904. And I’m delighted when I stumble on to an article I wasn’t expecting, or recognize the face of someone in one of the newspaper’s pages…

Last week’s blog told of the condemnation of dancing, especially in schools, by a local Methodist minister, as well as a traveling evangelist, both from the pulpit of Centenary Methodist Church in 1921. Evangelist Burke Culpepper, whose revival meeting at Centenary ran three weeks, also had some cho…