Author: Ken Steinhoff

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Tornado Drills and John F. Kennedy’s Assassination

Blaring klaxons at Alma Schrader School

Just as I stepped out of the car in front of Alma Schrader School Friday morning, an ear-splitting alarm cut the air. “Wow, that’s some greeting,” I thought. “They’ve got the sensor on the StrangeCharacter-o’meter set just a little bit too sensitive.”

When I got inside, I saw little kids hunkered down in the hallway and teachers taking headcounts. I glanced out the window where the skies were gray, but not particularly threatening. “Tornado drill?” I asked a staffer. “It IS a drill, right?”

I was assured that it was merely a drill, something they practice several times a year. I hope it’s more effective than the Duck ‘n Cover exercises we did to prepare for nuclear blasts.

It was a productive visit. Principal Ruth Ann Orr, administrative assistant Stephanie Voil Depro and counselor Julia Unnerstall were a great help in matching names to faces in the photos I shot of the school’s 50th Anniversary Celebration March 11.

What does Alma Schrader have to do with JFK?

My memory is a funny thing. It’s full of old stuff waiting for some kind of electrical spark to flicker between it and something I encounter in Today’s World. When I looked out the door at the gray skies, I flashed back to a stormy Friday afternoon on November 22, 1963.

The American History teacher was droning on. We were waiting for the end of the day and the start of the weekend. The PA crackled to life and we looked out at the threatening clouds wondering if we were going to hear a tornado alert.

Principal Fred Wilferth announced that President John F. Kennedy had just been shot in Dallas, Texas. Not long after that came the bulletin that the President was dead.

The Missourian reported that Central High School “held a period of respect and remembrance [that began] at 2:45, lasting several minutes.”

“All you could hear was breathing”

Shortly after that, a television set with rabbit ears was wheeled into the gym, where shocked students watched the story unfold. As soon as I saw the scene, I called The Missourian and told Editor John Blue that I’d have something for him. That promise would soon come back to haunt me.

EXTRA! EXTRA!

He said the paper was going to publish an EXTRA edition, but I’d have to hurry. They wanted the paper on the street by 6 p.m.

I ran up to the school darkroom, grabbed the Crown Graphic 4×5 camera and two holders of film. One side was empty, so that left me three shots. I didn’t see the school’s electronic flash, so I grabbed three old-fashioned flash bulbs on the way out the door.

Without getting too technical, the camera had to be set differently for each type of light. An electronic flash fires a very short burst of light, so the shutter has to be fully open when it goes off (that’s the X setting). A flashbulb ignites, then it gets progressively brighter until it dims out. That means it has to fire slightly before the shutter does so it is at maximum brightness when the shutter is open all of the way (that’s the M setting).

In my excitement, I didn’t notice that the camera was set for electronic flash. When I pulled the dripping film out of the fixer, my heart sank. It was almost blank. There was hardly any image on it at all. The flashbulb hadn’t had time to get to full brightness before the shutter closed.

Darkroom Magic

I knew I didn’t have time to reshoot the picture, even if the students were still around. I pulled out what meager little bag of magic darkroom tricks I had learned and managed to come up with a shot that made the paper.

It was the last time in my entire career that I ever told an editor that I had a picture before I saw it. You have to remember that my first Missourian news photo was published April 18 of that year. My credibility was on the line. You don’t tell someone to hold space in an EXTRA! unless you can deliver.

By the way, the “pupil” quoted as saying all he could hear was the sound of his fellow classmates breathing was me. The Missourian had this quaint style rule that you were a “pupil” until you were in college. Then you were promoted to “student.” I tried every way I could to get the style changed, but never succeeded.

Here’s a link to the EXTRA! edition. You’ll have to play around with the zoom settings on the page to be able to read it.

Polio Vaccine and Lee Harvey Oswald

I’ll publish all three photos, warts and all. In some ways, the dust spots, fingerprints and bad exposure makes the images feel more “real.” Or, that’s the excuse I’ll use.

My family and I went to Central High School on the Sunday after the assassination to get sugar cubes with drops of polio vaccine on them. When we got into the car to go home, we heard the news that Jack Ruby had shot Lee Harvey Oswald while he was being transferred from the jail to an interrogation room.

A change in the news business

The assassination, Oswald shooting and Kennedy funeral changed the way Americans would get the news. I know the The Palm Beach Evening Times put out an EXTRA! edition when the Challenger exploded. I’m pretty sure that was the last extra edition I ever worked on.

Radio and TV were much better equipped to handle breaking news. (I would argue that the 24-hour cable channels have mishandled breaking news in recent years with their obsession of staying live when there’s nothing going on.) The printed newspaper provided a keepsake and tangible proof that an event happened in a way that broadcasting couldn’t, but the Internet has essentially driven a stake through the heart of traditional media.

The screen shots, by the way, were taken off the Steinhoff family Zenith TV in our basement.

Innocence ended

JFK’s assassination was the first in a wave of killings and attempted killings: Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan…

None of us who lived through that era emerged untouched. If you don’t believe it, look how a tornado drill at an elementary school in my home town can give me a flashback to a Friday afternoon nearly half a century earlier.

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Alma Schrader’s 50th Anniversary

Miss Alma Schrader had an excused absence for missing the 50th Anniversary of the school named after her: the veteran Cape Girardeau school principal died shortly before the school opened. She would have been 124 years old, had she been able to attend, Principal Ruth Ann Orr joked.

You can read about Miss Schrader and see photos of the kindergarten class of 1967 at this link.

Alma Schrader’s  five principals attended

All five of Alma Schraders’ adminstrators attended the ceremony, including Vince Raddle, Roy Glass, Frank Ellis, David Giles and Ms. Orr.

“I hope you don’t get into trouble”

Roy Glass, left, was the school’s longest serving principal, with 21 years at the post. His grandson, Neil Glass, third from left, director of administrative services, said he used to ask his grandfather for the keys to the school so he could play in the gym when he was a kid.

“I hope you don’t get in trouble for that,” he joked. “I didn’t turn on the lights,” he added.

Those were simpler days and more trusting days. Central High School principal Fred Wilferth gave me the keys to the high school one evening in 1963 so I could process a spot news photo in the school darkroom. That photo launched my career in photojournalism.

Standing room only

I had to park my car about two blocks away. The hills in that neighborhood are a lot steeper than when I was 12 years old flinging papers in front yards.

The school’s gym was filled to standing room only. It seemed like every third person was recording the event in some form or fashion.

Two generations of students

After the formal ceremonies, many of the attendees stayed around for refreshments and to look at old school scrapbooks and yearbooks.

There were several multi-generational Alma Schrader families. Dr. Ryan Davis flips a scrapbook page while Raleigh and Grayson Davis and Sarah McKinley watch.

Jim Gerhard, ’59

Jim Gerhard was the only member of the original Class of 1959 to attend. He came across the state from Joplin for the celebration.

Gallery of Photos

Here is a collection of photos from Alma Schrader’s 50th Anniversary celebration. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the picture to move through the gallery.

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Cape Central’s Dreaded Rope Climb

Let’s get one thing out of the way: I never played any team sports and, despite the fact that I’ve covered just about every big sporting event to come along, I’ve never had any interest in any them. Super Bowls, championship golf tournaments and college bowl games were just another day at the office. I’m a cyclist, but that’s pretty much a solitary sport, at least the way I do it.

PE was probably my least favorite class at Central High School. The rope climb, which was intimidating when I was a freshman, became one of my favorite challenges later on after I had spent a summer loading and unloading trucks for my dad’s construction company.  I could zip up the rope using only my upper body after that workout.

Still, every time when I got up to the top of the rope and just before I slapped the rafter holding the collar that secured the rope, I wondered how often that thing got checked.

“What’s a Jesus Nut?”

I had similar concerns when I was doing a story on the sheriff’s helicopter (that’s me dangling in the rescue sling during a practice). On the first day, I asked the standard question, “What happens if the engine quits? Do we gently auto-rotate down or do we drop like a rock.?”

“Let’s find out,” Andy, the pilot said, gaining some altitude over a rural area. He cut the engine and we gradually descended toward what looked like a smooth, green pasture. Just before we touched down he fired up the engine and did an abrupt pull-up.

It wasn’t a green pasture, it was a green, algae-covered pond. We agreed that we wouldn’t mention the experiment in my story. Andy’s dead now, so I guess the statute of limitations has expired.

After establishing that a helicopter WILL set you down relatively gently if you aren’t aiming at a farm pond, the pilot said the worst thing that could happen would be a failure of the Jesus Nut.

Seeing the expression on my face, he explained that the Jesus Nut is the thing on the very tip top of the shaft that holds the rotor on.  “If it fails, ‘JESUS!!!!’ is about all you’ll have time to say before things go REALLY bad.”

Now, I know what they should have called the thing that held the rope to the rafter.

Reversible orange and black gym uniforms

The girls had blue and / or green suits that ranged from “hideous” to almost not too bad, depending on what year you went to school.  The boys were luckier. They had basic shorts with a shirt that was orange on one side and black on the other so you could tell teams apart.

These guys look like they are formed into lines so they can duck under the divider, run across the gym, perform some act of pain and run back. I don’t see any smiles.

Coach Goodwin checks his list

Coach Robert Goodwin and I had an uneasy relationship. Well, it was uneasy from my perspective. I tried to stay as far below his radar as possible. Since I possessed no jock characteristics, he generally overlooked me.

I DID make a mistake one day. He had us running endless laps of the track. “It’s good for you. Every lap burns out the nicotine equal to a cigarette.”

I don’t know what kind of scientific study he was quoting, but I made the mistake of piping up, “I’ve got a problem, then, Coach. I don’t smoke. I’m building up a huge nicotine deficit that’s going to come back and haunt me some day.”

He was not amused. I’m not sure, but I think I’m still supposed to be running around that track.

Calisthenics: Are we having fun?

If the weather was bad or the coach’s mood was bad, it was push-up, chin-up, jumping jack, sit-up time.

When I got to SEMO, phys ed was a requirement. By the time I got all the academic classes scheduled, the only PE class open was something with a fancy name that was really nothing but calisthenics. The instructor told us on the first day that we would do a series of tests to establish our baseline and that our final grade would depend on how much better we were at the end of the semester.

My mamma didn’t raise a fool. When I took the baseline test, the coach was appalled at what lousy shape I was in. At the end of the semester, though, he was convinced that he was a great instructor because of my tremendous improvement.

The next semester, the only thing open was Beginning Wrestling. This did not sound good. The first day, two or three of us showed up; the coach said to come back for the next class to see if anyone else signed up. On the second day, he said the the group was too small, so he was going to fold us into the Advanced Wrestling class. I didn’t like the way that sounded.

I showed up for the first day of Advance Wrestling, took one look around the room and decided that I liked all of the body parts I was born with and dropped the class. That’s when I decided to transfer to Ohio University, where PE was not required.

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Wib’s BBQ in Jackson, MO

Five Generations of Steinhoffs have eaten at Wib’s BBQ Drive-In

Jackson’s Wib’s BBQ Drive-in was born in 1947, the same year I was. I don’t think my parents took me straight from St. Francis Hospital in Cape to Wib’s, but my grandson, Malcolm, was still in diapers when he made his first pilgrimage to the Mecca of Meat.

When we were in Cape last fall, I managed to make four visits to the place, much to my mother’s chagrin. On the last visit, I ordered six Brown Hots to Fed-Ex back home to Son Matt, D-in-Law Sarah and Kid Malcolm.

Some folks have tried to pack them in dry ice, we’ve found that’s not necessary.

We pick up half a dozen Brown Hots, unwrap them until they cool down (to keep them from getting soggy), put each sandwich in an individual Ziploc bag, then Fed-Ex them overnight to. Heat ’em up and they’re good to go. Haven’t had anybody die on us yet….

We’re pretty sure that at least five generations of my family have eaten at Wib’s.

I spent more time at Wib’s than Wimpy’s

While most of my classmates were hanging out at Wimpy’s and Pfisters, I practically lived at Wib’s when I was working for The Jackson Pioneer in the mid-60s.

The sandwiches were cheap, the waitresses were cute and they made the best shakes in town. (Unfortunately, they quit making shakes several years ago and the wonderful homemade pies are history, too.)

The waitresses are still cute

Best of all, it was located just down the road from the newspaper and courthouse and almost right next to a small park with a municipal swimming pool that was a great source of wild art.

(Nah, Jackson wasn’t THAT wild. Wild art is newspaperspeak for pictures that can run without a story. Think cute kids and animals.)

What’s special about the BBQ?

I don’t know. My mother claims that no pigs are hurt in the making of the sandwiches, and I have to concede that they are a little light on meat.

On the other hand, what’s there is nicely smoked and touched off with a peppery sauce that doesn’t overwhelm the taste of the meat. If you order a Brown Hot (the brown, outside, smokier part of the shoulder) with hot sauce, you’d better have a drink handy.

Meat is hickory-smoked

A short history of Wib’s is printed on the back of the menu. It was founded by Wib Lohman, who had a trucking company. He started out selling barbecue sandwiches to his drivers.

The original smoker used hickory and nothing has changed.

I took this picture of a robin stealing string out of a mop propped up against a stack of Pepsi crates next to some of the hickory used for smoking the meat on April 13, 1967. The next day, The Missourian ran the photo (or one similar to it) with a long, nonsensical story that was uncharacterstic of the paper. (Follow the link at your own risk.)

The piece didn’t have a credit line, but I assure you that I did not write it.

I can only assume that

  • Editor John Blue was out of town.
  • It was an extremely slow news day.

Note that the Pepsi crates have “Capaha” printed on them. I wonder if that means that they were bottled in Cape or the surrounding area. I know Cape had a Coke bottling plant on Broadway, but I’m not sure about Pepsi.

The outside doesn’t look like much

It’s just a concrete block building painted white. There’s plenty of parking and a walk-up area on one side. The front door was always notoriously hard to open, but that was solved when a local teenager ran into the front of the building June 17, 2008, doing about $25,000 in damage.

He fessed up to his parents and restitution was made. The front windows were changed to deeper ones and the balky front door was replaced.

One wag remarked, “That poor kid will have to leave town. He’s going to be known as the boy who drove into Wib’s for the rest of his life.”

Wib sold Wib’s to the Hoffmeisters in 1948

Wib Lohman got tired of running a seven-day-a-week, 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. business and sold it to Jack and Sweetie Hoffmeister, who ran it until 1972, when it passed on to A.D. Hoffman.

The Hoffmans own it now

It stayed in the Hoffman family when A.D.’s son and his wife took it over in 1986.

Wib’s opens at 8:30 a.m. (mostly for coffee drinkers; they usually sell less than 10 sandwiches before 11 a.m.) and stays open until 6:45 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. Saturday they’re open 9 – 6:45. They’re closed Sundays and Mondays.

Prime time is the lunch rush when about 300 sandwiches are served.

Wib’s has a Facebook Fan Page

In the Old Days, the place had four car hops to handle drive-up orders. These days, if you don’t want to eat inside,  you can go inside to a walk-up window to place your to-go order.

Every kid in Jackson must have worked there at one time or another. Many started in high school and continued through college. At least one couple met while working at Wib’s and the proposal took place in the parking lot.

Wib’s even has a Facebook Fan area with over 800 members.

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