Ken Steinhoff, Cape Girardeau Central High School Class of 1965, was a photographer for The Tiger and The Girardot, and was on the staff of The Capaha Arrow and The Sagamore at Southeast Missouri State University. He worked as a photographer / reporter (among other things) at The Jackson Pioneer and The Southeast Missourian.
He transferred to Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, his junior year, and served as photo editor of The Ohio University Post. He was also chief photographer of The Athens Messenger.
He was chief photographer of the Gastonia (NC) Gazette for a long 18 months until he could escape to The Palm Beach Post, where he served as a staff photographer, director of photography, editorial operations manager and telecommunications manager. He accepted a buyout in 2008, after 35 years at the paper.
Most of the stories are about growing up in a small Midwestern town on the Mississippi River, but there’s no telling what you might run into.
Please comment on the articles when you see I have left out a bit of history, forgotten a name or when your memory of a circumstance conflicts with mine.
(My mother said her stories improved after all the folks who could contradict died off.)
Your information helps to make this a wonderful archive and may end up in book form.
© Ken Steinhoff – All Rights Reserved
I was looking over some aerials of the Red Star from April 2011 area when I saw a white parking lot west of the area being cleared for the Casino. When I got to thinking about it, that was where Washington School was located. All that’s left are a few trees and a little green space. Click on the photo to make it larger.
Th white parking lot belongs to the Autism Center.
I went to Kindergarten there with Ms. Miller (Dana’s mom) as my teacher. It was a BIG school and I knew a lot of people from there as grew up, and we all merged into that great melting pot called Central. I found out there were other parts of town and other schools too! Now I look back and see that they were all only a couple of miles away in the adult world, but in the kid universe we all lived in the other schools were as foreign to us as another planet. It is somewhat sad to see all of the BIG schools in Cape being thorn down, but I guess the little buggers need new schools and those old monster just are not suitable for the 21st century.
I didn’t know that Dana’s mom was also one of our teachers. The only connection I tried to make was Dana Miller and Billy Miller. I swear I didn’t know any better at the time.
I believe it’s pretty accurate to say that Washington school site is where the Union army kept reserve horses during the Civil War. Can anyone say yay or nay to that?
Fred,
I don’t know for sure, but it would be logical because it was about midway between Fort A at the end of Bellvue and Fort B, which was where Academic Hall is.
Go here to see the locations of Cape’s Civil War forts.