CapeCentralHigh.com’s Business Card

I mentioned that I was coming back to Cape next week to look for sponsors and advertisers. After procrastinating way too long, I stayed up until 2 a.m. trying to come up with some iconic photos that would work for the business card and for headers on a redesigned web site.

Son Matt came up with several designs (you can see them below), but the one above is the best at capturing the voice of CapeCentralHigh.com.

  • Everyone who grew up in Southeast Missouri in the 60s will recognize it.
  • It’s black and white.
  • It has the feel of the site.
  • It’s visually interesting.

Someone’s farm from a speeding car

This is the first design he sent me.

I really like the image. Based on the comments I received when it ran, so did you. The only problem was that it just a little bit too rural to say “Cape Girardeau” at first glance. Cape’s a relatively small town, but it IS a town.

The Bill Emerson Bridge was striking

Wife Lila’s eyes popped when she saw it. It’s great from a graphical standpoint. The subtle colors are nice and the elements come together to give a nice place to put the text. It was also the subject of my very first blog post on Oct. 20, 2009.

It would make a GREAT business card for someone in Cape, but it screams Today, and my site is all about Yesterday.

Then Matt tried the old Traffic Bridge

I knew right away that this was going to be the one, but I didn’t like the Class of 1965 line. That’s not to say that I’m not proud to be a member of the Central High School Class of 1965. I am.

It’s just that that’s not particularly relevant to the site nor to who I am. I’ve never identified much with the schools I attended, whether it was Central, SEMO or Ohio University. I was always a photographer, an observer on the sidelines, whose primary allegiance was to the publication I was working for, whether it was The Tiger, The Girardot, The Capaha Arrow, The Sagamore, The Jackson Pioneer or The Missourian.

Besides, the site has already switched from a narrow focus on a single high school in Cape Girardeau to the area as a whole. I’ve run pictures of shoppers in Jackson (even if I didn’t know that’s where I was), an I-55 interchange at Scott City, the Bald Knob Cross, Ernie Chiles riding around Horseshoe Lake and  written about my wooden stick phobia because of Dr. Herbert.

I have Notre Dame and College High students clamoring to see their pictures and I’ve just scraped the surface of my SEMO art.

I had him change Class of 1965 to 1960s Cape Girardeau. I’d like to have used Coming of Age in Southeast Missouri, but that was too long.

Brother Mark weighs in

I sent the choices to my brother Mark, who does advertising for Schnucks. (I see they spell it without the apostrophe these days.) Being my brother, he wee-weed all over my choices and pitched the shot above.

Matt asked if I could reshoot it with the film arranged differently so the type would show up better. “You can shoot it in black and white, if you like,” he said.

I explained that I had a couple of problems with the image

  • It couldn’t be re-shot. I took it while I was unrolling the Coffee Can Film for sleeving in plastic pages. That train had already pulled out of the station.
  • It looks like I’m pitching photo finishing or commercial photography, not nostalgia. It’s not a bad graphic, it’s just not the message I wanted to convey.

Cape Girardeau , The City of Roses

That reminded me that Mark has a bunch of Cape memorabilia at his home in St. Louis. Way over in the corner of a picture, I had this shot of a City of Roses license plate frame. THAT would have made a great graphic, but the quality wasn’t good enough. I’m going to reshoot it when I go back home. It might find its way onto a page header.

What do you think?

The RIGHT answer is that I made the right choice. Remember, I have photos and I’m not afraid to use them.

Alma Schrader School Turns 50 This Month

I  saw a story in The Missourian that Alma Schrader School is going to hold a 50th Anniversary Celebration March 11.

The school was on my old paper route. I guess the reason I always thought of it as being a “new” school was that it WAS new – only a couple of years old – when I was slinging newspapers in the neighborhoods around it.

I don’t have any pictures from when the school opened, as far as I know, but I was there for what I assume was the first day of school on Sept. 6, 1967, if my film sleeve label is correct. I’m also guessing that this is a kindergarten class, based on the signs.

This poor boy never had a chance

I’m going to bend the rule that “good photographers never show their bad pictures” by including some that are a little on the marginal side. You may spot yourself, a sibling or a neighbor and won’t mind if the exposure is a little off or it could be sharper.

The difference between boys and girls

Gender differences show up even in kindergarten. The boy has this “Oh, my god, I’ve got a girl hanging off the end of my arm” look on his face. His buddy on the right is thinking, “Neat sneakers.”

The girl in the background is placing an imaginary order for her bridesmaid dress.

Who was Alma Schrader?

It dawned on me that I’ve said or written Alma Schrader School scores of times without wondering, “Who the heck is Alma Schrader and what did she do to get a school named after her?”

It’s almost like memorizing someone by naming something after them turns them into a phrase instead of a person.

The Missourian had a long front page obituary for Miss Schrader when she died January 15, 1959. She taught in Cape Girardeau for 50 years, including serving 34 years as principal at May Greene School. (Quick pop quiz: who was May Greene?)

Miss Schrader was born in 1886, the daughter of a shoe cobbler who had a shop on North Middle. She started her teaching career in 1906 at Old Lorimier School, where she taught for three years. She spent three years as a teacher at the old Jefferson School at South Ellis and Jefferson; she was promoted to principal, a post she held until 1921. When the new May Greene School opened in 1921, she was named the school’s first principal. She continued to work with the school system after her retirement in 1956.

UPDATE to Alma Schrader Celebration

Follow this link to see pictures from the 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Gallery of Alma Schrader School Kindergarten Class 1967

Click on any picture to make it larger, then click on the left of right side of the photo to step through the gallery.

Cape Girardeau’s Art Deco Esquire Theater

Esquire Theater Oct. 28, 2009

Cape Girardeau’s Esquire Theater opened Jan. 21, 1947, to 1,300 customers in two showings. A block-long line of moviegoers were treated to a double feature of Blue Skies and Two Years Before the Mast at 6:15. A late crowd caught the 9 p.m. showing.

It was the third of Broadway’s theaters – the Rialto and the Broadway were the others – to open. Within 18 months of each other, all three were closed by 1985. The Esquire was the last to go dark.

There’s a lot of interesting reading in the National Register of Historic Places registration form filed in 2005. [This link takes you to a pdf file that may require a special plugin for your browser.]

Windstorms and a truck accident damaged the marquee

The city blocked off the sidewalk in front of the movie theater when the marquee was deemed unsafe. This photo was taken Oct. 24, 2007, before it was removed.

The Esquire gave its last first-run movie show  – Prince’s Purple Rain on Oct. 7, 1984, with four shows – 2:00, 5:00, 7:15 and 9 p.m. Newspaper accounts of the day don’t say if that particular movie led to the theater’s demise. (It scored 7 Rotten Tomatoes on the Tomatometer.)

The Esquire experienced a brief revival on Mar. 22, 1985, when it opened as a second-run movie theater, charging $1.50 a head, but it closed again in December of that year. A church held services in the building for a time. It’s being used for storage today.

When it was built, the local newspaper said that it had more than a mile of neon lights, more than any other theater in the South. Sometimes boosterism collided with facts, so this may or may not have been exactly true.

Terrazzo tile extension still visible

The National Register application says the interior of the theater retains its original space configuration of lobby, foyer, auditorium, restrooms and projection room. Many of the original interior finishes, including the mosaic tile and painted designed walls in the auditorium remain. The original seating and screen have been removed.

The multiple-colored terrazzo floor of pink, gray, buff and green blocks in a geometric designs runs up to the red doors and into the lobby.

Curved glass blocks guide you into the entrance

The gently-curving glass blocks that guide you into the entrance of the of theater are a characteristic of the Art Deco style of architecture. Other Art  Deco touches are the use of steel, marble, colored steel enameled panels and curved walls.

When construction started in 1946, the projected cost was $75,000. By the time it was finished, the total cost had doubled to $150,000. Gerhardt Construction Company of Cape was the general contractor. Preston Neon Sign Company installed the neon lighting.

Few homes had air conditioning in the Esquire’s heyday, so Cape Girardeans took refuge in the movie houses during scorching summers. A heating and air conditioning system installed in the basement was powerful enough do a complete air exchange in the theater every minute.

The 100′ x 60′ building used no lumber in its construction to make it as fire safe as possible.

Remember the fancy ticket dispenser?

When you finally made it up to the ticket window, you would speak to the cashier through a hole in her glass window, tell her (it was always a woman) how many tickets you wanted and for what ages. She would push some magic button (I don’t know if it was hand or foot-operated) and the requisite number of tickets would come shooting out of slots in the top of the counter.

The apparatus is still there, but it’s been heavily decorated with bird poop over the years.

Help! The Beatles movie played the Esquire in 1965

I wrote earlier about ordering special infrared film and flashbulbs to cover the teenybopper reaction to the Beatles movie Help! when it played at the Esquire in September 1965.

You can read the whole account at this link. Who knows? You may see yourself in the audience.

Did you ever try to sneak in through the fire exit door?

And, if you did, were you caught by one of the male ushers (they were always male) who prowled the aisle maintaining order. Hint: it was a Bad Idea to sneak in during a daytime movie. The blast of bright daylight was sort of noticeable in the darkened theater.

Do you miss those days when unruly patrons were shushed or ejected?

Did you work at the Esquire?

Were YOU an usher, cashier or concession stand worker? Based on the stories that Wife Lila tells from her days as a cashier at the Rialto, I bet you have an experience to share.

Here’s a gallery of Esquire photos

Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to step through the gallery.

CapeCentralHigh.Com Needs a Business Staff

1965 Tiger Business Staff

I need some good contacts

CapeCentralHigh.Com needs a business staff like The Tiger and The Girardot had in the Good Old Days. Well, maybe not a staff exactly like then, but some of you who have contacts who might like to purchase an ad or sponsorship on this site. I’m heading back to Cape in about a week to knock on doors, and some names and introductions would help. If you know someone I should talk with, send me an email.

I’m not looking for charity. There’s real value for a business to be associated with CapeCentralHigh.com. If there wasn’t, I wouldn’t try to pitch it.

CapeCentralHigh.Com is popular

I don’t want to get into too much inside baseball about how web sites are rated, but here are some key points

  • Every week shows an increase in traffic. The site has had just under 4,000 visits in the last 30 days. That’s highly unusual for a site that didn’t exist before Oct. 20, 2009, particularly one dealing with a niche like a small Midwestern town and its high school.
  • Readers spent an average of three minutes on each page. That means they are either slow readers or that they read every word of my rather long posts.
  • Readers, on average, visit more than one page per visit. That means more eyeballs looking at your ad.
  • There are (as of this moment) 139 subscribers who get email notifications whenever the site is updated. That’s one of the things that has encouraged me to post more. Originally, I had planned to do one post a week to take advantage of two excellent weekly alumni email lists for the 1950s and 1960s decades. When I saw that readers would come every time something new was posted, it encouraged me to write more often.
  • You all are great about sharing your memories. Very few sites get as many meaningful comments as this one. If I make a mistake or ask for amplification, you’re quick to respond. The 17 postings this month have averaged seven comments per post, with some garnering as many as two dozen responses.
  • I’m touched by how many of you have used the stores and photos to talk to your parents and other family members about their memories. I’ve said on this site that we are alive only so long as someone remembers us. I hope that some of these pictures will help keep us alive.

1965 Girardot Ad Sellers and Business Managers

Why advertise in CentralHighSchool.com?

Cape Girardeau residents who have left town are extremely loyal to it. I’ve lived in four states and been gone from Cape twice as long as I lived in the area, but I still consider Cape my home and visit at least once a year. Based on comments I see on the Cape Girardeau Facebook Fan Page, I’m not unusual.

Central High School is having at least one class reunion this summer. Alma Schrader School is holding a 50-year homecoming this year, too. Many of those visitors are readers of CapeCentralHigh.com

Classmates who are coming into town look for

  • Lodging
  • Places to eat
  • Antique stores
  • Landmark buildings and businesses
  • General shopping
  • Transportation

1965 Girardot Ad and Book Sales staffs

What does CapeCentralHigh.com have that no other site has?

  • A reporter / photographer who worked for The Central High School Tiger, The Girardot, The Jackson Pioneer, The Capaha Arrow, The Southeast Missouri State College Sagamore and The Southeast Missourian between 1961 and 1967. After leaving Cape, I majored in photojournalism at Ohio University in Athens, OH, and worked for papers in Athens; Gastonia, NC, and West Palm Beach, FL., where I honed my photo and story-telling skills. That’s what gives CapeCentralHigh.Com its high quality pictures and original, if quirky, writing style.
  • A collection of photographs of almost every major event that happened in the area during that period. One-Shot Frony, The Missourian’s photographer, came to the school on assignment, but he didn’t have the depth of photo coverage that I had as a student who was there every day.  (I was the only photographer to have a picture of stunned students watching the news from Dallas after JFK was shot.) Other students would occasionally freelance, but I was the only one who worked for both local papers as a staffer.
  • A strong marketing campaign. You can have the best site in the world, but that doesn’t mean anything if nobody knows about it. I spend almost as much time promoting the site as a I do producing the content. As soon as I publish an article, I send out a Tweet, I post links on as many as half a dozen Facebook fan pages and a Google 60s group and I alert the alumni newsletters. To keep from looking like a spammer, I try to post at least two non-linked comments for every one that promotes the site.

What is Coffee Can Film?

I have thousands of photos. Every time I open a film sleeve, I find something new. Most of the pictures have never been seen before because photo paper cost money and I printed only what I thought would be published.

You’ve heard me talk about the Coffee Can Film. If I didn’t think the photo had any significance, it would end up in a plastic garbage can under the darkroom table instead of being filed.

Eventually, I gathered up all the scraps and put them into two coffee cans, where they’ve been rolled up for close to 30 years.

Those are really interesting photos because they are frequently informal shots of family and friends in unguarded, unposed moments.

Here are stories that I have in the pipeline

  • A video on The Gh0sts of Central High School
  • Color photos from down inside the cement plant quarry before the columns were blasted out
  • Color photos inside the bell tower and a look at the pipe organ innards of the old Trinity Lutheran Church before it was torn down.
  • Proms, coronations and dances from every high school in the area and SEMO
  • Aerial photos of many landmarks
  • An interview and video with classmate Bill who is now known as Jacqie.
  • Current photos of the old Central High School on Caruthers (which has been converted to a junior high)
  • Photos of the new Central High School
  • A gazillion sporting events from every high school in Southeast Missouri.
  • Scores of photos of students, clubs, activities and plays.
  • Area landmarks, including the Wittenburg Bomb Shelter, the Mississippi River Traffic Bridge from every angle and at night, plus old and new pictures of Cape’s major shopping areas.
  • Photos of major Southeast Missouri State University construction projects.

What would the ads look like?

Jan Norris, the former food editor of The Palm Beach Post and a former coworker / bike riding partner, started a food blog about the time I cranked up my bike blog. She’s been quite successful in attracting local advertising. (Something that she points out to me every time I tell her I have more readers than she does.)

Click on the photo to go to her page to see what her ads look like. (If you’re interested in food, she’s a fun read).

I’m going to revamp the look of CapeCentralHigh.com to make it more attractive and easier to use in the next week or so. The ads I anticipate selling would look something like the ones on her page.

Call to action: what do I want?

If you are a business owner, know a business owner or someone else who might like to have their name associated with CapeCentralHigh.com, shoot me an email.