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Cape Central High Photos 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.
Come here to see photos and read stories (mostly true) about coming of age in Southeast Missouri in the 1960s.
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 says her stories have improved now that more and more of the folks who could contradict her have died off.) Your information helps to make this a wonderful archive and may end up in book form.
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 I’m dipping into Steve McKeown’s stash of photos taken by his dad, James D. McKeown III, to show the 1956 Southeast Missouri State College (now University) Homecoming parade headed down Broadway between Pacific and North West End Blvd.
I’m sure car buffs will enjoy seeing the fancy wheels. Old truck enthusiasts will like the red pickup in the church parking lot.
Trucks supplied by local companies
 I see trucks from E.C. Robinson Lumber Co. and Wiethrop Trucking.
Pictures of other Homecoming Parades
1956 Homecoming Parade photo gallery
Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to move through the gallery. Give a round of applause to Steve for providing the photos and to his dad for taking them.
 Here’s a shot of Dad helping set up a campsite. That’s Brother Mark hiding behind the tree. I’m pretty sure that’s Mother in the background looking for some poison ivy to step in. The setting is kind of odd: it’s right on a road and butts up to a fence. I don’t know who the boy on the right is. Brother David is in another shot, and that’s not him.
What caught my eye, though, was the lantern Dad is reaching for. It’s one of at least two carbide lanterns we owned. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)
What’s a carbide lantern?
 They were one of the most common sources of light for miners and coonhunters. There’s a good explanation of carbide lanterns on Mother Earth News.
I’m pretty sure we bought the lanterns at Beard’s Sport Shop. They were simple devices. They consisted of a super-bright reflector attached to a device that contained two chambers. You put water in the top chamber and calcium carbide in the lower chamber. When you dripped water onto the carbide, it would emit acetylene gas – the same stuff you use mixed with oxygen for welding. A wheel flint, like on a cigarette lighter, would provide a spark to ignite the gas. No matches required.
Calcium carbide was available in just about any hardware store when I was a kid. We kept ours in a big glass jug with a wide mouth. It looked like gravel. In fact, we’d freak out new campers by putting some on the ground and pouring a little water on it. Casually pitching a match in the general direction of the brew, we’d warn them that you had to be careful where you built your fire because the gravel around there would burn. POOF! They’d spend an inordinate amount of time trying to light rocks until you clued them in.
The highly efficient reflectors would throw a beam a long way. If you cut back on the water drip, they’d burn for hours. The only catch was that they emitted a lot of soot that would clog the gas passage. They were great when they worked, but I always found them a pain to keep burning.
Carbide lanterns are hard to find these days. There was only one listing for carbide lanterns on Amazon. This caver site has some good information on how to buy a used lantern.
 I think this was a Central High School football game, but I can’t swear to it. I have a few Missourian clips of high school sports, but none of these photos were in the ones I could find.
Shooting night football was full of challenges.
- The fields were too dark and the film was too slow to shoot available light, so you had to use flash.
- Electronic flash was better than flashbulbs because you could shoot as quickly as the strobe would recycle. Unfortunately, the more you shot, the more the battery discharged and the slower the recycle time.
- Electronic flash duration was very short, so it stopped action very well. Unfortunately, the shutter had to be completely open when the flash went off, so the shutter speed had to be set at 1/60 or 1/90 of a second. The flash would stop the action, but there would be enough ambient light that “ghosting” would occur. You can see it on some of these shots where there is a blurry line around a helmet or arm.
- The flash was limited to about 30 feet, so plays down the middle and on the other side of the field were out of range.
- You had to guess where the play was going to be so you could set the exposure correctly. You could follow focus as the action moved, but you were pretty much stuck with your exposure.
- You had to judge where the action was going to be, give or take 30 feet. Do you stand slightly ahead of the line of scrimmage and hope they run toward you? Do you go down the field and gamble that a pass that will be on your side of the field? When you get close to the end zone, do you stand under the goal posts and hope for a play coming at you or do you drop back behind the line of scrimmage? By the time the game was over, you probably covered as much of the field as the players did.
- The goal was to drop off one to three prints at the paper before deadline. Usually there was only room for one in the paper. So, you spent a couple of hours shooting the game; an hour processing and printing it; a drive to the game and to and from the office; film, chemical and photo paper that cost about $1.50. For all of that, you got $5. Oh, I forgot to mention that you had to buy all your own equipment, too. Maybe I should have paid more attention in math class, because something doesn’t add up here.
Football photo gallery
If anybody knows the teams or anything about the game, chime in. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.
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I’m dipping into Steve McKeown’s stash of photos taken by his dad, James D. McKeown III, to show the 1956 Southeast Missouri State College (now University) Homecoming parade headed down Broadway between Pacific and North West End Blvd.
I see trucks from E.C. Robinson Lumber Co. and Wiethrop Trucking.
