Photos around Cape Archives

September 13, 2013

Curtis Williams – Trailblazer

When I ran photos of the Southeast Missouri State Indians playing the Martin Branch of the University of Tennessee, several readers commented on Curtis Williams, #34. It turns out I had some action mug shots I took of him for either The Missourian or The Sagamore in December of 1966.

Central grad first black SEMO athlete

What I didn’t know until I read an excellent profile by Marty Mishow in the February 19, 2004, Missourian was that the CHS grad was SEMO’s first black student-athlete and a basketball and track standout from 1964 through 1967.

“Kermit Meystedt, Williams’ former basketball teammate at both Central and Southeast who along with Williams was inducted into Southeast’s Athletic Hall of Fame last October said, “He was just a very class individual, and an excellent, very gifted athlete.”

In basketball, Williams was a three-year letterman under coach Charles Parsley. He averaged 18.4 points per game as a senior to earn first-team all-MIAA honors after being second-team all-MIAA as a junior.

On the track, Williams earned four letters and excelled in all the jumps. He at one time held school records in both the high jump, at 6-8 3/4, and the triple jump, at 48-8 1/4. He was a multiple conference champion.

Wasn’t on a scholarship

The story pointed out that Williams began his SEMO career without a scholarship, which meant that he not only played sports, but he routinely worked almost a full shift at Cape Frozen Foods, which specialized in butchering and storing meat.

Track coach Marvin Rosengarten said, “He worked at least 30 hours at the frozen food locker on Broadway. I always used to have him promise me he wouldn’t work the day before a meet so he wouldn’t be worn out.

“But after his sophomore year, I went to Charles Parsley and we worked out a deal where we split the scholarship. I think in his junior year he was just on a partial scholarship but by his senior year he was on full scholarship between basketball and track.”

Flashbacks of racism

Williams was quoted as saying that he was well accepted by his teammates.

“Coming back from trips, sometimes we wouldn’t get served in restaurants, or they’d say I had to go eat in the back, but Coach Parsley said we would all eat together or we wouldn’t eat there. I remember we left one place outside Jonesboro.”

While Williams said he never encountered much negative reaction because of being black while at Central or Southeast, he was certainly not exempt from racism.

“During the early years of my life, I grew up at a time when blacks had to go in the back doors of restaurants to be served, where you were not allowed to attend movies or swim in public pools,” he said. “To this day, I still have flashbacks of those moments when one was made to feel less than human. You deal with it and move on.

September 9, 2013

Colorful Fairs

The Southeast Missouri District Fair is in progress right now, so it is appropriate that I stumbled across these two color frames from a fair or carnival.

The only catch is that I don’t know for sure where they were taken. The slides were in the middle of some Cape negatives from the early 1960s, so I’m going to guess they were from the SEMO Fair.

They all run together

After you’ve shot midways for four decades in four states (more if you count bordering states in our circulation areas), they all start to blur together. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Here are some earlier stories and photos:

September 7, 2013

Signs and Superstitions

This motorcycle wreck on Hwy 51 near Lutesville in July 1967 didn’t make the paper. It might have been because the wreck was at the edge of our circulation area or it might have been that the wreck wasn’t all that serious.

The main reason, though, is that I didn’t have the rights lens or the right skills yet to make a good piece of “sign” art.

Elements needed to be closer

Unfortunately, the “Prepare to Meet Thy God” sign was just too small to be read.

This might have been the start of my superstitions and hunches. When I moved to Florida, lots and lots of cars had “Arrive Alive” bumper stickers on them. I shot so many of those things on wrecks they became cliches. I refused to put one on my car because that was just tempting fate.

I did a number of stories about houses that burned down on the day the homeowner brought home a smoke alarm, but held off installing it. I made it a point to ALWAYS put up the smoke alarm with fresh batteries as soon as it hit the door. I didn’t want some photographer doing that story about me.

Hunches and feelings

I also paid attention to “feelings” and hunches. I can think of a couple of times when I started to walk into a hot spot news scene only to turn back to grab my body armor out of the trunk. I never needed it, but I could see myself in a hospital bed wearing all kinds of tubes and wires telling a reporter, “I had this hunch…..” That vision was the convincer.

I pushed the envelope in a lot of situations, but never when I had that bad feeling alarm bell ringing. Well, ALMOST never. I guess you can get away with a certain number of false alarms.

September 6, 2013April 17, 2024

Indians Vs. Tennessee

There’s nothing particularly spectacular about this game except that I could find the story that went with it. The microfilm copy is a bit ragged, but I could read that the “Indian Zone Halts Martin,” Martin being the University of Tennessee Martin Branch. SEMO won 75-71 in the game that showed up in the December 23, 1966, Missourian.

Two photos ran with the story. This one was captioned, “Curtis Williams of State College takes the ball into Martin territory as Byron Kuehner tries to halt the Indian swifty.”

Misfire

The caption labeled “Misfire” said “Charlie Bertrand, State College, between Byron Kuehner and Pat Taylor (3) of Martin, looks back at a pass that went off its mark in Thursday night’s game.”

Photo gallery

Here’s a collection of photos from the game. I cropped them a little looser than we would have used them in the paper on the off chance that you can spot yourself in the audience. Despite the rather close score, at least one guy mopped up the court that December evening. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the sides to move through the gallery.