Cape Girardeau History and Photos

January 10, 2013

Jackson Cheerleader Clinic

In the summer of 1963, I was working for Dad’s construction company unloading trucks, chopping weeds with a scythe in the hot, hot sun and doing other unpleasant tasks.

In the summer of 1964, I was working for The Jackson Pioneer covering dull stuff like county commission meetings and … cheerleader clinics. I was pretty much sure which career path I wanted to follow.

“Yell Along with Herkimer”

Our sister paper, The Advance Advocate, ran the same photo as The Pioneer on September 2, 1964, but had a longer cutline:

“Approximately 400 high school cheerleaders from throughout the Southeast Missouri district, including nine cheerleaders from Advance High School, attended a special clinic Tuesday in the high school gymnasium at Jackson. The clinic, sponsored by the Missouri High School Activities Association, was directed by L.R. Herkimer, executive secretary of the National Cheerleaders Association.

“The Advance cheerleaders are Linda Croy, Kathy Rhodes, Sandra Ward, Judy Croy, Jill Jenkins, Linda Holland, Stephanie Strobel, Sondra Harnes and Sharon Sims.

Speaking of cheerleaders, does anyone have any idea who these girls are?

Cheerleader clinic photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger (but, please overlook the dust spots), then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

January 8, 2013

Photo Accidents Happen

Wife Lila took over what had been a gardening blog from Son Matt. She does a really good job with her Canon point-‘n’-shoot camera and her cellphone camera, but today she came in to say she couldn’t quite get the photo she wanted of some poinsettias growing in the corner of our yard.

I handed her my Nikon D3100 camera with a Hoya polarizing filter on it and explained how to rotate the filter to kill the reflections on the leaves to make the colors more vivid. I also showed her where to adjust the exposure, explaining that most of my photos are usually underexposed anywhere from 1/3 stop to as much as 3 or 4 f/stops from what the camera wants to set automatically.

She came back saying that the pictures still weren’t right.

I forgot to change the color balance

She was correct about that. I usually leave the white balance set on AUTO, but I had been shooting under tungsten light and had moved it. That gave the photo a blue cast in sunlight.

On second glance, though I LIKED this shot. I played a little with the levels and contrast to produce a photo that isn’t the literal representation she wanted, but is still striking. It really didn’t take much tweaking. That’s pretty much how it looked coming out of the camera. Click on it to make it larger.

You’ll have to wait until she gets around to writing about her poinsettias to see the real thing.

January 7, 2013

Jackson High School 1964

There were photos of a cheerleader clinic (more about that on another day), football practice and this frame in a sleeve marked 1964. The cheerleader shots ran in the Sept. 2, 1964, Advance Advocate and the September 4 Jackson Pioneer, so these must have been shot at the end of the summer or at the start of school.

I guess I just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to document a moment of smalltown wholesomeness on the front steps of Jackson High School. Wife Lila said those white shoes were “costume de rigueur” for our era. I guess I didn’t pay much attention to shoes ’cause I didn’t even notice them.

I hope players were sharper than their pictures.

Shooting night football had all kinds of difficulties, but I can’t explain why most of the these afternoon football practice shots are, to put it kindly, unsharp.

Other Jackson High School photos

Football practice gallery

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

January 6, 2013June 23, 2015

71 Years ago

I make it a point to call Mother every Sunday night at 7:30. Now that I’m retired, I have a hard time keeping track of the days of the week, let alone the time, so I have an alarm set in my cellphone to remind me that it’s Sunday. When I made the call this week, Mother casually mentioned that Monday would mark 71 years since she and Dad got married in Advance.

I remember her saying that she and Dad had gone to a movie. When they got out, my grandfather, Roy Welch, told them that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. “If you kids are planning to get married, you’d better do it right away.”

Florida honeymoon

A month later, they were married and on their way to Florida for a honeymoon.

Dad was luckier than many men his age. He was working for a contractor who won defense contracts to build airfields and other essential projects, so he was deferred from the draft.

One of my favorite photos

This photo was part of a series I didn’t remember shooting. It’s one of my favorite shots of the two of them in our back yard in 1970. It’s obvious that they weathered well as a couple. I wrote about discovering the series just about this time last year.

You expect your parents to be there forever. When I shot this, none of us dreamed that Dad would be with us only another seven years. I guess that’s only partially true. He’ll live on forever in our memories.

Photo gallery of honeymoon

Here are some additional shots of the honeymoon from 71 years ago. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.