Cape Girardeau History and Photos

April 2, 2012

Personalized Subway Art

We’ve picked up a new advertiser, Ken McMahan, who is an award-winning graphics designer and who just happens to be married to Jane Rudert, Central High School Class of 1966 and a buddy of Wife Lila.That’s Ken and Jane with with their granddaughters Averi and Arielle. The buildings in the background are downtown Sarasota, Fla.

Click on his ad on the page or follow this link to see his custom work.

Ken grew up in St. Louis and attended Southeast Missouri State College for about a semester. He marched with the Golden Eagles (played sousaphone); spent some time in the Florida Keys; married Jane; moved to the Vermont / Canada border; had Son Zachary; founded and was Creative Director of First Impressions, an advertising and graphics design firm in the Northeast in 1978, and semi-retired to Siesta Key on Florida’s west coast in 1997.

You can tell that Ken is a laconic guy who spits out facts in a Joe Friday fashion.

His First Impressions company worked with a wide variety of national and regional clients and hundreds of small businesses and individuals. It wracked up an impressive list of awards, including Best in Class in Financial World Annual Award competition 11 straight years; winner in the National Restaurant Association’s Great Menu contest; winner in the National Packaging Association’s International Letterhead Design contest, and picked up Best of Show in the Advertising Federation of the Suncoast. He’s done some cool stuff.

I remember Jane as Tiger Editor-in-Chief

I knew Jane as editor of The Tiger. Here’s a shot I took of the staff for the 1966 Girardot. Left to right, Claudia Modder, Mary Baker, Don Call, Jane Rudert, Nanci Cagann, Prudy Irvin and Gail Tibbles. First semester editor-in-chief was Jane Rudert, and serving as Co-Editors second semester were Claudia Modder and Nanci Cagann.

Jane wrote she met Ken when she was sitting on a picnic table in Capaha Park with the “7 Teens,” a folksinging group she was part of. The other members of the group were Vivian Walton, Gwen Beaudean, Cheryl Welter, Mary Tenkhoff (all CHS ’66) and Pam Beard and Carole Walton (both CHS ’67).

“We had a brief career playing a few gigs, including the talent show at Central in 1966, mostly just having fun in matching flowered suits.” She doesn’t think there are any photos to the “7 Teens” in existence.

Bob Wolfenkoehler’s Morris Minor

“Anyway, we are sitting around in Capaha Park waiting for something or someone to happen, and here comes Bob Wolfenkohler, CHS ’66, in his tiny Morris Minor with a lot of new friends from the Golden Eagles Band Camp stuffed inside. They were all very flirty except for Ken, who went and stood aloofly against a tree. Being that opposites attract, he was the antisocial renegade of my dreams, and the rest is history, as they say. We got married in Sarasota in 1968 (after I discovered he was not 22 years old as his driver’s license maintained, but only 19 years old!)

“Before he left SEMO, his favorite pastime was walking around campus with his shirttail untucked (those were definitely different days), always hoping President Mark Scully would spot him and give him grief over it, which happened fairly often; I guess this was one of Ken’s first attempts at “questioning authority,” and he actually hasn’t stopped since.”

See if you can spot Ken

“He does, however, swear that he had nothing to do with the water balloon tossing from the Marquette Hotel upper floors (where he lived – they housed some freshman boys there that year due to overcrowded dorms, can you imagine?) down on the 1966 Homecoming Parade.”

[Can you spot him in this photo I took of the 1966 Homecoming parade.]

Beach Bum Prophesy comes true

The May 26, 1966, Tiger contained a class prophesy compiled by Barbara Hobbs and Linda Stone: “LOOK OUT for that garbage truck (driven by Shiela Blackwell and Mike Herron), they’re probably in a hurry to get down to the big party on the beach given by beach bums Margaret Ritter, Jane Rudert, Lila Perry, Elizabeth Ridings, and Allene Phillips.”

The Class of 1961’s reunion bulletin in 1991 said that Jane and Ken “made their dream come true with a place in Florida to get away from this cold Northern weather whenever possible!” Lila Perry Steinhoff was living in West Palm Beach, Fla, and Margaret Ritter Ueleke had logged beach time in Hawaii and South Carolina.

Jane is working at Sarasota Memorial Hospital as a Medical Transcription Editor. Son Zak lives in Colorado with his wife Desiree and their daughters, Arielle and Averi.

April 2, 2012January 28, 2016

1966 Guitar Club

The caption in the 1966 Girardot reads “The GUITAR CLUB is new at Central. David Emory, Peter Zickfield and Donna Davis tune up their instruments in the Tiger Den.”

Sure glad to clear that up. I’ve been scratching my head over some random photos I couldn’t identify, including this one. I was thumbing through Wife Lila’s 1966 yearbook and happened to spot a bunch of my pictures in there, even though I was Class of ’65. I must have shot them as a favor.

A Broadway Fender-Bender

Looks like there might have been a minor fender-bender east of Pacific on Broadway on a warm night when the streets were wet. The negative is in poor shape, but there are all kinds of interesting things captured in the frame. Click on the photos to make them larger.

I think it’s a fender bender because the car in the foreground (with a Ford Groves license plate) is empty.
There’s a small crowd of gawkers gathering on the sidewalk.
There’s a guy standing behind the second car exhibiting body language that he’s not particularly happy. You can see that same sort of thing at another crash at Fountain and Broadway where you can also read about Cape’s singing policeman, Fred Kaempfer.

Barely worth two shots

It had to have been minor because it was only worth two shots. It wasn’t newsworthy enough to make the paper and it didn’t look like it would turn into an insurance job.
The Esquire Theater is showing Walt Disney’s Moon Spinners.
The Wayne’s Grill sign is still lit, probably open to catch late-night moviegoers. Wayne’s was the home of the best filet I’ve ever eaten, all for $1.25.
Beard’s Sport shop is on the left side of the street just beyond the Esquire and just before the phone company.
There’s a guy standing in front of the price sign at the Cities Service gas station, so we don’t know how much you had to pay to fill your tank, but I’m guessing it was going for about .39.9 a gallon. Thoni’s price wars that took it down to 19 cents didn’t usually make it that far into town.
If you look above and to the left of the highway signs, you can see one of the cheesy plastic rose baskets that were supposed to symbolize City of Roses.
Vandeven’s Merchantile is on the right. There’s a sign that looks like it says “Novelty Shop,” that might have been Bodine’s Gift Shop at 823 Broadway. Beyond it is the vertical sign for Radonics Electronics Radio and TV.

Is the Esquire deal off?

When I was home last fall, the big news was that the Esquire Theater, closed for first-run movies since 1984, was going to renovated by its new owner, John Buckner.

Well, it looks like the excitement might have been premature. One of Buckner’s enterprises, a new restaurant named Razing Cain, closed in less than a month. The Missourian is reporting that Buckner is now “rethinking” if he’s going forward with the Esquire project.

March 31, 2012March 29, 2021

Ohio University Post

I’m going to stray off the Cape Girardeau reservation to run some photos of folks I worked with at The Ohio University Post in Athens, Ohio, in 1967 and 1968. April Fool’s Day is as good a time as ever to publish them. The student newspaper is celebrating its 100th year with a special alumni reunion April 13-15. Despite what some folks might think, I was NOT around in 1912 when the paper launched as The Green and White.

The event organizers are looking for photos of old staffers (old as in age AND as in former). You regular readers can tune out for a day while I wallow in Ohio nostalgia for a day or so. Click on any photo to make it larger.

The OU Post saved my college career

I was woefully unprepared for life in a big, impersonal university when I transferred in as a junior. It was a good thing my first stop after unpacking my bags in the dorm room I shared with two freshmen was The Post.

See, regular students in the Fine Arts program worked in gang darkrooms using chemicals mixed by other students who may or may not care if they got it right. The darkroom equipment was old and abused. I was used to working in my own darkroom where everything was well-maintained and everything had a place.

Post photo editor Walt Harrison saw my portfolio and hired me on the spot. He saw I was an experienced newspaper photographer, but didn’t know that I was a lousy technician with no formal training. When you print for newspaper publication, for example, you print differently than you do for prints that hang on the wall. Newspaper photos are made up of tiny dots that transfer ink to the equivalent of splintery toilet paper. The process causes the image to pick up contrast, so you have to print “flat” when you send it back to the engravers or it won’t reproduce properly.

Tiny, but efficient darkroom

I couldn’t understand why my instructors kept kicking my prints back for being flat. Fortunately, the folks on The Post and the Athena yearbook gave me the help and criticism I needed to understand what I needed to do. One night I went to cover a routine assignment, then made the first “good” print of my career to that point. A light went off in my head and I suddenly got it. My work steadily improved from that point as I grew in confidence. I cleaned up in the Ohio College Newspaper Association contest that year because most student photographers don’t have as much hard news in their portfolios.

When Walt stepped down as photo editor, I took over his job. I didn’t even know it was a paid position until I got a check at the end of the school year. It didn’t make any difference to me: all I knew was that I had a darkroom shared with only two or three other shooters, a boundless supply of film and paper, and a bunch of accomplished photographers who weren’t shy about critiquing my work. I learned more from them than from any of my classes.

“Radical” Editor Andy Alexander

There are lots of photos of Andy Alexander because I had a freelance job from The Dayton Daily News to illustrate a story former Postie reporter Carol Towarnicky wrote about him. (I always called Carol “CT” because I couldn’t spell, let alone pronounce Towarnicky.) CT’s story said “Andy Alexander never marched in an anti-war demonstration. But he has marched through a few rice paddies, which would explain why the ex-Eagle Scout something talks about the United States in four-letter obscenities. And why the short-haired radical sometimes disparages the New Left.

Because Andy Alexander has a jump on most college students. He’s been there. He’s seen Vietnam. And it appalled him.” Here’s CT’s story on Andy Alexander.

Andy financed a trip to Vietnam the past summer out of his own pocket. “I went to make a name for myself,” he explained matter-of-factly. “I doubt I found any newsman who was there out of dedication… Everyone wanted to make it big, fast. Some of them died trying.” He spent two summers reporting for the Melbourne (Australia) Herald. A year before he found himself in Prague, reporting the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.

I liked Andy. The Dayton Daily News might think he was a radical, but I found him a solid, steady pro who ran the student newspaper as well as any paper I’ve worked for.

Clarence Page like you don’t see on TV

When you see Chicago Tribune Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page as a frequent talking head on the news shows, he doesn’t look like the Clarence I knew. Here, Clarance points what I hope is a toy gun at Mark Roth. Unflappable editor Andy, with his back to the camera, ignores the tomfoolery going on behind him.

Clarence was a solid reporter who was always ready to push the boundaries. One night he used the F-word in a story and The Athens Messenger’s production crew almost didn’t publish the paper that night. The fact that The OU Post has been in existence was in spite of Clarence, not because of him.

I heard Clarence pontificating about something on NPR the other afternoon and had the same sense of unease as when I heard that classmate Jim Stone was trying to explain science to politicians and that Bill Clinton had been elected president. I mean, aren’t they supposed to have adults doing those jobs?

Expectant fathers

This was the first edition of the new school year to come rolling off The Messenger’s presses in 1968. Jesse Rotman, Bill Sievert and Tom Hodson were pacing the floor like fathers-to-be in a delivery room.

Ohio University Post photo gallery

Here’s a collection of photos of Ohio University Post staffers at work (mostly). Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.