Cape Girardeau History and Photos

February 6, 2012June 20, 2021

SEMO Construction in 1967

Southeast Missouri State College – now University – was yanking buildings out of the ground like crazy in 1967. I roamed the campus taking photos of the work that was taking place so we could show it in the February 25, 1967, Achievement Edition.

Kent Library Expansion

This was the beginning of the Kent Library expansion project. Dearmont Hall is on the left.

Soft spot for construction workers

I’ve always had a soft sport for construction workers, particularly crane operators, because of the hours I spent watching Dad operate a dragline. He could drop the bucket exactly where he wanted it, pull in a load of dirt or gravel, swing it over and dump it into truck without spilling a rock or banging the bed of the truck. The men working under him had absolute faith in his ability to hit his target, because a mistake could have killed them.

When I was about 10, Dad was setting a big tank for someone. He had the load locked down and suspended about five feet off the ground while a worker for his client was leveling the dirt below it. He stepped off the crane for a break, then sent me back to get his jug of iced tea. When I climbed up into the cab, the tank owner went berserk. “Kid, get DOWN off there. If you touch something, you could kill that man.!”

I froze until Dad hollered back, “If I thought he was going to touch anything, I wouldn’t have sent him.” Turning to me, he said, quietly, “Fetch me the jug, please.” I realized then how much confidence Dad had in me.

Built in the old Home of the Birds

One Missourian photo caption said, in part, that the 12-story structures on the new North Campus will serve hundreds of students when they are first opened in the summer. A service center has two high-rise dormitories attached to the corners. Under contracts recently awarded, two more buildings, identical to the first, will be built on the remaining two corners of the service center, which will provide students food service and recreation areas.

By building the tall structures in the valley of what past generations called the Home of the Birds, the college was able to keep the height of the buildings at the level of existing buildings. That avoided a top-heavy effect.

2010 Aerial of dorm area

This photo is looking east toward the high-rise dorm area. Academic Hall, not visible, would be at the right.

Houck Stadium, Kent Library

This photo, taken November 6, 2010, shows Houck Stadium at the bottom. The large building at the top center of the picture is Kent Library. Dearmont Hall is on its right.

Photo 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.

February 5, 2012February 5, 2012

There’s a Football Game?

I read somewhere that you can’t use the phrase Super Bowl without getting nasty letters from the folks who license it. They supposedly even tried to trademark The Big Game, so we’ll be somewhat circumspect here. We’ll call it The Big Blowout.

This picture isn’t the one I was looking for, but it’ll have to do since it has a helicopter in it. Here’s the story about why I was dangling from it.

I don’t remember what year it was, but we were unfortunate enough to have The Big Blowout played in Miami. Unfortunate because we were going to have to pull out all the stops to cover it. Miami is 1-1/2 hours away on a good day, and Big Blowout Day isn’t a good day.

This is not from The Big Blowout

To get around the problem, I chartered a helicopter like the one above to shoot some aerials of the stadium and then land to pick up film from our photographers. We were going to keep making those film pickups throughout the game to keep from getting hit with all the film at the same time.

The first problem came when we couldn’t get permission from the City of West Palm Beach to have the chopper land in our parking lot to do the film drop. “We can’t land,” I said to the pilot, “but there’s nothing to keep you from hovering so long as you get the OK from Air Traffic Control, right?”

“Right,” he nodded. I liked this guy.

So, the plan was to have the chopper come in and hover while I ran up to scoop up the film. Then, he’d boogie back to Miami for the next run. We had a tall two-way radio tower on the roof, so I carefully marked the guy wires with glow-in-the-dark tape and set up floodlights to illuminate the tower. We had the pilot do a walk-though and got his OK with the setup. He filled in the airport folks, assured them that he wasn’t going to land in the city, and we were good to go.

This one isn’t either

The day of the Big Blowout, we got a radio call from the chopper saying he was 10 minutes out. I clambered up a steel ladder, levered myself through a tiny roof hatch and waited for the film to arrive. THWACKA THWACKA THWACKA, he made the approach. Closer, closer, closer, lower, lower, lower, lower.

Just about the time he was going to hand over the film, I was almost knocked off my feet by something that was a cross between a tsunami and an earthquake. The downdraft from the rotor had started the whole roof oscillating. There was no doubt in my mind that if this went on much longer, the effect would be the same as shaking out a bed sheet. My good idea was suddenly looking like it was a bad idea. I didn’t know how much a new roof cost, but if they took it out of my salary, I was assured of having a job for a long, long time.

I gave the pilot a quick wave-off and we made all the rest of the drops when he 30-50 feet above us.

So, don’t count on me being glued to the tube tomorrow. I’ve had all the Big Blowouts that I care to experience.

February 3, 2012

Missouri Highway Patrol

I’d rather see these Missouri Highway Patrol troopers here than in my rearview mirror with their red lights spinning. The negative sleeve is dated January 5, 1967, but I didn’t see it in the paper around that date. I thought it might have been taken for the 1967 Achievement Edition and, in fact, there was a story about the Troop E in the February 21 paper. These aren’t the photos that ran with the story, though.

At some time or another, I ran into just about every trooper that worked the counties around Cape, but these guys don’t look familiar. The trooper I knew best was Norman Copeland. He should have been a recruiting poster for what a Highway Patrolman should look like.

How NOT to shoot a photo

This is not how to shoot a photo of a bunch of people. I violated the newspaper rule of thumb that a person’s head should be at least the size of a nickle in the print. The subjects are way too small.

My fashion faux pas

I should have remembered that lesson when I moved to Ohio.

The society editor at The Athens Messenger went to a lot of trouble to round up some college girls to model some clothes for a fashion shoot. I don’t like to set up pictures and my idea of fashion is blue jeans and Red Wing boots, so I probably should have handed the assignment off to Bob Rogers, the other photographer. Still, I loaded the gals into my car and we headed off to a state park where we had a great afternoon shooting all kinds of artsy stuff.

The next morning, I dropped off the prints and waited for the praise for a job well done. Marge Straight, the soc editor, looked at them and, in her usual quiet, diplomatic way, said, “Ken these are very nice, but the idea of a fashion shoot is to show the clothes.” Luckily the models were amenable to another day frolicking in the woods.

I used to tell my staff that I’d never ask them to shoot an assignment that I hadn’t shot or wouldn’t be willing to shoot. I lied. I dodged every opportunity to go to New York for the annual fashion shoots.

February 2, 2012

The Tea Party in Cape

Cape’s a pretty conservative town (home to Rush Limbaugh and Terry Jones), so it shouldn’t surprise you that it had an active Tea Party all the way back in 1967.

No, not the political Tea Party, the lower case tea party where little girls dress up in their mother’s clothes. The Missourian ran four of these photos in the August 22, 1967, edition. The cutline, paraphrased, said, At a a dress-up tea party this week, the eye of the camera caught a group of little girls in the act of being their mothers. In the first and second photographs, Kimberly Bowers, left, and Ginger Minton actively engage in conversation.

Kimberly and Ginger

The conversation continues.

Shari Minton and April Farrar

In the third photograph, Shari Minton and April Farrar are shown partaking in party fare between sentences.

Perfecting the heel-slip

Shari, demonstrates the popular tea-time habit of slipping-the-heel-out-of-the-shoe. April and Allison Farrar, daughters of Maj. and Mrs. B.F. Farrar of Washington, D.C., are here to visit their grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Farrar, and their great-aunt, Miss Verda Farrar, who held the party on the lawn of her home at 2500 Ranchito. Ginger and Shari Minton, daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Minton of New Orleans, are here to visit their grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Minton. Kimberly Bowers is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Bowers, Cape Girardeau.

Tea Party Photo Gallery

Getting twenty bucks worth of photos in the paper put a spring in my step, but I had a few more shots that were cute. You’re getting them for free. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.