Cape Girardeau History and Photos

October 7, 2013

A Windy Day in South Florida

It sure looked dark this afternoon. A friend 60 miles west of us at the north end of Lake Okeechobee said it was raining so hard out there she could hardly see across the creek. It didn’t take long before our trees started whipping around.

But, that’s not really the reason you’re seeing this. My computer is tied up outputting 1,111 photos for a project in Athens, Ohio. Not only is it resizing them and working magic once, I have to do it four times for different size prints and for a slide show.

(No, I’m not showing all thousand slides in one show. Relax.)

Video of wind and rain

While all those digital gyrations are going on, I can’t edit any still photos. That’s why you get this short video of the wind picking up, then moving on.

This rain video I did back in Cape is a little more dramatic.

October 7, 2013

Twirp and Student Rights

Friend and former Ohio University Post colleague Carol Towarnicky and I are going to do a presentation on the early days of the student rights movement to the OU History Association on October 24. It seems that stuff we covered as news has now become history. Or, as I like to say, “History is news with whiskers.”

The deal was brokered by Jessica Cyders, curator of the Athens County Historical Society and Museum. She’s heard so much about Southeast Missouri that she’s doing a road trip back with me. So, y’all be on your best behavior while she’s in town.

TWIRP (The Woman Is Requested to Pay)

It was appropriate (and somewhat amusing) to run across these photos from Central’s 1967 TWIRP Dance while working on the OU show. This was the era of Sadie Hawkins Day dances (where the girl asks the boy for a date) and The Woman Is Requested to Pay (TWIRP) affairs.

Notice how the girl is holding open the door for the boy?

For some reason, The Missourian didn’t run a photo with school reporter Margaret Randol’s story that on the March 11, 1967, Youth Page.

Littleton & Hirsch are Mr. and Miss CHS

The story said Gary Littleton and Miss Mary Hirsch were crowned Mr. and Miss CHS at the Twirp Dance Friday night in the Central High School gymnasium.

Mary is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Hirsch, 1855 Thilenius, and Gary is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Littleton, 2540 Marvin.

Candidates

The candidates included Miss Jane Dunklin, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Dunklin, 839 Alta Vista; Miss Mary Hale, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lemro Hale, 2209 Brookwood; Miss Georganne Penzel, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Penzel, 1844 Woodlawn; Charles McGinty, son of Dr. and Mrs. Charles McGinty, 2435 Brookwood; Larry Johnson, son of Dr. and Mrs. Earl Johnson, 1044 Henderson, and Mark Kirkpartrick, son of Mrs. Wilma Kirkpatrick, 903 Bellvue.

October 5, 2013October 6, 2013

1967 Cheerleaders

I’ve been working on a non-Cape project, so you’re on your own to put name to the faces of the 1967 Central High School cheerleaders. (You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

I don’t have a copy of the 1967 Girardot, and I don’t know if the photo ran in The Missourian, so I didn’t have a quick way to ID them.

Older cheerleader posts

(The posts, not the cheerleaders are old.)

UPDATE

Nancy Gerecke was quick to provide the names: from left Mary Hirsh, Debbie Baker, Brenda Parsh, Pam Beard, Jane Dunklin, Chritie Seabaugh

Someone else pointed out that Brenda Parsh had been murdered. I remember that very well. Brother Mark and I rigged up a panic switch that Mother could push that would set off an alarm loud enough to alert the neighbors if she heard someone trying to break in. The murder went unsolved for 31 years. You can read the details in The Missourian.

October 4, 2013

A Winter Photo Tip

Cape had gotten about four inches of rain over the past few days, but a cold front moved through, dropping the temps down into the mid-teens and low 20s. That sets the stage for my assignment to cover a swim meet in the basement of Academic Hall on December 10, 1966.

My equipment had been sitting in the car for most of the day, so it was at the same temperature as the air, let’s say 20 degrees. I walked into the heated air of an indoor swimming pool where the humidity approached 100%. The first thing that happened was that the lenses fogged over with condensation. It took almost half an hour before the equipment warmed up enough that I could SEE through the lens.

Camera froze up

After about six shots, the camera locked up hard. It wouldn’t fire; it wouldn’t advance; it was dead. I gambled that I had at least one usable shot and headed for Nowell’s Camera Shop. (The first shot above ran in the paper, so I got my $5.) (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Mr. Nowell opened it up and said that there was as much condensation INSIDE the camera as there had been on the outside of the lenses. All that moisture turned the dust inside the camera into mud.

I might have used that as an excuse to buy a new Honeywell Pentax body while he was fixing the frozen one.

Pool records, like my camera, were broken

You can read the whole story about the meet in The Missourian. It says that SEMO won the meet against Drury and Culvert-Stockton. The 400 medley relay team of Dave and Dan Ranson, Hal Bliggenstorfer and Dennis Lorch set a new varsity and pool record with a 4:24 time.

Arnold Moore set a varisty and pool record in the 100 freestyle with 13:40.6 and Charles Stevenson was timed in :29.4 in the 60 freestyle. Lorch also set a freshman, varsity and pool record in the 150 individual medley relay when he was clocked in 1:51.2.

Photo tip of the day

Your winter photo tip of the day: Do not leave your cameras out where it is cold, cold, cold, if you are going into somewhere that is hot and humid, humid and humid.