Central High School students Archives

March 3, 2012May 27, 2022

Rush Limbaugh: “Horse’s Patootie”

Ray Seyer, Wife Lila’s uncle, was going to turn 90 in 2012, so we sat down with him on Oct. 20, 2010, for a wide-ranging discussion about what it was like to grow up in Southeast Missouri when much of it was still swampland. The result was a collection of ten videos that we put together for his family to pass down to their kids. I’ll get around to posting them one of these days.

Rush Limbaugh Remembered

Here is Uncle Ray talking about one of his first encounters with high schooler Rush Limbaugh. As soon as school would let out, Rush would run home and fire up his CB and monopolize Calling Channel 9, making it impossible for truckers and others in the community to communicate.

[Channel 9 eventually became set aside for emergency use only. Truckers, who first migrated to Channel 10, moved to 19 about the time C.W. McCall’s song Convoy put two-way radio antennas on just about everything on the road.]

Despite a career in the Navy during World War II, Uncle Ray contented himself by labeling Rush a “horse’s patootie.” I’m sure he would have been more colorful, had Mother, Lila and Aunt Rose Mary not been in the room.

Rush Limbaugh and Terry Jones

September 9, 2010, when Terry Jones was international news because he was threatening to burn a Koran, I pointed out that Terry and Rush Limbaugh were both members of the Cape Girardeau Central High School Class of 1969. The story didn’t hint that they were in cahoots, it just noted the interesting coincidence that Cape’s two best-known exports were in the same class.

The Terry Jones / Rush Limbaugh story was picked up all over the world and got more traffic in three days than I usually get in a month. It also attracted 150 mostly respectful comments. I rode herd to make sure that they STAYED respectful.

Rush has been immortalized on Cape Girardeau’s Mississippi River floodwall mural displaying pictures of prominent Missourians. I don’t think they’ve reserved a space for Jones.

So, you are welcome to comment on an 88-year-old’s recollections of a young Rush Limbaugh, but we’re going to keep it civil, right?

February 28, 2012

Central Majorettes 1964-65

I may have run one or more of these photos before – it’s getting harder and harder to remember what’s run and what hasn’t. Well, if I WAS going to repeat something, I can’t think of anything better than this. Click on the photos to make them larger.

This is the photo that ran in the 1964 Girardot.

Kneeling: Pam Parks, Ann Seabaugh.

Standing: Becky McGinty, Linda Maddux, Susan Seabaugh, Robin Kratz, Vicki Berry, Della Heise.

Alternate shot of the 1964 Majorettes

The order is slightly different, but you should be able to figure out who is who.

1965 Girardot majorette photo

This is one of those groupings that make it difficult to write a caption. Do you list them by row, by clockwise or do you do what the editor did and punt and just list the names.

Jane McKeown; Gwen Petty; Della Heise, drum major; Phyllis Metzger; Ruth Ann Seabaugh, head majorette; Toni Grose, Nancy Swan.

1965 majorettes in gym

We must have wanted to hedge our bets by taking a second shot inside the gym. Note: don’t shoot flash directly at a shiny ceramic brick wall. The light will bounce right back at you. Somebody must have helped line up this shot. I could have gotten them lined up, but I wouldn’t have come up with that toe-point thing.

Leading band down Broadway

Ruth Ann Seabaugh is in the lead. It must have been a day that warmed up. I see lots of folks in the crowd holding their coats and jackets. The boy second from the left seems to be checking out Toni’s ankles pretty closely.

Other majorette photos

February 17, 2012December 4, 2021

Cape Central Evacuation

Looks like everybody has been evacuated from Central High School. I thought it might have been a fire drill, but there are photos of officers searching the building., so I’m leaning to bomb threat. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Did the lockers have combination locks?

I was trying to figure out how they would have gotten all the lockers open if every student had an individual padlock. I seem to remember that there was a round, black combination lock on the front of the door that you turned right-left-right to open the locker. They also had a key slot that the administration could use to open them. That must have been how they did it so quickly.

Leaving no place unchecked

So, why am I inside when everybody else is outside?

I’m playing the odds that there’s no bomb. Plus, it’s cool to run around in the empty building.

Bomb on an aircraft

One night in the late 70s, we got a report of a bomb on an aircraft at Palm Beach International Airport. They unloaded the plane to search it, then blocked all but ticketed passengers from the terminal. No problem. I called the travel agency that handled our business and had them issue tickets in the name of a reporter and photographer, telling them that we had no intention of actually using them. We did enough business with the agency that they were happy to work with us.

After about an hour, the photographer radioed back that the plane has been given the all clear and that they were going to start boarding passengers soon. I was all set to tell them to come back to the office when the guy working the city desk said, “Tell them to get on the plane.”

“Get on the plane?”

“Get on the plane? That makes no sense. If there is no bomb, then there’s no story. If there IS a bomb, they’re going to be dead and they’re not going to be able to file.”

He insisted. So, saying that I wanted it on the record that this was a bad idea, I broke the news to the team. “You’re going to Pittsburgh (or Philadelphia, I can’t remember).”

“We’re broke. We have no money,” he replied. This was in the days before everybody carried plastic. We quickly took up a collection and got them a handful of cash and change.

Their conversations with their seatmates was interesting. “Let me get this straight… Your editor thinks there’s a bomb on the plane and he tells you to get on it? And, you DO it?” When you put it that way, it does sound a little strange.

They arrived in one of those P-towns to find out that there wasn’t a room to be had. There was a Shriner’s convention going on. Not only were there no rooms, every eating establishment and bar in town was full of drunks wearing funny hats. They did NOT have a fun time.

It’s all over

There are folks holding umbrellas, the concrete looks mottled and the sky is overcast. It may have just started raining. I see Calvin Chapman on the right in the first wave of returning teachers. Mrs. Muegge might be in the back of the group. Typing teacher Mr. Gockel might be leading the charge, but I’m less sure about her.

I wonder who had a test scheduled or a paper due?

The Missourian, like most papers, had a policy of not running bomb threats if nothing was found. They didn’t want to encourage copycats, so these were never published.

February 6, 2012February 6, 2012

Okay, Who Did It?

I’ve already done a page on the Red Dagger’s My Sister Eileen and Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, so when I discovered these frames stuck in with a fire I shot in Ohio, I almost relabeled them and stuck them back in the file. Then I saw something that piqued my interest.

Whose car is this? Who did this nefarious deed? Their timing was good. I see one of the pages is from The Missourian’s Achievement Edition. That was usually the biggest paper of the year. Gaining entry to the car wouldn’t have been difficult. Most folks didn’t lock the doors and about half of them left the keys in the ignition.

Surely these guys didn’t do it

Principal Fred Wilferth and custodian James Criddle were on this roll of film, which means they were in the vicinity of the hooliganism, but they don’t have the guilty look of someone who has just stuffed someone’s car with a week’s worth of papers.

By the way, this film was in pretty bad shape, so I had a choice of spending hours spotting out all the flaws or pretending that the practice took place during a snow storm. I opted for the latter. In one frame there IS a cup flying through the air and water or some other liquid frozen by the strobe flash.

Gallery of the usual suspects

If I was a cop, I’d round up this gang of suspects from My Sister Eileen. I’m pretty sure that at least one of them would crack when you shined the bright light in their eyes. I bet you wouldn’t even have to bring out the rubber hoses. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo until you find the guilty person or persons.

Anola Gill Stowick was kind enough to provide a cast list when I ran the other story. I’m having the names run right now for wants and warrants. We should have this wrapped up in a matter of hours.

Chuck Dockins, Sally Wright, Sherry Harris, Larry Loos, Pat Sommers, Tom Spitzmiller, Steve Crowe, David Reimann, John Reimann, Rick Meinz, Jane Randol, Mike Daniels, Pam Parks, Mike Seabaugh, Steve Folsom, Anola Gill, Lee Dahringer, Don Mowery, John Magill, Preston Foster, Kenny Fischer, Vicky Roth, Jim Stone
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Faculty Director – Kitty Hart, Jerrette Davis, Carl Meyer, Becky McGinty, Steve Strong, Marsha Seabaugh, Janice House, Hilda Hobbs, Martin Hente, Bill Kuster, Tom Holt, Ralph Frye, Shari Stiver, Cheri Huckstep, Tana Austin, Diane Siemers, Betsy Ringland, Francie Hopkins, Ruth Ann Seabaugh, Beth Hayden, Judy Dunklin, Peggy Estes, Judy Brunton, Terry Hinkle, Robin Kratz, Marcia Maupin, Sally Nothdurft, Toni Starkweather, Bunny Blue, Mary Sudholt, Cheryl McClard, Emma Pensel, David Stubbs Ron Hill, Gwynn Sheppard Mary Rickard, Mary Jean Rodgers, Carol Klarsfeld, Dean Kimmich, Donna Eddleman, Marsha Harris, Martha Mahy, Paul Schwab, Amanda Ashby, Della Heise, Don Sander, Anne Buchanan, Ronnie Marshall, John Mueller, Pat Johnson.