Ken Steinhoff Archives

May 12, 2012April 18, 2021

She Had a Life Before Me?

I love it when I get comments from kids who see photos of their parents before they were parents. I got an email in March about a story about St. Francis Hospital manger Patricia Foster: “I am Patricia’s daughter and just ran across your blog’s highlight on my mother. The photography is spectacular. It is magical seeing your parents before you rolled into their lives.”

Mother before I came along

Like Miss Foster’s daughter, I’m fascinated by old scrapbook photos of my parents. Here, on Mother’s Day, is a short photo gallery of some of Mother’s pre-Ken days. She looks like a lot of fun. My Grandmother, Elsie Adkins Welch, was quite a woman, too.

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

May 11, 2012

Best Newspaper in State

Delta Delta Delta sorority sisters Janet Maurer. left, and Karen Totty embrace at the 1966 Greek Games at Capaha Park. The caption used one of those cliches that always causes my teeth to hurt, “Mid-afternoon rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the of the more than 700 college students who participated in the games and contests.” The Tri-Delts looked like they were going to post their fifth straight win in the annual contest, but the Alpha Chi Omegas won the Go-Go Disco Contest to overcome a two-point deficit.

I’ve got about 150 frames scanned from the Greek Games (including a wardrobe malfunction never noticed before). I’ll get around to posting them one of these days. (Click on any photo to make it larger. This, by the way is NOT the wardrobe malfunction photo, so don’t strain your eyes.)

This shot won first place in the Missouri Press Association contest in 1967 and helped The Missourian win the Golden Cup Award for Best Newspaper in the State.

Best Paper in the State

A window display gave the paper a chance to brag a bit. I still have some of the cool wood and ceramic plaques on my wall. Here’s the story that lists all the details.

Not bad for a college kid

In all, I won two first places (feature photography and news); a second place for sports, and honorable mentions in sports and features. The paper won second place for best use of local pictures. The Youth Page I edited won an honorable mention. My picture of murderer Phillip Odel Clark emerging from a house with a whiskey bottle in one hand and a pistol in the other pointing at the head of newsboy he was holding hostage was judged best news picture of the year.

After that, I had to leave town because that was going to be a tough year to top.

Working on book proposal

I’m under the gun to get a book proposal to a publisher by Monday, so I may have to slack off a couple of days to make the deadline. Interestingly enough, they are less concerned with my ability to produce the content as they are worried that I don’t have enough local ties to Cape Girardeau.

So, does anyone want to stamp my Cape passport?

April 24, 2012April 24, 2012

I’m Looking for Reader Help

I’ve been talking with a publisher the last few weeks about doing a book on Cape. We were moving right along until they discovered I live in Florida. They prefer their authors to be local so they can promote their books.

I explained about the reach of this blog, how many folks with an interest in Cape Girardeau read it and how they’re located all over the world.

On top of that, I said that I get back to Cape two or three times a year and could do the conventional press-the-flesh book signings and the like. For example, I’m putting together an October exhibit and presentation on Regional Photography for the Altenburg Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum.

I do a pretty entertaining dog ‘n’ pony show with lots of photos, videos and war stories.

How you can help

If you are a member of a service club, historical society or you can get more than three people together (not counting me), I’d appreciate the name of the person who arranges your bookings, so I can convince the publisher that I’m not a Cape carpetbagger. I won’t be ready to hit the chicken dinner circuit until next year, but I need to start making contacts soon. Feel free to email me the info instead of leaving it as a comment if you prefer.

Vendor contacts would be helpful, too

What do these pictures have to do with my request? Absolutely nothing. They just happened to be in the same negative sleeve. They DO represent the wide variety of folks I’ve photographed over the years and the kinds of groups I’d like to get in front of.

The publisher has arrangements with national booksellers, but they like their authors to come up with local stores that might be persuaded to carry the book: coffee shops, antique stores, historical societies, Chambers of Commerce and the like. I’d appreciate info from anyone who has contacts with any of these types of businesses. Again, email to ken@steinhoff.net is fine.

I’m kind of excited about finding an outlet for some of the thousands of photos I’ve taken. I’ll keep you folks in the loop. If this deal doesn’t come to pass, I’m convinced that another one will come along right behind it.

April 4, 2012

Water Column Barometer

When Jim Stone and I visited our old earth science teacher Ernie Chiles on one of our trips back to Cape, Ernie mentioned a class project both of us had forgotten.

To back up a bit, I’ve written about the odd relationship Ernie, Jim, George Cauble and I had in class. Ernie was a teacher so new the ink was still smeary on his diploma. Jim was on his way to become a science whiz and George was destined to go to Rolla as an engineer. Me, I was just a guy who liked to challenge authority and hang out with George and Jim.

Jim is on the left in the photo above. Ken Trowbridge is in the middle. The fellow on the right looks familiar, but I can’t put a name on the face right now. Wife Lila says it might be Terry Hopkins. Click on the photos to make them larger.

The pressure (atmospheric) was on

As Ernie tells the story, we were on a chapter dealing with atmospheric pressure, which is typically measured in inches of mercury. Normal atmospheric air pressure – roughly 14.7 psi at sea level – will support a column of mercury about 30 inches tall. The same 14.7 psi will support a column of water about 34 feet high.

Jim, George and I said we wanted to prove it. This is where Ernie got worried, he said. “It would be an interesting experiment that would make the concept clear, but I was worried. What kind of prank had these these scallywags cooked up that was going to get me fired?” Maybe Ernie was contemplating what having a student fall to his death out of his classroom window would do to his teaching career.

Our motives, despite Ernie’s misgivings were pure. We had a chance to kill a class period doing something that would allow us to drop a hose out of the third-floor classroom, attracting the attention of the classes of Floors One and Two and we could watch Ernie squirm. Oh, yeah, and we could learn something that we already knew about atmospheric pressure. What’s better than that?

The experiment was simple

The experiment was low-tech. We had to fill a waste can with water, drop a hose in it to fill it with water, then hoist it with a rope to measure how high the water column was. A three-story building should give us the 30 feet we needed. Jim was in charge of the classroom side. I was supposed to get the hose filled with water.

I don’t recall Bill Wilson being in our class, so I may have Tom Sawyered him into filling the bucket and carrying it under Jim’s classroom window. I probably said something like, “Hey, Bill, how about doing this while I take your picture?”

George Cauble was even smarter

George Cauble didn’t even work that hard. While Jim was hauling hose and Bill was toting water and I was taking pictures, George was hanging out with Nancy Jenkins. Like I said, he was the smart one.

The experiment worked (sort of)

Jim didn’t fall out of the window, Bill managed to fill the hose with water, the water column came close to 30 feet (there was some kind of last-minute glitch of some kind, but it was close enough for CHS work), I managed to take some pictures that I held onto for almost half a century and we didn’t put an end to Ernie’s teaching career. Not a bad day’s work.