In 1974, a woman set a Three Rivers College record by graduating with a perfect 4.00 GPA. In another headline, a teen showed less intelligence when he threw stolen property through the window of the Butler County Courthouse.
100 years ago
May 9, 1924
• After suing a bakery for $30,000, four plaintiffs in settled for a tenth of that amount in court today.
H.O. Lundstrom, his son Fred Lundstrom, R.O. Jones and Jack Slinkard sued Wielputz Bakery Company for damages after a delivery truck crashed into their horse-drawn buggy in February. The four individually sued for amounts between $2,500-$15,000, but each accepted payments ranging from $500-$2,100 in court today.
75 years ago
May 9, 1949
• Throwing stolen property through the window of the courthouse isn’t the wisest method of disposal. This was the takeaway for Willard Vogt, 19, who now faces charges of destruction of public property and tampering with an automobile.
Vogt arrived in Poplar Bluff from Kansas City a few weeks ago. After getting a flat tire near Poplar Bluff Hospital, he stole a jack from car in the hospital parking lot, not realizing it was occupied and the owner witnessed the theft. Soon afterward, a jack handle crashed through the basement window of the Butler County Courthouse.
Vogt was quickly arrested and admitted to stealing two jacks from parked cars, as well as throwing the handle through the window.
• A Farmington man has confessed to killing his eighth wife, a “Lonely Hearts Club bride” from St. Louis. William C. Mahurin, 52, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Charlotte Fisk Mahurin, 46.
Fisk Mahurin was found dead in the yard of the couple’s farm in March 1923. Mahurin claimed she died after her clothes caught fire when the kerosene stove in the kitchen exploded. The Missouri State Highway Patrol found no evidence of an explosion or fire, and Fisk Mahurin’s cause of death was determined to be strangulation.
Mahurin was married seven times previously, and no information on his former wives was provided in the article. He and Fisk Mahurin met through a Lonely Hearts Club in St. Louis and married in Arkansas last December.
50 years ago
May 9, 1974
• Three Rivers College announced a new student record today: Denise Korenak will be the first student to graduate with a perfect 4.00 grade average. Korenak, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Korenak of Ellsinore, will receive an associate of arts degree at commencement this month and plans to study sociology at Missouri State University in Springfield. She was East Carter High School’s graduating salutatorian in 1972, received a scholarship to TRC from the Bank of Grandin, and has been recommended for a Rotary International scholarship to study abroad. At TRC she was a member of the Student Senate and Phi Theta Kappa honors fraternity.