It seems like Almost Yesterday that Richard Henry Jesse, President of the University of Missouri, strongly urged Cape Girardeau to develop a public high school.
On February 14, 1902, President Jesse wrote his good friend Robert B. Oliver that he found it painful to be reminded that Cape Girardeau, “the beautiful city” of southeast Missouri did not have a public high school. He urged Mr. Oliver to help move the city to the development of that essential goal.
Cape Girardeau, Saint Charles, and Aurora, south of Springfield, were the three largest communities in the state without a high school. And Cape Girardeau, according to President Jesse, was “one of the finest cities of its size in the state,” located in a beautiful setting, with educated and refined residents, possessed of considerable wealth, possessing every attribute to have a high quality high school.
President Jesse further pointed out that Cape Girardeau was the only community in the state that had a normal school that did not have a public high school. Any city of 5,000 inhabitants with the likes of R. B. Oliver, Washington Dearmont and Louis Houck, could surely have a high school, in his view, if only those three distinguished individuals would agree that it should.
President Jesse said that it was painful to him to realize that Cape Girardeau did not have a high school, and concluded his letter by saying that he felt a personal sense of desperation about the issue.
Motivated, in part, by the urging of President Jesse, a community group was organized, funds raised, and on December 17, 1915, the first Cape Girardeau public high school was dedicated.
It seems like Almost Yesterday.
