Stories from Wednesday, May 8, 1991

Today you're "free." That's because today is what the Tax Foundation calls "Tax Freedom Day." Under the foundation's premise, the equivalent of earnings between Jan. 1 and May 7, goes to pay off local, state and federal taxes. Everything earned today through Dec. 31 is "yours."...

Here is a story meaningful to our times. Place, Middle America. Time, after the debunking of Iben Browning. It was related to me at a funeral home, though I attach no cosmic significance to this. A friend of mine in Memphis, that most quivering metropolis within the icy reach of the New Madrid Fault, was watching a movie at home one evening when struck by a frantic and almost incoherent desire for chocolate...

Cape Girardeau is called The City of Roses. In 1961, the Reader's Digest published an article about The Beautiful Ten Mile Garden and the 25,000 rose climbers area residents had planted along the highway that joined Cape to Jackson, the county seat 10 miles to the northwest. The magazine also gave details about the successful Rose Display Test Garden in Capaha Park maintained by the Cape Council of Garden Clubs and the member clubs that provided care for the garden...

JEFFERSON CITY - Area legislators who voted for a bill that would give voters an opportunity to raise taxes by up to $575 million said they did so to put the matter before a conference committee in hopes a reasonable proposal is passed before adjournment May 17...

A partnership designed to benefit Cape Girardeau's minority students, the public school district and Southeast Missouri State University will begin in the next academic year. The project, called "Grow Your Own," was initiated by the Professional Black Men's Club as a way to encourage talented minority students to become teachers in the Cape Girardeau Public Schools...

A new program of the Missouri Health Department is aimed at reducing infant mortality rates in the Bootheel. The rate of infant deaths, especially minority infants, in the Bootheel is among the highest in the state, said B.J. Whiffen, who coordinates the new program: "Healthy Mothers, Healthy Fathers, Healthy Babies."...

THE FUNDING DILEMMA IN HIGHER EDUCATION In the debate over funding needs for higher education, the enormous cost for maintaining and building university facilities sometimes is overlooked. University capital-improvements and maintenance budgets are routinely slashed to allow more money to be allocated to high-profile education and administrative programs. ...

THE FUNDING DILEMMA IN HIGHER EDUCATION (Fourth in a series) Missouri appropriates more than $637 million a year on operating expenses for higher education. Still, the state ranks near the bottom nationally in some comparisons regarding state funding for higher education, educators say...

Southeast Missouri State University employees won't be receiving pay raises this year unless some additional funding is found, university officials said Tuesday. With state funding for general operations at Southeast expected to remain at the current $30.7 million level for the 1992 fiscal year, university officials said that there is not sufficient revenue to provide pay raises...

Three scouting leaders from the Southeast Missouri Boy Scout Council received the 1991 Shawnee District Award of Merit at the district's recognition dinner held Tuesday night in Cape Girardeau. This year's recipients are Glen McBride, Bob White, and John H. Cochran III...

The Cape Girardeau Planning and Zoning Commission tonight will conduct an informational hearing to garner citizen input on a proposal to rezone a section of William Street from residential to commercial. Residents who live within the William Street corridor between Sprigg and Sheridan Drive, which includes property 350 feet north and south of the route, are invited to attend the meeting and voice their opinions concerning the strip zoning proposal...

Kenneth W. Dobbins, director of university auditing at Kent State University in Ohio, has been hired as the new vice president for finance and administration at Southeast Missouri State University. The university's Board of Regents voted Tuesday to hire Dobbins...

MOREHOUSE -- Diane C. Burch, 38, of Mexico, Mo., died Monday, May 6, 1991, at her home. She was born Aug. 8, 1952, at Morehouse, daughter of Ben Carroll and Goldie R. Simpson Bailey. She was a 1970 graduate of Sikeston High School, and member of Fellowship Baptist Church. She had formerly worked at First Financial Bank here...

Alexander Ross of St. Louis died Saturday, May 4, 1991, in St. Louis. He was formerly of Cape Girardeau, and son of Harvey and Rosie Ross. He worked many years for Tom Harris on Broadway. He moved to St. Louis 20 years ago. Survivors include two sisters, Bessie Ross of St. Louis, Idell Ross of Cape Girardeau, and an aunt, Lovie Ledsinger of Muncie, Ind...

PERRYVILLE -- Charles Leroy Few, 48, of Perryville, died Saturday, May 4, 1991, in Indianapolis, Ind. He was born Dec. 7, 1942, in Pascagoula, Miss., son of Leroy and May Raitt Few. He and the former Barbara A. Hogue were married Jan. 8, 1966. Few was a technical writer with YOH, and a member of National Rifle Association. He served in the U.S. Marines...

Herbert Pensel, 82, of 104 Park Dr., died Tuesday, May 7, 1991 at the Lutheran Home. Arrangements were incomplete at Ford and Sons Funeral Home.

The SEMO Regional Consortium on AIDS has scheduled a general consortium meeting for May 16. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in Conference Room A of the Health and Education Center at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. A program will follow a short business meeting. ...

Earl J. Steele, 78, 1642 Oak Hills, died Tuesday, May 7, 1991, at St. Francis Medical Center. He was born March 17, 1913, in St. Louis, son of Horace G. and Maude Taylor Steele. He and the former Ina Jewell Lewallen were married March 12, 1938. She died Oct. 10, 1989...

Lydia Anna Washer, 107, of Jackson Manor, died there Tuesday, May 7, 1991. She was born Feb. 4, 1881, at Pevely, daughter of John and Louise Mueller Rapp. She married Jules Washer June 18, 1905, at Pevely. He died Dec. 24, 1957. Washer moved here in 1938 from Horine. ...

JACKSON -- Earl Jackson, 79, of Jackson, died Monday, May 6, 1991, at Jackson Manor. He was born May 7, 1911, at Thebes, Ill., son of Almus and Stella Baker Jackson. He and the former Irene Welker were married May 26, 1934. She died Jan. 2, 1989. Jackson was a self-employed painter in the Jackson area, and member of First Baptist Church here...

CHARLESTON -- Mary Howard, 48, of Charleston died Saturday, May 4, 1991, at the Sikeston Health Care Center in Sikeston. She was born June 9, 1942 in Charleston. Her father, John Henry Howard, of Charleston survives. Other survivors include a son, Joseph Howard of Scottsville, Ken; four brothers, Arthur Howard of Chicago, Curtis and Marshall Howard, both of Charleston, and Gary Howard of Scottsville; five sisters, Pearlie Mae Jelks of Los Angeles, Elnora Mims of Chicago, Selma Betts of St. ...

LUTESVILLE -- Ernest A. Angel, 75, of Ferguson, formerly of Lutesville, died Monday, May 6, 1991, at Christian Northeast Hospital in St. Louis. He was born Aug. 20, 1915, at Sank, son of Joseph W. and Clora Rowe Angel. He and the former Velma Eaker were married Dec. 15, 1938...

MOUNDS, Ill. -- Harold L. "Slats" Melton, 79, of Cache and formerly of Mounds died Tuesday, May 7, 1991, at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. He was born April 1, 1912 at Mounds, the son of Herbert and Velma Dacus Melton. He was a member of the First Baptist Church in Mounds, the Horseshoe Lake Chamber of Commerce, and the Alexander-Pulaski Counties Sportmen's Club...

CHARLESTON -- Roy T. Brown, 66, of Charleston died Monday, May 6, 1991, north of Charleston on County Road 218 of an apparent heart attack. He was born Feb. 15, 1925 in Diehlstadt, son of Walter Fred and Beulah Lurene Moore Brown, and lived in Charleston most of his life...

CHAFFEE - Two Parents as Teachers meetings will be held Thursday in Chaffee. The meetings for parents will be at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. in the Parents as Teachers office in the High School Arts Building, 109 N. Fifth St. The organization serves the Chaffee, Delta, Kelly, Kelso, and Scott City school districts...

The opening scene of the Lou Grant Show showed the short life cycle of a newspaper from point of origin to lining the bottom of someone's bird cage. That scene is being recreated on a more portentous scale as newspaper recyclers have started "pasturizing" yesterday's news as bedding for cattle and other farm animals. Some experiments have taken the recycling another step further, testing the newsprint's suitability as a feed supplement for cattle...

PORTAGEVILLE -- A private-applicator pesticide training session will be held at the University of Missouri-Delta Center here May 16 at 1 p.m. The session is for people wishing to buy restricted-use pesticides. Additional information is available by contact Ray Nabors (314)-333-0258, or by contacting the local university extension center...

PORTAGEVILLE -- William C. Elrod has been appointed farm supervisor at the University of Missouri Delta Center. Elrod's promotion was announced recently by Delta Center superintendent Jake Fisher. Elrod has 22 years experience at the Delta Center, and was serving as a Farm Worker III prior to his appointment...

LINNEUS, Mo. Missouri University and the Soil Conservation Service are looking for Missouri farmers who willing to participate in demonstrations on how to produce more beef on Missouri forages through intensive rotational grazing. Under intensive rotational grazing, pastures are subdivided into smaller lots with electric fencing. ...

PORTAGEVILLE -- David Albers has returned to the University of Missouri Delta Center here, as a cotton production researcher. Albers, who has been working with USDA extension in the state of Mississippi, previously served as a cotton researcher at the Delta Center, working in the Dunklin County area...

JACKSON -- Traffic will be slowed along several area roadways in the coming days as the Missouri Highway Department completes surface leveling and maintenance overlay projects. In case of rain, the projects will be delayed. The work is planned today and Thursday along Route 34, from Route 72 to Route UU at Burfordville...

MARBLE HILL -- Jane Marquis remembers playing in the summertime as a small child with her cousins at her grandparents' home. "I was the teacher and they were my students," she said. "I don't think I ever seriously considered any other vocation. I've always loved to read, and teaching surrounded me with a wealth of literature."...

No one needs a reminder that educational reform topped much of our national news throughout most of April. Because President Bush held a televised conference on "reinventing" our schools, the subject rated prime time on TV and made the covers of weekly magazines and front pages of newspapers and occupied most of the space in the Southeast Missourian's Speak Out department...

Todd Matzat, a seventh-grade student at Schultz Middle School in Cape Girardeau, took first place at the Optimists International annual oratory contest held Saturday in Columbia. Matzat was sponsored by the Evening Optimists Club of Cape Girardeau. In order to compete in the national competition, Matzat won at the local, district and regional levels...

A representative of the city's Historic Preservation Commission will speak at 7:30 tonight during a meeting of the Downtown Homeowners Association. Martha Bender of Cape Girardeau will cover impact of the commission on homeowners and answer questions about it, said Loretta Dodd, spokesman for the group. The group is composed of people who own older homes in the city...