Stories from Monday, December 6, 1993

Gallery 100 and the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts, located for the past 7 1/2 years in the bank building at 100 Broadway, will move at the end of the month to temporary lodgings on Mount Auburn Road. The new address will be 1707 Mount Auburn Road, an office building which also houses the Convention and Visitors Bureau...

JACKSON - Candidates considering making bids for county, state or federal offices in Missouri next year will have a shorter filing period because of a new state law. The law, passed earlier this year, cuts the filing period in half, from a starting point of mid-January running until the last Tuesday of March, to a six-week period that begins Feb. 22 and ends March 29...

The Southeast Missourian asked area retailers what are some of the hottest Christmas gifts this year? Terry Godwin, Wal-Mart manager: "The hottest-selling video game this Christmas is the Nintendo Aladdin video game. The hottest-selling item in the toy category in the nation this year is the Power Rangers, which is action figures and all the accessories that go along with them. ...

A warm and cozy Christmas present for Mrs. H perhaps will make her holiday a little more cozy as well. Due to severe and worsening arthritis, Mrs. H cannot get around like she used to. She always feels cold. She lives alone. Her only son rarely is able to visit because his wife has a chronic disease...

LAKE OF THE OZARKS -- Proposals coming before Congress next year threaten the family farm and "could make every Department of Natural Resources agent and any agricultural department employee a KGB agent of sorts," U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, was to tell members of the Missouri Farm Bureau today...

The holidays are for giving, and that's just what area residents and businesses abundantly do at this time each year. We don't expect this year to be any different as people pour their generosity upon the less fortunate through the many holiday programs designed to assure that those in need get gifts and essential commodities over the holiday season...

President Clinton is walking the highest of high wires in dealing with our two erstwhile enemies, now tentative frineds: Russia and China. Events in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti may have a greater sense of immediacy, but our relations with Moscow and Peking will determine how much stability there will be in the world order of the 21st century...

George Orwell wrote in 1984 about a society where the government controlled all the information available to the public. There's a new battle facing the Pentagon, and it's almost Orwellian in nature. Our nation's military leaders, who apparently are taking orders from the Clinton administration, are refusing to air Southern Missouri native-turned media star Rush Limbaugh's radio and television shows on the armed forces broadcast system. ...

To the editor: Season's greetings! Please allow me to tell you about the cause. The cause is fundamental reform of our federal government. The only moderate way to help the cause requires us to formally amend our fundamental law. We must formally amend the Constitution of the United States...

There is a small wooden cross standing on the east side of the roadway of North Main Street, just a few hundred yards north of the Red Star Baptist Church. It marks the place where Russell McLain died in a drunk driving motorcycle accident more than three years ago...

CHAFFEE -- Opal M. Abbott, 80, of Chaffee, died Saturday, Dec. 4, 1993, at the Advance Nursing Care Center in Advance. She was born July 27, 1913, at Morley, Mo., daughter of John and Martha Carter Woods. She married Lester Abbott in 1964, at Eminence, Mo. He died in October 1979...

DUTCHTOWN -- Lorine M. Ostendorf, 80, of Dutchtown, died Sunday, Dec. 5, 1993, at the Jackson Manor Nursing Home in Jackson. She was born Aug. 21, 1913, in Cape County, daughter of Edwin A. and Bertha E. Rau Keller. She married Walter F. Ostendorf, March 31, 1937, at Cape Girardeau...

Mary Helen Sander, 67, of 1340 W. Cape Rock Drive, died Saturday, Dec. 4, 1993, at the St. Francis Medical Center. She was born June 3, 1926, at Cape Girardeau, daughter of James E. and Prudence McClard Cotner. She married Robert Sander, Sept. 23, 1950, at Piggott, Ark...

ADVANCE -- John A. Payne, 85, of McGee, Mo., died Sunday, Dec. 5, 1993, at his residence. The Morgan Funeral Home in Advance is in charge of funeral arrangements, which are incomplete at this time.

SIKESTON -- Jim A. Robey, 81, of Sikeston, died Saturday, Dec. 4, 1993, at the Miner Nursing Home in Miner, Mo. He was born Feb. 22, 1912, at Avert, Mo., son of Dolph F. and Martha Curd Robey. He married Alma "Toots" Kenser, Nov. 21, 1936, at Bloomfield...

"You hear some sad stories, you hear some heartwarming stories. But, they're all worthwhile when you see the look in youngsters' eyes as they come running to you with their arms spread out." That's the observation of Roger Reed, who filled in for Santa Claus recently...

Ma Hale's Restaurant has closed. It seems only yesterday that I was sitting down before a big wooden table laden with heaping bowls of fried chicken, home-grown green beans, sweet and mashed potatoes, homemade rolls and tea. But it was really a number of years ago, and I hadn't thought of this Southern Illinois eating place in a long while...

In Charles Dickens' book "A Christmas Carol," Bob Cratchet could afford little else for his family at Christmas but to put food on the table. Cratchet's son, Tiny Tim, was ill and in need of a costly operation. Although Dickens' book was fiction, the situation in which the Cratchets found themselves is all too often a reality...

Thomas M. Meyer of Thomas L. Meyer Realty Co. recently attended the National Association of Realtors convention in Miami, Fla. More than 16,000 realtors attended. Meyer, who was accompanied by his wife, represented Missouri as its 1994 president-elect. He attended forums on real estate professional standards and techniques...