Stories from Wednesday, March 29, 1995

BELL CITY -- Funeral mass for Odus Strobel of Bell City will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Guardian Angel Catholic Church in Oran. The Revs. Leonard Chambers and Frederick Lutz will officiate, with burial in Morgan Memorial Park in Advance. Friends may call at Morgan Funeral Home in Advance from 5-8 p.m. today. A prayer service will be held at 7...

Cliff and Dan roomed together last semester. Dan and Dennis roomed together a few semesters ago. Now, Dan, Dennis and Cliff are rooming together. "It's a little confusing," laughed Cliff Sodergren, explaining the sequence of events that has led to solid friendship. The three share a room in Myers Hall at Southeast Missouri State University...

FRUITLAND -- Cowboys will test their riding and separation skills during the Heartland of America Amateur Cutting Horse Tournament Saturday and Sunday. Action will take place at 8 a.m. at the Flickerwood Arena and Stables in Fruitland. Flickerwood is on the outer road north of the Fruitland exit on I-55...

Gifted students will be discussed during a conference April 8 at Southeast Missouri State University. The conference, titled "Meeting the Social and Emotional Needs of High Ability Students of All Ages," will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the University Center...

Balancing the budget continues to be a Foggy Bottom topic, but no one seems to be getting serious about it, particularly the Clinton administration. In a recent edition of the Kiplinger Washington Letter, a chart outlining the growth of the federal government in key programs provided a stark look at the cost of being governed over the past 25 years...

Daughter to Leslie Harmon and Jeff King of Sikeston, Southeast Missouri Hospital, 10:32 p.m. Sunday, March 12, 1995. Name, Sydney Kaitlyn. Weight, 5 pounds 15 ounces. First child. Miss Harmon is an orthodontic assistant at Noffel-Feuerhahn Center for Orthodontics. King is employed at Lewis Bakeries Inc...

George A. Sudholt, 76, of Melbourne Beach, Fla., died Monday, March 27, 1995, at his home. He was born May 11, 1918, at Union. Sudholt had been a county agriculture agent in Shelbyville for the University of Missouri, and later worked 20 years with Farm Bureau in Cape Girardeau. He moved to Brevard County in 1977 from Cape Girardeau...

EAST PRAIRIE -- Funeral service for Bennie Van Goodman of East Prairie will be held at 1 p.m. today at Shelby Funeral Chapel in East Prairie. Aubrey Wilson will officiate, with burial in Anniston Cemetery. Friends may call at the funeral home after 10:30 a.m. today...

Funeral service for James S. Smithwick, 2801 Bloomfield, will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Ford and Sons Sprigg Street Chapel. Steve Simmons and Larry Dowdy will officiate, with burial in Memorial Park. Friends may call at the funeral home from 5-9 p.m. today...

JACKSON -- Vern Dolle, 85, of Jackson, died Tuesday, March 28, 1995, at St. Francis Medical Center. McCombs Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

MOREHOUSE -- Gordon W. Powell, 65, of Morehouse, died Monday, March 27, 1995, at his home. He was born Jan. 19, 1930, in Meridian, Miss., son of John Gordon and Mattie May Wigington Powell. He and Lorene Darter were married June 24, 1957, in Stoddard County...

Local on-time mail delivery is improving in Southeast Missouri. Post office officials say the post office delivered up to 95.9 percent of local mail on time this winter. In addition to improved on-time deliveries, the consumer satisfaction index has rated the Southeast Missouri areas from good to outstanding during the same period...

Cape Girardeau Central High School student Robert Felker "nuked bacteria" in a microwave oven as part of his Regional Science Fair experiment on "Catheter Sterilization at Home." Tuesday Felker explained his three-year study of microwave sterilization for catheters to judges in the first round of competition...

March Madness is supposed to remind me of the NCAA basketball tournament. And yet, I'm thinking of some other maddening developments that have little to do with hoops and plenty to do with hoopla and weird circumstances. If spring is indeed the season that brings about stormy weather, then the events that are occurring before our inquisitive eyes appear timely...

I'M CALLING on March 24, a day that ought to go down in history. Just like Lincoln with the Emancipation Proclamation, Newt Gingrich today has taken steps to free more people than even Lincoln freed and from a more deadly slavery of the welfare system to try to help them be self-sufficient and to break this dependency that generation after generation has been on. ...

To accommodate the interests of agriculture students, Southeast Missouri State University literally will beef up its Demonstration Farm next fall. "More students are interested in beef," said Southeast agriculture department chairman, Dr. Danny Terry. "The change in curriculum should give more students the experience they need to learn how decisions are made in day-to-day beef operations."...

Area church officials and others who participated in the Lowell Lundstrom Impact America crusade were still feeling the buoyant effects of renewed hope, unity and spiritual vigor Tuesday. Some said the feeling of coming together for the crusade reminded them of the work they did to help flood victims during the summer of 1993...

West Park Mall shoppers paused Monday to examine piles of canned goods formed into a rocket, bearcat and even Stonehenge. The structures weren't just an interesting example of how high school students play with their food. The Perryville Student Council initiated the event, dubbed Can-Struction, to help the American Red Cross in Missouri. Five area high schools collected 4,000 cans for the event...

ROCKVIEW -- A Chaffee school bus struck a car head-on Tuesday afternoon, injuring four people in the car and some children on the bus. A spokesman for the Missouri State Highway Patrol said the vehicles collided when they both failed to negotiate a curve on Frisco Road just south of Rockview...

The way children walk, talk and dress shouldn't be allowed to deviate too far from the norm if they are to stay out of trouble, says an authority on gangs and juvenile violence. Dr. Louis Gonzales spoke to a crowd of 160 parents, students and teachers Tuesday night at the Cape Central High School Auditorium...

The Cape La Croix cross might be moved from state right of way off North Kingshighway, but the Freedom From Religion Foundation will have little to do with it, a Missouri Highways and Transportation Department official said. The official in Jefferson City said the department might be encouraged by the foundation's letter, but the state was considering moving the concrete cross because state right of way was expanded a few years ago. The cross is a monument to three French missionaries...

CHAFFEE -- Chaffee voters will decide the level of funding for its park department in Tuesday's municipal election. Voters are being asked to increase the property tax levy from 13 to 40 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. A majority vote is needed...

Southern Illinois University-Carbondale has banned prayer at its graduation ceremonies in the face of constitutional concerns. Southeast Missouri State University did the same thing nearly three years ago. SIU President John Guyon said Tuesday that he issued the ban after he received a letter from the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union...

Still traveling along the Paper Chase Highway Anyone out there baffled by the word "origami"? The art was featured some time back in an article on the flexibility of paper. "Origami" is the art of folding paper into anything desired by the artist, beginning with flowers, birds, and animals. This ancient art originated in Japan and was popular in Egypt and southern Europe long before America was discovered...

The annual Yard of the Month contests will start next month in Cape Girardeau. The competition begins in April and ends in October. The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce office is now accepting nominations for lawns to be considered. Each month, two residential and one non-residential yard are selected by members of the chamber's Beautification Committee. A sign designating the award is displayed in the winning yards and a certificate is sent to each recipient...

Mississippian Indian archaeology will be the topic of a lecture Sunday at Southeast Missouri State University. Dr. Jay Johnson of the University of Mississippi will discuss "Searching for DeSoto in Mississippi: Why Bother?" The annual Beckwith Memorial Lecture will be held at 2 p.m. in the University Museum...

A complaint has been registered that much more space is given to flowers than vegetables this year. It is true that only flowers were chosen for the All-America Selection winners this year. Gardening magazines have carried articles on two petunias, Purple Wave, with unusual trailing qualities from Japan; Celebrity Chiffon Morn, an improved pastel multiflora type bred in the United States, and a gloriosa daisy, Indian Summer from Germany...