Stories from Wednesday, April 5, 1995

To the editor: The "Speak Out" comments recently published about our request to remove a cross placed illegally on public property in Cape Girardeau demonstrate the dangers of longstanding violations of the separation of church and state. Clearly this cross has taught at least some of the citizens of Cape Girardeau to hate. Even worse, the violation has made many residents contemptuous of the law, especially the constitutional principle of state/church separation...

What an early, beautiful spring this has been! Our mild winter has brought out the best of the flowering trees and shrubs, all at one time. Many of these blooms were three weeks early. Daffodils, tulips, azaleas, creeping phlox, flowering crabs, redbuds, whitebuds, flowering peach, flowering plum, purple-leaf plum flowering pear, lilacs, kerria, spirea, sweet William, azaleas, magnolia soulangeana, perennial candy tuft and Bradford pears, are all blooming at the same time...

JACKSON -- Police Sgt. Bob Bonney works two jobs these days. When he isn't keeping Jackson's streets safe, he's hawking T-shirts that advertise the Law Enforcement Torch Run. Bonney, along with patrolmen James Humphreys and Ron Hobeck, will run in Sullivan on May 18 to benefit the Missouri Special Olympics. In the meantime, Bonney wants to sell as many T-shirts advertising the run as he can. Ameritech financed the shirts, so all of the $10 price tag goes to Special Olympics...

Leemon Priest never thought someone would give him an award for simply doing his job. But is job is his just reward. "I was totally surprised when they called my name," said Priest, a volunteer with the SEMO Alliance for Disability Independence. Priest was named Volunteer of the Year of the 1995 Region IX Council on Developmental Disability...

Emus have become one of the fastest growing alternatives to livestock farming, say Carl and Mark Whitaker, who will address a 1 p.m. seminar at the Extension Office in Jackson. The Whitakers will discuss the basics of raising emus. Among products from the ostrich-like birds are food, a leather-like skin used in apparel, an oil substance used in cosmetics and feathers used in feather-dusting...

It is easy to take for granted some things that have been free for so long. This is certainly the case regarding user fees at Corps of Engineers lakes in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois. When the corps built a couple of major flood-control projects in Southeast Missouri after World War II -- one on the Wayne County/Reynolds County line and another in southeastern Wayne County, the aim was to regulate spring runoff from the Ozarks that runs down the Black River and the St. ...

Among the more than 800 guests Southeast Missouri Hospital's annual association dinner last this week were St. Francis Medical Center administrator John Fidler and several board members. It is good to see continued cooperation between Cape Girardeau's fine medical facilities...

To the editor: I feel that after the personal attack on myself by fellow school board member Kathy Swan, I need to make a response. I have been accused of having a lack of professionalism by my so-called "blatant action" of releasing the information about the extension of Dr. ...

BENTON -- Scott County voters defeated three countywide tax increase proposals Tuesday. Two quarter-cent sales tax increases only received 42 percent of the vote. One proposal would have provided additional law enforcement services while the second would have built a new county jail...

When Rhoda Reeves processed her first "real order" for screen printed T-shirts, it took two weeks to fill the 200-shirt order for the local Girls Scouts. "We cured the shirts with heat lamps," said Reeves, president of Horizon Screen Printing Inc. "That was a slow process."...

Terry Taylor and R. Ferrell Ervin were elected Tuesday to the Cape Girardeau Board of Education. Both said their election is a first step in rebuilding confidence in the Cape Girardeau School District. The next step, they said, should be establishment of a five-year strategic plan...

Drive west along Gordonville Road and you can't help but notice all the building site work -- the upturned earth where grass once grew. At St. Francis Medical Center, site work continues in preparation for construction of a new medical office building and parking garage. Also, a concrete, two-lane road is being built around the outer perimeter of the property...

This figures to be one of those who-knows-what-to-expect visits to St. Louis. There is some good news to savor while making the trek north on I-55. I just learned that the four-hour operation my mother endured was a success and her chances of eluding cancer are very good...

JEFFERSON CITY -- More than a dozen Southeast Missouri legislators gathered Tuesday at a meeting arranged by the Cape Girardeau-based Regional Commerce and Growth Association and Southeast Missouri State University to show support for the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department's 15-year plan...

WELL, SCORE another one for the liberal atheists regarding the Cape LaCroix issue, and now I see SIU and SEMO universities have proudly jumped on the godless bandwagon. Actually, these schools are terrified of losing their precious federal and state handouts. ...

JACKSON -- Jackson Board of Education incumbents Marvin Adams and Jeanette Bollinger won Tuesday's election easily over challenger Jewell Beauchamp. Adams took 615 votes, Bollinger 642 and Beauchamp 274. Bollinger, who is returning for her second full term, said the outcome didn't surprise her because the community came to know her and Adams during their terms on the school board...

Marble Hill -- Incumbents lost more than they won in Bollinger County voting Tuesday. In the Marble Hill Ward 1 alderman race, Wilma Moody defeated incumbent Mitchell Eaker by eight votes. Charles Bollinger ran unopposed and netted 106 votes for the Ward 2 position...

JACKSON -- Only 14 percent of voters in the county turned out for Tuesday's election, and County Clerk Rodney Miller said the totals surprised him. Even with the closely watched race for the Cape Girardeau School Board, Cape Girardeau voters didn't come out in their usual numbers...

PERRYVILLE -- In one of the lowest voter turnouts in years, Tim Rhodes and Carolyn Pontillas became new members of the Perry County Board of Education. An Emergency-911 issue passed by an 871-312 margin. Perry County Clerk Randy Taylor said just 13 percent of registered voters went to the polls Tuesday. "That's one of the lowest turnouts in the nine years I've been here," Taylor said...

OLMSTED, Ill. -- Randy C. Neely and Bobby J. Robertson led the balloting in an eight-person race for three positions for the Olmsted Board of Trustees during the municipal election here Tuesday, with 55 and 51 votes. But the third position won't be decided until later. David Munsell and Gary J. Stephens were deadlocked at 49 votes. The city will determine the winner for the third position...

Three-term councilman Bill Cannon will take over the Chaffee mayor's seat for the next four years with his win over former mayor Bob Capshaw in Tuesday's election. Cannon polled 476 votes to Capshaw's 306. Support for the two candidates was spread evenly among the precincts...

ANNA, Ill. -- Steve Hartline has been elected mayor at Anna, defeating incumbent Ken Kohler. The challenger collected more than two-thirds of Tuesday's votes to defeat Kohler 1,073 to 430. In another mayor's race, Randy Tucker defeated Mike Meisenheimer, 337-246, to win an unexpired two-year term at Jonesboro...

CAIRO, Ill. -- James Wilson is looking forward to his second term as mayor of the southernmost city in Illinois. Wilson, who was first elected Cairo mayor four years ago, received 949 votes in Tuesday's municipal election to defeat city councilman and challenger Cordell McGoy...

Two Scott County school administrators will move to new jobs next summer -- one to Drury Inns Inc. and the other to a larger school district. Scott City Elementary School Principal Carl Rosenquist will join Drury in mid-June after his contract expires. Oran School Superintendent Jack McIntosh will become superintendent of East Prairie schools...

JACKSON -- About $1,800 was raised Saturday at the annual Children's FunFest at R.O. Hawkins Junior High School in Jackson. About 600 people attended the event which was sponsored by the Jacksonian Chapter of the American Business Women's Association. Proceeds will go to the chapter's sponsorship of university scholarships and education programs for its members...

CHAFFEE -- All city workers have received at least $750 more in their annual salaries with the adoption of a budget for the new fiscal year that started Saturday. The Chaffee City Council also has approved $1,000 annual increases for the heads of three departments and two City Hall employees...

Funeral service for Donnie Wayne Grubb Jr. of Cape Girardeau will be held at 11 a.m. today at Liley Funeral Home in Marble Hill. The Revs. Kenny Cook and Ernest Brown will officiate, with burial in Rose Hill Cemetery at Thebes, Ill. Grubb, 22, died Sunday, April 2, 1995, in a car accident on Highway 72 one mile west of Millersville...

LEOPOLD -- Funeral mass for Ethel A. Brands of Troy will be held at 11 a.m. today at St. John's Catholic Church in Leopold, with the Rev. Edward Nichols Jr. officiating. Burial will be in the church cemetery. Baker Funeral Home in Marble Hill is in charge of arrangements...

MURPHYSBORO, Ill. -- Thomas Logan Scheper, 42, of Murphysboro, died Sunday, April 2, 1995, at his home. He was born Feb. 5, 1953, in Cape Girardeau, Mo., son of William Ernest and Marian Midgett Scheper. He married the former Mary Kitchen. Scheper was an auto body repairman. He served with the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War...

TAMMS, Ill. -- Taft Cox of Tamms died Tuesday, April 4, 1995, at his home. Crain Funeral Home in Tamms is in charge of arrangements.

Funeral service for Julius B. Erlbacher, 824 S. Spanish, will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at Lorberg Memorial Funeral Chapel. The Rev. Luther Rhodes will officiate, with burial in Lorimier Cemetery. Friends may call at the funeral home after 4:30 p.m. today, and Thursday from 9 a.m. to service time...

LILBOURN -- Lindsey Washington, 43, of Lilbourn, died Friday, March 31, 1995, at Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston. He was born Jan. 1, 1952, in Catron. Washington served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. Survivors include two daughters, Karen Blair of Minneapolis, Minn., Kathy McDonald of Lilbourn; his mother, Landa Washington of Mt. ...

MARQUAND -- Dorothy Ethel Skaggs, 75, of Marquand, died Monday, April 3, 1995, at Doctors' Regional Medical Center in Poplar Bluff. She was born June 5, 1919, at Cascade, daughter of Dorse James and Rilla Marie Alexander Stevens. She married Silas Skaggs, who preceded her in death...

SIKESTON -- Myrtie Hillis Lawrence, 94, died Monday, April 3, 1995, in Tucson, Ariz. She was born Jan. 19, 1901, in Moreland, Ark., daughter of William and Ida Coffman Wright. She first married Grover Hillis, who died in 1959. She later married Lester Lawrence, who died in 1986...

JACKSON -- V. Cauvey Hartle, 81, of Jackson, died Sunday, April 2, 1995, at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau. He was born Oct. 3, 1913, in Millersville, son of Verbit B. and Freda Cauvey Hartle. Hartle was a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University. He was a salesman with Borg-Warner Corp. in Dallas, Texas. He retired in 1981 and moved back to Jackson...

Clara M. Schafer, 80, of 3758 Highway 74, died Tuesday, April 4, 1995, at the Heartland Care and Rehabilitation Center. Lorberg Memorial Funeral Chapel is in charge of the arrangements.

PERRYVILLE -- Dalton Cole Ruch, infant son of Tina L. Ruch of Perryville, died at birth Tuesday, April 4, 1995. In addition to his mother, he is survived by one brother, Dillan J. Richardet of Perryville; maternal grandparents, Bernie J. Ruch Jr. of Perryville, and Carol Edwards of Jefferson City; maternal great-grandparents, Bernie J. and Lahoma Ruch Sr. of Perryville, Frank and Christine Edwards of Lonedall, Mo.; and three uncles...

Cindy Cummins sewed an overlap stitch for a laptop computer keyboard rest. Some of the children's wearable art outfits sewn by Cindy Cummins. Serger needles and blades function with precise timing, rapidly producing in the home sewing room finished products that rival ready-made...

It was 4:30 when I left the warmth of the store and headed into the cold March wind. I locked up and headed to my low-on-fuel car at the opposite end of the parking lot. It only took a few minutes to arrive at my Mother's house where I picked up my three coughing, aching, sneezing, fever, really-need-some-rest kids. ...