Stories from Saturday, March 2, 1996

The Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee will holds its 52nd annual meeting in Cape Girardeau Tuesday through Thursday. The conference starts at the Holiday Inn at 1 p.m. Tuesday and will conclude Thursday at noon. Registration is $45 for the general public and $20 for students. The fee includes an information packet, smoker/informal session Tuesday and a banquet Wednesday night...

Guy Singer, an England native, moved to the United States so he could attend more Boy Scout Trade-o-rees. Singer, who now lives in Knoxville, Tenn., specializes in trading international patches and scouting memorabilia. "I used to come to three or four of these a year," he said while lining patches up across a table. "I got hooked." Now he attends about 30 Trade-o-rees each year...

Life is not about finding your destiny. Instead, it is a journey for peace and balance found in a relationship with Jesus Christ, said Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr., a retired judge advocate general for the U.S. Navy. Schachte spoke to about 1,200 people Friday morning at the ninth annual Mayor's Prayer Breakfast, sponsored by the Christian Business Men's Committee of Cape Girardeau and the mayors of Cape Girardeau and Jackson. ...

Missouri's highways are hot properties. Since the inception of the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department's "Adopt-A-Highway" program in 1987, more than 10,000 miles of highway have been adopted by individuals and groups dedicated to helping keep Missouri roads litter-free...

SIKESTON -- Since his May 1994 train accident, Trey Alcorn's hospital records read like a medical journal. Compound fractures in the left arm. Shattered right elbow. Head lacerations. Puncture wound in the left shoulder. The list goes on. His father's photos, taken at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau a few days after the accident, tell the story better. In them, Alcorn's face is stoic. He is a frail, bruised heap of metal bars and stitches...

My Grandmother Nieland writes from a Delaware retirement community about once a month to tell me about the Philadelphia Flyers -- yes, she's a hockey fan -- the made-to-order meals at Foulk Manor and her senile neighbors. I write back to tell her about The Other Half and work...

I BELIEVE your Sunday edition had the best weather artist in Michelle Helter that you've had. She's in the fifth grade. I don't know how old she would be, but that is the best little drawing that you've ever had. FOR ALL area citizens to approve gambling to improve the economy and to build prisons to give jobs is against the principles on which the United States was built. ...

Wanda Brown Fallert, 64, of Cape Girardeau, died Friday at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis. Funeral arrangements are incomplete at Ford and Sons Mount Auburn Chapel in Cape Girardeau.

Son to Warren and Julie Cagle of Scott City, Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston, 6:24 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 3, 1996. Name, Derek Lee. Weight, 7 pounds 2 ounces. Third son. Mrs. Cagle is the former Julie Stewart, daughter of Mike and Carol Stewart of Scott City. Cagle is the son of John and Donna Mosier of Benton. He is employed at Great Dane Trailers in Benton...

OLIVE BRANCH, Ill. -- Howard D. "Buzzy" Johnson, 57, of Olive Branch, died Friday, March 1, 1996, at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo. Barkett Funeral Home at Mounds is in charge of arrangements.

MARBLE HILL -- Moffett Null, 85, of Marble Hill, died Friday, March 1, 1996, at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. She was born Aug. 31, 1910, near Lutesville, daughter of Roy Lee and Elizabeth Allgood Puyear. She and Woodrow Null were married Aug. 17, 1938, at Marble Hill. He died Feb. 18, 1990...

TAMMS, Ill. -- James P. Coleman, 71, of Jacksonville, Fla., and formerly of Tamms, died Thursday, Feb. 29, 1996, at the Passavant Area Hospital in Jacksonville. He was born Jan. 1, 1925, son of James J. and Estella Hargis Coleman. He was a World War II veteran and a retired mental health technician from the Jacksonville Development Center...

Willetta F. Arnold, 74, of the Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau died Friday, March 1, 1996, at Southeast Missouri Hospital. Funeral arrangements are incomplete at Ford and Sons Mount Auburn Chapel in Cape Girardeau.

CHARLESTON -- Funeral service for Freeman Fowler of Charleston will be held at 2 p.m. today at McMikle Funeral Home in Charleston. The Rev. Gerald Collier will officiate, with burial in IOOF Cemetery. Fowler, 84, died Thursday, Feb. 29, 1996, at Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston...

SIKESTON -- Graveside service for Frank E. Sibley Jr. of Perryville will be held at 1 p.m. today at Memorial Park Cemetery here. The Rev. Johnathan Brown will officiate. Nunnelee Funeral Chapel is in charge of arrangements. Sibley, 85, died Thursday, Feb. 29, 1996, at the Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau...

CAMPBELL -- Lola Corzine Lowrance, 74, of Campbell, died Thursday, Feb. 29, 1996, at Lucy Lee Hospital in Poplar Bluff. She was born March 7, 1921, at Zalma, daughter of Harvey and Flora Hogg Peters. She and Andy Corzine were married Oct. 24, 1936, at Portageville. He died June 30, 1975...

MARBLE HILL -- Michael Shawn Stevens, 22, of Marble Hill, died Thursday, Feb. 29, 1996, in an automobile accident near Scopus. He was born Jan. 7, 1974, at Chaffee, son of Shirley Stevens. He and Tamara Jones were married March 18, 1994, at Marble Hill...

CHARLESTON -- Edsel Vied, 66, of Charleston, died Thursday, Feb. 29, 1996, at his home. He was born Oct. 4, 1929, in Mississippi County, Ark., son of Martin and Thelma Howell Vied. He and Freda Louise Coon were married July 5, 1951. Vied had lived in Mississippi County, Mo., most of his life. He worked 41 years at Martin Marietta Energy Systems in Paducah, Ky., retiring in December 1993. He was a member of St. Henry's Catholic Church, and was a veteran of the U.S. Army...

ZALMA -- Mack Irvin, 78, of Zalma, died Friday, March 1, 1996, at Dexter Memorial Hospital in Dexter. Morgan Funeral Home in Advance is in charge of arrangements.

Efforts to bring school choice to Missouri have met with staunch resistance. But a voucher-system pilot program in three school systems offers an opportunity to test the waters while guaranteeing no loss of state aid to participating schools. This test can prove to doubting educators and politicians that school choice will not undermine the stability of public schools. ...

Tonight, the American Cancer Society will transform the Show Me Center into "A Night on the Nile." The black-tie gala has become the biggest social event in Cape Girardeau. But it also raises a substantial amount of money for cancer research and services. Organizers are hoping this ninth annual gala will net an impressive $60,000. The event has become the largest annual fund-raiser for the local cancer society...

To the editor: Haley Barbour, party operatives, governors and congressmen as well as educational elite and the media continue to force-feed Republicans Bob Dole and his ilk. Dole's moral compass sits on the North Pole, and it crowds that space occupied by Clinton and his crowd...

To the editor: After reading the responses of various superintendents in last Sunday's Southeast Missourian, I have to wonder if they actually read House Bill 1037. Had they given the bill serious consideration, they would have had to notice the benefit the public schools and taxpayers would receive under this demonstration school-choice project...

To the editor: Scenario A: Burglar on the make sees house shrouded in tarpaulins. Sign on house says, "Danger! Deadly poison! Do not enter! Apex Termite Killer Co." Burglar reads sign, shrugs, breaks in anyway, is found an hour later, dies in hospital two days later of liver damage. Every bystander's comment: "What a total idiot."...