Stories from Monday, August 19, 1996

David Webb filled 33-pound forklift propane tanks at the Ferrellgas facility in Cape Girardeau. A Ferrellgas delivery truck was filled at the Cape Girardeau facility. Propane tanks of various sizes were ready for shipment to customers. Ferrellgas, which started in Cape Girardeau scene almost a decade ago, commands a big portion of the propane market in Southeast Missouri...

General Motors Corp. will build a bigger Saturn. Production is expected to start in mid-1999 for model year 2000. The new model, a mid-sized sedan, will range in price from $17,000 to $21,000, slightly above the existing Saturn compact prices. The new Saturn will be built at a GM plant in Wilmington, Del...

JCPenney Co. Inc. has announced it will purchase the 272-store Fay's Inc. drugstore chain for $285 million in stock. The purchase will boost Penney's number of drugstores to 926, making the eighth-largest drugstore operation in the nation. Fay's shareholders will receive $12.75 in Penney's stock tax-free for each share of Fay's they hold...

Cape Girardeau City Manager Michael Miller and Cape Girardeau school official, Richard Bollwerk, will be speakers at the August meeting of the West Cape Merchants Association, to be held at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 27 at Dumplin's Restaurant. Miller will present an update and review of Cape Girardeau, its progress and planning. Bollwerk will present a review of the School Facilities Committee report...

An arts and crafts seminar will be held at Cairo, Ill., Thursday. Two sessions will be presented, the first at 1 p.m. upstairs at the First National Bank, Eighth and Washington. The second session will be held at Cairo City Hall, 1501 Washing, from 6 to 8:30 p.m...

Single-family homebuilding is expected to top the 100-mark again this year. Jackson has experienced an explosion of homebuilding over the past three years. During 1993 and 1994, Jackson permit office issued permits for more than 350 single-residence homes -- 207 in 1994 and 151 in 1993...

Rick Bandermann of Marble Hill and Kathy Bertrand of Cape Girardeau have received promotions at Boatmen's National Bank of Cape Girardeau. Banderman, who joined Boatmen's in 1993 as an investment officer in Jackson and started serving the Cape Girardeau area in 1995, has been named assistant vice president of Boatmen's Investment Services...

Shoppers at a Cape Girardeau retail store can keep tabs on their bills as they fill up the shopping cart. Wal-Mart's Supercenter offers customers "Shoppers' Calculators," solar-powered calculations attached to the handlebars of shopping carts. Customers like to see how much they're spending, say Wal-Mart officials. The calculator does this, and more...

The Monarch Center of Therapeutic Massage has opened at 1749 Independence Square. Vicki Parker is owner-operator of the clinic, which will provide therapeutic massage for stress, aches and pains. Parker of Cape Girardeau is training in therapeutic massage and works as message therapist in the St. Francis Medical Center Women's Care Department...

The Hakuna Matata Day Care Center has opened at 833 N. Spanish. The center, owned by Mary Crafton, is licensed for 20 students, ages 2 to 8. Crafton, who has more than five years experience in day-care work, has completed an early childhood learning course at Southeast Missouri State University...

POPLAR BLUFF -- Groundwork is under way for a Comfort Inn. The 58-room motel is expected to open next spring. The franchise for the new motel is owned by Herman and Jill Styles of Poplar Bluff. The Comfort Inns motel chain, established in 1981, has more than 1,508 hotels throughout the world, with 25 in Missouri. Comfort Inns is part of Choice Hotel International (CHI)...

Specialty advertising and promotional items will be featured during the second annual Promotional Products Resource Show, to be held Tuesday at the Drury Lodge in Cape Girardeau. The daylong program starts at 10:30 a.m. and will continue through 2:30 p.m...

The monthly meeting of the Downtown Merchants Association will be held Aug. 27 at 5:30 p.m. a the Port Cape Girardeau Restaurant. Craig Thomas has been invited to the meeting to present ideas and costs for the group's Christmas float.

Whether motorists are humming "Born to Be Wild" and looking for adventure and whatever comes their way or just commuting to the office, one thing's for sure. Like the song says, we're in an interstate state of mind. President Dwight D. Eisenhower probably wasn't thinking of changing the nation's way of life -- for better or worse, depending on whether or not your town got an interchange -- when he signed the law creating the federal interstate system on July 29, 1956...

After having three restaurant operators in as many years, those running Cape Girardeau Regional Airport are ready for some permanence. They hope Ronald and Glenda Woodard can give it to them. The Cape Girardeau City Council will decide tonight whether to let the Woodards, who own a family restaurant of the same name in Jackson, lease the airport restaurant. Members of the Airport Advisory Board have suggested councilmen approve the arrangement...

Work progressed on I-55 near Fruitland in February 1971. (SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN ARCHIVES) LOOK BACK AT I-55: In July 1970, construction was being done on I-55 in Cape Girardeau County. The last bit of construction of I-55 was being done in July 1972...

ANNA, Ill., -- The threat of rain didn't keep away the crowds from the first day of the 116th Union County Fair in Anna, Ill., Sunday. While workers were setting up the rides and preparing the grandstand for Tuesday night's rodeo and Friday's demolition derby, the Anna Rotary Club conducted the annual pet parade and contest...

Life's not easy for the rhythm-impaired. I'm supposed to go line-dancing this week. With a little work, I should be able to chicken out of it with a perfectly good rationalization. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't appreciate the aesthetics of the Electric Slide or Cowboy Charleston. I just lack the technical skills...

Every quadrennium, two of the responsibilities of good Americans is to cheer for the home team at the Olympics and watch the political conventions of America's two principal political parties. I know that's asking a lot of patriotism, but the least we can do is feign interest, even if we would rather be reading "War and Peace" or the "Components of Qualitative Psychoanalysis." You can't have fun all the time...

Residents of Missouri's 8th District have been without representation in Congress since the death June 22 of U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson. Not until Nov. 5, at Missouri's general election, will voters get the opportunity to choose someone to fill Emerson's unexpired term through the end of the year. That means 8th District residents will be without a U.S. representative for 4 1/2 months...

A 1939 law that permits losers in illegal gambling to go to court in an effort to recover the losses should also be addressed by the Missouri General Assembly. There is confusion now that Missouri has legalized some gambling. Last week, St. Louis Circuit Judge James R. ...

They're not called sea horses or sea cows or even sea bulldogs. They're called sea lions and for a very good reason. And how does a trainer get the cooperation of an animal that weighs 250 pounds, has the teeth of a shark, the jaws of a bear and can easily out-muscle five men?...

CHARLESTON -- Margaret Gemeinhardt, 60, of Charleston died Sunday, Aug. 18, 1996, at her home. Funeral arrangements are incomplete with McMikle Funeral Home in Charleston.

SIKESTON -- Charles J. Stancil, 84, formerly of Dogwood died Sunday, Aug. 18, 1996, at the Clearview Nursing Center in Sikeston. He was born June 21, 1912, in Clinton, Ky., the son of Walter Vernon and Lena Blanche Robinson Stancil. He married Loraine Davenport on Aug. 8, 1931, in Charleston. She died Feb. 22, 1991...

Jack C. Trickey Sr., 81, of Cape Girardeau died Sunday, Aug. 18, 1996, at St. Francis Medical Center. Arrangements are incomplete with Ford & Sons Funeral Home.

STURDIVANT -- Paul M. Hamlin, 83, of Sturdivant died Sunday, Aug. 18, 1996, at his home. He was born Jan. 21, 1913, in Piggott, Ark., the son of Thomas and Lillie Warbritton Hamlin. He married Mary Moore on Nov. 1, 1933, in Kennett. Hamlin was a retired hospital maintenance worker...

BELL CITY -- Kenneth Thrower, 63, of Bell City died Saturday, Aug. 17, 1996, at Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston. Arrangements are incomplete at Morgan Funeral Home in Advance.

BENTON -- William Eugene Wilhelm, 62, of Benton died Saturday, Aug. 17, 1996, at Heartland Care Rehabilitation Center in Cape Girardeau. He was born Sept. 28, 1993, in Benton, the son of Edward Adam and Corina Mary Hand Wilhelm. Wilhelm had operated and maintained machines at Florshiem Shoe Co. He was a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War, achieving the rank of corporal. He was a member of St. Denis Catholic Church in Benton and of the Chaffee Elks Lodge...

PERRYVILLE -- Bessie D. Litterst, 79, of Perryville died Sunday, Aug. 18, 1996, at the Perry County Nursing Home. She was born Jan. 19, 1917, in Cape Girardeau County, the daughter of Henry and Mary Hahs Wilson. She was married to Joseph Litterst. He died June 1, 1977...

Adjusting to new teachers and classes won't be the only challenge for students in Cape Girardeau schools -- adjusting to a new attendance policy will probably rank at the top of the list. The policy changes the number of approved absences from nine a semester to eight...

Monday, Aug. 19 7:30 p.m. Public Hearings -- Hearing on the Olive, Forest and Independence Street Improvement Project. -- Hearing on the 1996 tax rate. Action Items Power and Light Committee -- Consider resolution accepting petitions for voluntary annexations from Chris Bowen and Charles and Julia Roberts and setting a public hearing for Monday, Sept. 16 at 7:30 p.m...

City Hall Monday, Aug. 19, 7:30 p.m. Appearances -- Presentation of Certificate of Achievement in Financial Reporting to Kimberly Dermott. -- Appearances before the council on items listed on the agenda. -- Appearances before the council on items not listed on the agenda...

Arnold Henry Unnerstall, 85, of Cape Girardeau, died Sunday, Aug. 18, 1996, at his home. He was born Aug. 20, 1910, in Cape Girardeau, son of Henry Arnold and Catherine Louise Steimle Unnerstall. He was one of the first students to attend the St. Mary's High School and was a member of St. Mary's Cathedral and Knights of Columbus...

Eddie Russell, a graduate student at Southeast Missouri State University, volunteered to organize and operate a camp for youths at the Pentecostal Power Church in Caruthersville during the summer. The camp, which involved as many as 32 students, included two-day hiking and canoeing trips during July and a one-day trip to the Memphis Zoo on Aug. 10...

This week the Southeast Missourian asked, "Why do you think the Jackson School District is so successful in passing school bond issues?" Shannon Barrett, Cape Girardeau "I think Jackson has a better school system than Cape and seems to have better educators. The parents are more willing to work with the kids because they have better schools. Maybe the people in Jackson are more concerned with better education."...