Stories from Sunday, November 3, 1996

To the editor: I do not intend to get into a verbal battle with Nancy Birk over Proposition A. In reply to my letter, she stated that my wife's business would not come under Proposition A. If I read the amendment correctly, Part B of Proposition A would eliminate the $500,000 cap, and it would not matter if you had one employee or 100...

Musician Carl Rosen of Charlotte, N.C., says his life is at least worth a song ... or two. After an automobile accident that nearly took his life in March, Rosen said he was doctored and nursed back to health by the staff of St. Francis Medical Center...

Shelly Johnson will be retiring as Miss Jackson. Johnson, who won last year's pageant, will also perform with the Missouri Girls during the pageant on Nov. 16. Kimberly Massaro, Miss Missouri 1996, was the fourth runner-up at this year's Miss America pageant and will perform with the Missouri Girls at Miss Jackson...

Vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp came to the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse in Jackson Friday afternoon to do some last minute campaigning before Tuesday's election. Joining Kemp on the platform were state Sen. Peter Kinder, congressional candidate Joanne Emerson, gubernatorial candidate Margaret Kelly, Sen. Kit Bond and Sen. John Ashcroft...

Although each quadrennium produces its own unusual features, the Election of 1996 has been unique in a number of exceptional ways, few of them, I am sorry to say, of any great benefit to the public at large. Although it is John Q. Taxpayer who bears the multimillion-dollar cost of federal and state election, both of these plebiscites have increasingly become the tools of the individual candidates and the two major political parties...

Speaker Richard Gephardt. Say that name, and that title, over and over again. As you do, add to it some other names. Names such as David Bonior, Barney Frank, Ron Dellums, John Dingell, Bill Clay, David Obey, Charles Rangel, Henry Waxman, John Conyers and Pete Stark...

To the editor: Fanatical socialist democrats, especially those in education, union thug bosses, biased media and the current criminals in our federal and state administrations love pinning hateful labels on those who dare not prostitute themselves to their nonsense. Their favorite buzz labels of choice: extremists, mean-spirited, intolerant, radical right-wing (Christians), ad nauseam. Interesting. To me, most of those terms accurately describe left-wing socialists, don't they?...

To the editor: Alan Journet has written a trilogy of letters accusing the Republicans of being for dirty water and air and a host of other allegations. He has yet to give any facts or examples of how they would do this. He seems to be operating under the premise that if you repeat an incorrect accusation enough times, it somehow becomes factual. Another possibility is that if people knew the reasoning behind those allegations they would disagree with his conclusions...

A flurry of green and white hit Cape Girardeau for the second weekend in a row when approximately 400 Girl Scouts and sponsors arrived in uniform for the Junior Heritage Tours on Friday. Junior Girl Scouts from the Greater St. Louis Girl Scout Council came to Cape Girardeau to explore local heritage sites and complete requirements for a Heritage badge...

Missouri has six political parties on Tuesday's election ballot, the most since 1952 when there were eight on the ballot. In the 8th District, two third-party candidates are in the field of five candidates running for Congress. David Zimmer of Cape Girardeau is on the ballot as the Natural Law Party candidate; Greg Tlapek of Cape Girardeau is the Libertarian candidate...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Heidi Nieland has volunteered to go through a diet plan new to the Cape Girardeau area and write about her weekly successes and failures. Today, she talks about another participant in the Biometrics program. Chuck Henzi can't remember the last time he felt really thin...

In a field of five candidates, the 8th District congressional contest boils down to a two-woman race. The other three candidates are little more than a sideshow, political observers note. The real contest is between Democrat Emily Firebaugh of Farmington and independent/Republican Jo Ann Emerson of Cape Girardeau...

Couches are a lot like Mary Poppins' magic bag: There is no end of stuff that a couch can hold. The importance of a couch is overlooked in our society. We expect a lot out of a piece of furniture. We expect it to be comfy. It also has to double as a trampoline for children and even, at times, a bed...

Lagging behind in the polls and with two days remaining until the election, 8th congressional Republican candidate Richard Kline has captured an endorsement from the Reform Party. The local chapter of the party created by Ross Perot consists of about 100 members from Cape Girardeau, Jackson and surrounding communities...

Clusters of two and three stood by the windows in Club Jeremiah and looked down over Water Street. Where are they? they asked. There was no certain look to the crowd, besides the looks of anticipation they all shared. Sixth-graders stood next to college students, who stood next to 40somethings. There were guys and girls, mothers and fathers present, and they all had something in common...

Emmis Broadcasting Corp. said Friday it will pay $42.5 million to acquire three St. Louis radio stations from Zimco Inc., a division of Zimmer Radio Group, headquartered in Cape Girardeau. WKBQ-FM and AM have top-40 formats and have the top-rated morning show in the market, the "Steve and DC" show, Emmis said. The third station being acquired, WKKX-FM, has a country format...

JEFFERSON CITY -- Missouri pheasant and quail hunters can look forward to a challenge this hunting season. Surveys conducted during the first half of August indicate the populations of both bird species have declined from last year. That has wildlife biologists saying that prospects are only fair for the 1996-97 quail and pheasant season which opened Friday and runs through Jan. 15...

JEFFERSON CITY -- The Missouri Conservation Commission has voted to throw its support behind Constitutional Amendment 8, a ballot initiative to extend the state sales tax supporting state parks and soil and water conservation programs. At its meeting at Montauk State Park Oct. ...

Almost everyone likes trees. People like them for their utility and beauty. Wildlife and birds like them for homes and food. Even fish like them because they shade their watery homes and recharge the organic system of the stream. Foresters love trees because it is their profession to tend that collection of trees known as the forest...

Donald R. and Lola Gay Seabaugh to City of Cape Girardeau; Anna E. and Leonard M. Adams to Nancy J. and Gerald L. Adams; Gerald L. and Nancy J. Adams to Anna E. and Leonard M. Adams Trust; Kim and Pete Kluesner to Nancy E. and Reginald Douglas Gipson; Deborah and Thomas Nall to Nancy E. ...

John Weldon Lafferty, 80, died Friday, Nov. 1, 1996, at the Cape Girardeau Nursing Center in Cape Girardeau. He was born April 2, 1916, at Oxly, Mo., son of John and Rachel McKinney Lafferty. He served in the United States Navy from 1936 until 1953 during World War II and the Korean War, and he was a prisoner of war for 36 months during World War II. He also served 10 years in the Naval Fleet Reserve...

Eva C. Hamilton, 65, died Friday, Nov. 1, 1996, in Indianapolis, Ind. She was born Feb. 17, 1931, daughter of Jim and Daisy Coomer Anderson in Randles, Mo. She married Darrell Hamilton on December 27, 1952, in Piggott, Ark. He died on April 20, 1959...

Florene C. Hight, 81, died Saturday, Nov. 2, 1996, at Chateau Girardeau Nursing Center. She was born Sept. 10, 1915, in Atkins, Ark., to Omer H. and Vida K. King Crouthers. She married Hallie H. Hight in Morehouse on May 20, 1934. She lived in Peoria, Ill., where she taught elementary school for 29 years and was a member of Delta Kamma Gamma before retiring at Wappapello. She was a member of the Wappapello Methodist Church and was the church pianist. She was a member of the O.E.S. of Morehouse...

Raymond F. Kaineg, 77, of Anna, Ill., died Saturday, Nov. 2, 1996, at the St. Francis Medical Center. Funeral arrangements are incomplete at the Lutz and Rendleman Funeral Home in Anna.

The older society gets the more new and unusual syndromes it seems to acquire. Syndromes as in a collection of signs and symptoms that collectively indicate some kind of disorder. Just yesterday I heard of one called S.A.D. I've forgotten what the initials stand for but the word, sad, seems to describe the affliction. It comes on in the fall they say and, perhaps, has something to do with diminishing sunlight and being more confined to indoors...