Stories from Thursday, August 21, 1997

"So busy" are the words 13-year-old Liesl Schoenberger uses to describe her life. Last weekend, she was in Sedalia competing in the Missouri Junior Fiddle Championship. Most weekends she's in Bloomington, Ind., taking violin lessons from her teacher, Mimi Zweig. If not, she's performing at a music festival somewhere in Missouri or Illinois...

Ten years ago this month, Bob Hope hit a golf ball off the roof of the Show Me Center during its grand opening ceremonies. Since then, more than 3 million patrons have clicked through the turnstiles. The Show Me Center is the largest indoor arena between St. Louis and Memphis and versatile enough to handle basketball, country music, ballet, rodeo and conventions...

Sixty employees of Fru-Con Construction Corp. working on assembly lines at Procter & Gamble Co. will be laid off. The company lost a contract with P&G to Manpower Temporary Services through a bidding process. Fru-Con employees learned of the layoff Aug. 4. It takes effect Aug. 31...

The Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau Advisory Board wants the City Council to broaden the collection of the restaurant tax without voter approval. But City Attorney Eric Cunningham said that would fly in the face of the tax-limitation provisions of the state's Hancock Amendment...

The complexity of issues surrounding the end of court-ordered desegregation funding in Kansas City and St. Louis schools could mean less instead of more money for rural Missouri schools. State Rep. Joe Heckemeyer, D-Sikeston, said the state may find itself appropriating Department of Elementary and Secondary Education funds to cover costs in urban schools that were previously paid for with desegregation money. ...

Southeast Missouri State University students will begin moving into campus housing today in preparation for the start of fall classes. Some 1,800 students are expected to fill the residence halls for the fall semester, which begins Monday. The university has space for about 2,000 students...

Aug. 21, 1997 Dear Frisco, DC and I took our young Panamanian friend Carlos to Busch Stadium to see the Cardinals play the Braves. Carlos is a Braves fan, due primarily to Ted Turner's indoctrination of Latin America via TBS. Carlos' dad, who has never been to America, wears Braves regalia. All of Carlos' friends in Panama love the Braves, too...

The first of five hearings on desegregation was held Tuesday in Cape Girardeau. The selection of our town by the joint House-Senate committee was somewhat surprising, given the primarily urban focus of this issue. Desegregation has cost Missouri more than any other state, however, and has seriously affected school budgets in every part of our state. Committee chairmen are Sen. Ted House, D-St. Charles, and Rep. Steve Stoll, D-Festus, and they are to be commended for scheduling open hearings...

ABOUT SOMEONE defacing Rush Limbaugh on the river wall. They should not have done it because its against the law. But Rush Limbaugh should not have been up there in the first place. I WISH it was some way I could speak to President Clinton personally. I would like to congratulate him on his stand not to interfere with the UPS strike. I thank you...

PORTAGEVILLE -- Traditional tours of cotton, soybean and weed-control plots will be featured at the University of Missouri Delta Center Field Day Sept. 2. A new technology tour and a question-and-answer session will be added this year. "Farming Challenges of the 21st Century" is the theme of the 36th annual event, said Jake Fisher, superintendent of the MU experiment farm seven miles southeast of Portageville on Highway T...

Alternative Education Center director Sheldon Tyler said Wednesday will mark the beginning of what could be the best year yet for helping at-risk students earn their high school diplomas. Tyler said a number of administrative, curriculum and programming changes will make the 2-year-old alternative education program even better. As a result, he said, teachers and administrators will be more effective in teaching and reaching students...

METROPOLIS, Ill. -- Players Riverboat Casino has donated $5,000 to a Southern Illinois task force pushing a proposal for an interstate across the region. The money was given to the I-66 task force, whose members want the state of Illinois to conduct a feasibility study for a four-lane, east-west highway running through the southern section of the state...

Britt Mirgaux is back at his preferred position of fullback and nobody is any happier about that than Mirgaux himself -- even though the number of times he touches the football figures to decrease. Sure, Mirgaux was happy with the kind of season he had last year, even though Southeast Missouri State University's football team -- and the offense in particular -- struggled big-time as a unit...

The River Eagle Budweiser men's slow-pitch softball team captured the title in the Missouri National Softball Association State Championship Tournament that was held last weekend in Ft. Leonard Wood. Budweiser won five straight games to prevail as state champion, winning early-round contests 17-7, 24-13 and 12-1...

DEXTER -- Funeral service for John Ralph Harrison of Dexter will be held at 2 p.m. today at Rainey Funeral Chapel. Herman Morse will officiate, with burial in Dexter Cemetery. Harrison, 89, died Tuesday, Aug. 19, 1997, at his home. He was born Aug. 19, 1908, at Aid, son of John and Mollie Austin Harrison. He and Lucy Allstun were married Dec. 20, 1930, in Toledo, Ohio...

DEXTER -- Memorial service for John Dale Mofield of Melbourne, Fla., will be held at 7 p.m. today at Rainey Funeral Home in Dexter. The Rev. Doyle Corlew will officiate. Friends may call at the funeral home from 6 p.m. to service time. Mofield, 73, died Monday, Aug. 18, 1997, at his home...

Funeral service for Marion Gayle Frederick of Columbia was held Monday at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Columbia. The Rev. Paul Moessner officiated, with burial in Memorial Park Cemetery at Columbia. Memorial Funeral Home in Columbia was in charge of arrangements...

SCOTT CITY -- Deborah Sue Zimmerman, 44, of Wentzville died Tuesday, Aug. 19, 1997, at St. Joseph Health Center in St. Charles. She was born Aug. 17, 1953, in Cape Girardeau, daughter of Willis Randolph and Geneva Pauline Culbertson Propst. She and John Franklin Zimmerman were married Jan. 2, 1971, at Scott City...

Fannie May King, 84, of St. Louis, formerly of Cape Girardeau, died Sunday, Aug. 17, 1997, at Southeast Missouri Hospital. She was born July 2, 1913, in Lula, Miss., daughter of Freeman and Mary Underwood Phifer Sr. She and Elder Malachi King were married in Cape Girardeau. He preceded her in death...

SIKESTON -- Lula Dye, 72, of Sikeston died Wednesday, Aug. 20, 1997, at Missouri Delta Medical Center. She was born Jan. 9, 1925, at Paris Island, S.C., daughter of T.B. and Baronece Jenkins Craft Jr. She and Joe W. Dye were married April 27, 1949. Her family moved to Southeast Missouri in 1940. She was a 1942 graduate of Steele High School, was a graduate of Stephens College in Columbia, and a 1947 graduate of the University of Missouri...

ORAN -- Paul J. Eftink, 78, Oran Route 1, died Wednesday, Aug. 20, 1997, at his home. He was born Oct. 2, 1918, at Portageville, son of John and Elizabeth Elfrink Eftink. He and Marie Trankler were married Nov. 12, 1940. Eftink was a retired farmer. He was a member of Guardian Angel Catholic Church...

KELSO -- Paul J. Drury, 83, of St. Louis died Tuesday, Aug. 19, 1997, at Christian Northeast Hospital in St. Louis. He was born June 1, 1914, at Kelso, son of Landra and Dora Dannenmueller Drury. He and Dorothy Echenroth were married Sept. 24, 1939, in St. Louis...