Stories from Wednesday, September 16, 1998

To the editor: After reading your Sept. 6 editorial concerning the election process in Mississippi County, I felt it imperative upon me to respond to some of your absurd implications. Your editorial strongly implies that criminal intent was involved in the recent primary election which resulted in a newly ordered election for the presiding commissioner's race. ...

Garrison Administrative Office Building 303-34th Street 6:15 p.m. today Action Items -- Public hearing to discuss Fiscal Year 1999 budget -- Closed session -- Announcements of action taken during closed session, as appropriate. -- Consider revised agenda format...

More than 2,000 people watched Monday night as Randy Schwartzkopf of Nashville, Ill., won the SEMO District Fair Demolition Derby. Paid admission was 2,070, and 102 cars were entered in the competition, which included six heats, a B main and the A main championship...

A new system for issuing and attaching parking passes will improve security at Cape Girardeau Central High School. Student drivers who purchased parking permits this year were issued stickers to place in their rear windows. Assistant principal Mark Ruark said security problems with the old system were the reason for the changeover...

Students attending three area high schools were among the nearly 15,500 semifinalists in the 44th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Six seniors from Cape Girardeau Central, Notre Dame and Jackson high schools were selected for the academic honor, which is given based on scores from the 1997 preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The semifinalists represent fewer than 1 percent of the state's high-school graduating class...

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14 Area students are ready to answer the call to prayer...

POPLAR BLUFF -- A new women's health center at Lucy Lee Healthcare Systems should be finished by 2000. The hospital got the go-ahead Monday from the Missouri Health Facilities Review Committee, which granted a certificate of need to build the $5.5 million center...

6:30 tonight Superintendent's Office Action Items: -- Cafeteria and kitchen air-conditioning project. -- Adoption of yearly goals. -- Transfer to capital project fund. -- Adoption of 1998-99 budget document. -- Adoption of science curriculum. -- Adoption of 1998-99 bus routes...

It was a massive undertaking for a good cause ... an educational option for children of the area. To paraphrase BISHOP JOHN LEIBRECHT, the completion of the new Notre Dame Regional High School facility is an inspiration not only for the area but for the "Cape-Springfield" diocese (as it's referred to locally by SISTER MARY ANN FISCHER, principal)...

The project just seems like a natural. Cape Girardeau County wants to be home of the next Missouri Department of Conservation Nature Center. It would be both a tourist attraction and a hands-on educational learning center for the entire region. Wait a minute? Isn't there already a nature center in the spacious Cape County Park North? It's been called a nature center. It's actually more of an office building with a few interpretative displays and a couple of trails out back...

Inmates at Illinois' new super-maximum security prison in Tamms don't like the living conditions. Tough luck. Perhaps these convicted felons will mind their manners enough to be shipped back to a regular prison sometime in the future. Tamms was designed to be a disagreeable home for the state's most troublesome prisoners, and the concept seems to be working...

The novelist Joseph Conrad once remarked that a recipe was "the only product of the human mind altogether above suspicion." He said, "The intention of every other piece of prose may be discussed and even mistrusted; but the purpose of a cookery book is one and unmistakable. Its object can conceivably be no other than to increase the happiness of mankind."...

The U.S. House of Representatives voted Tuesday to impose tougher federal penalties for those who traffic in methamphetamine. The House passed the measure on a voice vote. U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, was one of 43 original co-sponsors of the bill and the only one from the Missouri delegation...

7,516 -- 1998 fair attendance through Monday evening Visitors to the SEMO District Fair can come away with a lot more than cotton candy and carnival trinkets. In keeping with its tradition of showcasing livestock, the seven-day exposition also provides an opportunity to learn more about animals...

Cape Girardeau County collector candidates spent over $44,000 in the August primary, campaign finance reports show. That works out to $8.70 per vote in Cape Girardeau County as 5,082 people voted in the election. Two Democrats and four Republicans ran in the primary. The winners -- Democrat Judy Beussink and Republican Diane Diebold -- will face off in the Nov. 3 election. The winner of that contest will succeed Collector Harold Kuehle, who is retiring after 32 years in office...

Attorney General Jay Nixon will hold a public hearing Sept. 28 in Cape Girardeau on the proposed hospital merger. The hearing is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Osage Community Centre. Nixon's office will look into the proposed merger of St. Francis Medical Center and Southeast Missouri Hospital and its impact on health-care access, price and availability...

It's going. It's going. It's gone. The 1998 YELL edition has all but sold out, thanks in large part to St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire. A souvenir, 12-page edition highlighting McGwire's home run record was included in the special YELL edition, making it a hot item on Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City street corners Tuesday morning...

Nothing like seeing one's husband cozied up on the couch with the girl voted "Most Likely To Be A White House Intern." Our friends love a good party. What's not to like? Parties are a way to bring people together to share a few laughs, dance to a few tunes and remind everyone why they quit mixing beer and hard liquor after college...

E. C. Barton & Company, headquartered in Jonesboro, Ark., has purchased 74 West Building Supply and Home Center in Cape Girardeau. Barton & Company, established in 1885, is the oldest employee-owned company of its kind in Arkansas. Niel Crowson, president and CEO of E.C. Barton, announced the purchase of the Cape Girardeau company Tuesday. The 74 West Building Supply and Home center, located at 4680 State Highway 74, was previously owned by Herb Annis of Cape Girardeau...

The Indiana State football team came to Cape Girardeau last Saturday and left with a 21-14 victory. I didn't say they beat us due to the fact that we played the perfect host and gave the game away. The Sycamores were given three touchdowns by way of great field position after a long kickoff return, a fumble recovery for a touchdown and an interception return for a touchdown...

JACKSON -- So much for mercy points. Jackson wasted very little time - approximately 40 minutes - dismantling Cape Girardeau Central in a 15-3, 15-5 win Tuesday night at Jackson. "That's our big rivalry," Jackson hitter Andrea Koeper said. "We have to beat them as bad as we can."...

Southwest Missouri State protected its first-day lead, finishing six strokes ahead of host Southeast Missouri State University Tuesday to win the 1998 Drury Intercollegiate Golf Tournament at Cape Girardeau Country Club. The Bears started Tuesday six strokes ahead of Southeast and both teams recorded 289 rounds. Southwest finished with a three-round total of 857. Southeast, which had two golfers finish in the top 10, had a team score of 863...

JACKSON -- With its Nos. 1 and 2 players both winning 8-0, Cape Girardeau Central High's girls tennis team rolled past host Jackson Tuesday. Central's Eliane Hess and Liz Russell each shut out their opponents as the Lady Tigers improved to 4-0 in dual meets...

SCOTT CITY -- Everett David "Bud" Walker, 79, of Scott City died Tuesday, Sept. 15, 1998, at his home. He was born Dec. 16, 1918, in Jonesboro, Ark., son of Everett D. and Caroline Klughart Walker. He and Julia Barbara DeGeorge were married March 6, 1943, in Atlantic City...

CHAFFEE -- Mildred Lucille Dickhaut, 82, of Chaffee died Sunday, Sept. 13, 1998, at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau. She was born May 16, 1916, at Senath, daughter of William E. and Hattie Mills Hall. She first married Preston Prochrow in 1946. He died in 1974. She later married Ferd Dickhaut Feb. 27, 1980. He died June 7, 1993...

SCOTT CITY -- Funeral for Glenn Monroe McLain of Scott City will be held at 2 p.m. today at Amick-Burnett Funeral Chapel in Scott City. The Rev. Neil Franks will officiate. Burial will be in Lorimier Cemetery in Cape Girardeau, with graveside rites by VFW Post 3838 of Cape Girardeau...

SIKESTON -- Funeral for Elsia Mae Layne of Sikeston will be held at 2 p.m. today at Ponder Funeral Home. Ray Hannah and Mark Odle will officiate. Burial will be in Garden of Memories Cemetery. Layne, 83, died Monday, Sept. 14, 1998, at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau...

MALDEN -- Pat Handlin, 28, of Malden died Saturday, Sept. 12, 1998, in an automobile accident on Highway BB near East Prairie. He was born Aug. 26, 1970, in Glendale, W.Va., son of Edward James "John" and Marjorie Ann Hicks Handlin Sr. Handlin was a crane operator at Noranda Aluminum in New Madrid. He attended Kimball Baptist Church, and was a member of Ducks Unlimited...

CHARLESTON -- Johnnie Mae Wilson, 88, of Charleston died Monday, Sept. 14, 1998, at Sikeston Health Care in Sikeston. She was born Dec. 28, 1909, in Greenwood, Miss., daughter of Leroy and Pairlee McDonald McMann. She and Willie Wilson were married in 1927. He died in 1991...

Funeral for Betty Lou Mills of Cape Girardeau will be held at 2 p.m. today at Ford and Sons Mt. Auburn Chapel. The Rev. Cy Smith will officiate, with burial in Memorial Park. Friends may call at the chapel from noon to service time. Mills, 62, died Monday, Sept. 14, 1998, at St. Francis Medical Center...

LEOPOLD -- Rosalin Rita Elfrink, 70, of Leopold died Tuesday, Sept. 15, 1998, at her home. She was born July 19, 1928, at Laflin, daughter of Fred and Louise Ann Anger Trankle. Elfrink retired as a post office supervisor. She was a member of St. John's Catholic Church...

JACKSON -- Carol Morton, 56, formerly of Jackson, died Tuesday, Sept. 15, 1998, at Carolyn Calhoun County Care Center in Hardin, Ill. She was born Oct. 22, 1941, in Cape Girardeau, daughter of Lowell "Toby" and Violet Schreiner Reynolds. She and Nelson Morton were married April 22, 1962...

BENTON -- Graveside service for John Wesley Ervin of Floral City, Fla., will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday at Old Morley Cemetery. The Rev. Don Gast will officiate. Ervin, 79, died Oct. 23, 1997, in a Floral City rest home. He was born Feb. 15, 1918, at Benton, son of John and Beulah Minter Ervin. He and Kathern Anolia Bells were married Nov. 16, 1957...

MORLEY -- Billy Duane Sadler, 75, formerly of Morley, died Tuesday, Sept. 15, 1998, at Miner Nursing Center in Miner. He was born Aug. 15, 1923, at Benton, son of Clyde and Lula Mitchell Sadler. Sadler had been a surveyor with Missouri State Highway Department, and later was a self-employed small engine repair mechanic. He was a member of Morley Baptist Church, and Disabled American Veterans...

Son to Donald Martin and Denise Nicole Hendershott of Delta, Southeast Missouri Hospital, 10:56 a.m. Monday, Sept. 7, 1998. Name, Brady Austin. Weight, 7 pounds 10 ounces. Second son. Mrs. Hendershott is the former Denise McHughs, daughter of William and Mary McHughs of Thebes, Ill. Hendershott is the son of Rick and Lavetta Hendershott of Marble Hill. He is employed at Missouri Dry Dock and Repair Co...

The Southeast Missourian asked students at West Lane Elementary School about their experiences in a hospital operating room. Cole Jansen: "I had some sinus surgery. My sinuses were clogged up, so I had an operation where they put cotton balls up my nose. It has helped a lot."...

FRUITLAND -- Yvette La Joie graduated from Jackson High School in 1997 without having done something every teen-ager lives for. Because of frequent and uncontrollable epileptic seizures, she has never driven a car. Now La Joie is 20 and contemplating having brain surgery that could allow her not only to drive but to pursue the career as a pediatric nurse she dreams of...