Stories from Saturday, January 28, 2006

A 19-year-old man was charged in the slaying of a Cape Girardeau teen for what police said was an attempted robbery of a drug dealer. Bernard P. Richards, of an unknown address, was charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action. His bond was set at $200,000...

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Some members of the Chaffee City Council want to let their constituents know they didn't engage in back-room deals to stop an investigation of a former court clerk and some missing money. Three council members -- Debbie Eichhorn, Ward 2; Wayne Hampton, Ward 1; and Mike Jobe, Ward 3 -- sent out a letter Friday saying "that as council members of the City of Chaffee we did not have a vote on whether the investigation into the missing money was continued or stopped...

The tiled hallways of Blanchard Elementary are like a second home to Jerra Hutson. The teachers and students there are like family now. When she occasionally spots her son with his kindergarten class in the school, she gets a hug not just from her own child, but from each of the other students...

When former state representative Mary Kasten stepped to the microphone after hearing praised heaped on her for a lifetime of public service, she wasn't at a loss for words. "I feel like a pancake that has had too much syrup poured over it," she said...

The Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center hopes to expand its 5-year-old campus by constructing a 9,600-square-foot electrical shop and classroom building east of the current school. Ameren's Community Development Corp. awarded a $150,000 grant to the Cape Girardeau Public Schools Foundation on Friday to kick off efforts to fund the estimated $1.5 million project...

A mistrial was declared Friday in the trial of an 18-year-old man Friday charged with striking a Cape Girardeau police sergeant with a blunt object. Following the daylong trial, the seven-men, five-women jury failed to return a verdict for Marcus Rice after 3 and 1/2 hours of deliberations...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Twenty years ago, space shuttle Challenger blew apart into jets of fire and plumes of smoke, a terrifying sight witnessed by the families of the seven astronauts and onlookers who came to watch the historic launch of the first teacher in space...

HOUSTON -- The shootings at Mindy Eugene's apartment complex have made the refugee from Hurricane Katrina eager to move back to her home in Louisiana. Yet despite all the violence in her complex, where many refugees live, she doesn't want all Katrina evacuees to be labeled as criminals or thugs...

LOS ANGELES -- With jumps, spins and those majestic spirals, Michelle Kwan showed she is good -- and healthy -- enough Friday and earned one more run at that elusive Olympic gold medal. Kwan sealed the spot on the U.S. Olympic team that she was handed two weeks ago, proving to a five-person monitoring committee that she's recovered from the groin injury that kept her out of the national championships. ...

CONCORD, N.H. -- It was just as Christa McAuliffe would have wanted. The Concord High School teacher and her six crewmates on the space shuttle Challenger appear chronologically, with no special billing, in a school lesson on space travel. It was just as she once taught, that ordinary people make history. Except this time, she was the ordinary person and the history was a disaster 20 years ago Saturday that wounded the school and city so deeply that the slightest touch still can bring tears...

Basketball; Football; Hockey

CLEVELAND -- Coco Crisp quickly became a fan favorite with Indians fans, winning them over with his catchy name, bubbly personality and solid skills. The Red Sox Nation will be tougher to impress. Crisp is bound for Boston after being traded Friday by the Cleveland Indians to the Red Sox, finally giving them a replacement for Johnny Damon in center field and at the leadoff spot in the batting order...

To the editor: We wouldn't need gadgets for our television sets and computers to keep children away if adults had moral values. You don't teach moral values when parents are keeping children from watching slime and the children know the parents watch slime...

To the editor: It seems our religious right has both legs stuck, one in Iraq and the other bogged down in sleaze. Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff is facing prison and will no doubt rat out other corrupted stooges. Indicted House Speaker Tom DeLay has been forced to step down as his criminal investigation continues. ...

To the editor: President Bush has a clear plan for victory in Iraq. This current phase is training Iraqi forces so they can fight effectively against terrorists infiltrating their country to kill innocents along with remnants of Saddam's regime of terror. ...

Disciple Now event planned at First Baptist; Cape County Christian Women to meet Feb. 13; Phil Baquie and band to play at Centenary UMC ; Sausage breakfast set at St. Ambrose on Feb. 5; Stonecroft studies offered locally; College handbell choir to play at Grace United

Jennifer Brown was standing outside Fred's Discount store in Cape Girardeau last week waiting for a friend when she witnessed a crime. She saw two teenage boys attack an elderly woman and steal her purse. The 28-year-old Brown called the police on her cell phone. ...

The Southeast Missouri State women's gymnastics team opened its home schedule with a bang. Southeast, reaching a season-high point total, rolled past Winona State 190.825-180.150 at Houck Field House on Friday. The Redhawks (2-2) swept at least the top two spots in every event, including the all-around as freshman Sandra Blake captured her second straight meet title with a score of 38.700. Sophomore Alison Ezell was second (38.025)...

To the editor: I read with great interest Sam Blackwell's Jan. 26 column, "On a mission to know God." Sam hit the nail on the head when he said, "Ultimately it seems to me that all religions are talking about the same God and that the differences between religions are due to our differences." Bravo, Sam. ...

25 years ago: Jan. 28, 1981 Absenteeism because of influenza is running as high as 30 percent in four Illinois school districts, and in the Cairo School District, flu has forced the cancellation of classes; the flu bug may have leveled off in the Cape Girardeau public schools, with only 10 percent of the district's 4,348 pupils absent last week...

Vandeven; Klinkhardt; Carter-Long; Panagos; Carnell; Jones; Dewrock; Crombie; Wessell

Robert Lance Hargraves, 88, of Cape Girardeau died Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006, at his home. He was born May 19, 1917, at Campbell, Mo., son of Robert H. and Ada Hayes Hargraves. He and Hazel M. Harmon were married June 29, 1940, in Cape Girardeau. She died Jan. 20, 2000...

Nagako Naito, 81, of Cape Girardeau died Friday, Jan. 27, 2006, at Fountainbleau Lodge. Lorberg Memorial Funeral Chapel is in charge of arrangements.

Herman Herbert Piper, 69, of Cape Girardeau died Friday, Jan. 27, 2006, at Saint Francis Medical Center. He was born Nov. 10, 1936, near Jackson, son of Herbert and Hazel Estes Piper. Piper lived in Cape Girardeau most of his life. He had been employed at VIP Industries a short time, and was a member of First General Baptist Church...

Patricia A. Holman, 71, of Columbia, Ill., died Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006, at St. Anthony's Medical Center in St. Louis. She was born Oct. 19, 1934, in Watson, Mo., daughter of Richard and Frances Harmon Dyke. She and Leonard W. "Bill" Holman were married May 17, 1953, at Rockport, Mo. He died Oct. 26, 1994...

LaVern Wolfe, 84, of Scott City, died Friday at the Life Care Center in Cape Girardeau. Arrangements are incomplete at Amick-Burnett Funeral Chapel in Scott City.

Ruby M. "Billie" Werner, 96, of Jackson died Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006, at Perry County Nursing Home in Perryville, Mo. She was born Oct. 16, 1909, in Uniontown, Mo., daughter of Harvey and Anna Sholts Milster. She and Treston H. "Tex" Werner were married Feb. 26, 1942. He died Jan. 16, 1996...

Honoring MLK; Fireplace fumes; Try being a Kurd; More of the same; Religion in schools; But not my religion; Mandatory drug tests

Cape Girardeau...

Cape Girardeau County...

The statistics on teenage drivers are not good. Nationally, people under 21 years of age account for 7 percent of the drivers on the road but 14 percent of the accidents. In Missouri, teens compose 10 percent of the drivers but are involved in 32 percent of the accidents...

WASHINGTON -- The first inhalable version of insulin won federal approval Friday, giving millions of adult diabetics an alternative to some of the injections they now endure. The Food and Drug Administration said the Pfizer Inc. insulin, to be marketed as "Exubera," is the first new way of delivering insulin since the discovery of the hormone in the 1920s. Pfizer jointly developed the drug and dispenser with Sanofi-Aventis and Nektar Therapeutics...

FRIEDHEIM, Mo. -- The Rev. Armin Ulfert Deye, 92, of Emporia, Kan., died Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006. He was born July 10, 1913, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, son of John and Meta Deye. He and Gladys Myrtle Hahs were married in 1941. Deye was formerly of Friedheim. He was a graduate of St. Paul's College at Concordia, Mo., and in 1939 graduated from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and then was ordained into the ministry...

State Rep. Nathan Cooper of Cape Girardeau has been named to the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee. "This committee faces serious issues that can really impact Missouri children," said House Speaker Rod Jetton in announcing the appointment in Jefferson City...

Iran potentially just years away from nuclear bomb; Documents: Army seized wives to get to insurgents; Investigator: Princess Di's death 'complex' ; Major earthquake occurs off Indonesian coast ; Bolivian president slashes salary to hire teachers

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Thousands of Fatah supporters burned cars and shot in the air across the Gaza Strip on Friday, demanding the resignation of corrupt party officials and insisting there be no coalition between their defeated party and the victorious Hamas...

SALZBURG, Austria -- Hot rock and cool jazz mixed with the classics in Salzburg on Friday, as Mozart fans spilled from museums and concert halls into a floodlit main square in an exuberant 250th birthday bash echoed by thousands of other commemorations worldwide...

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Two men were charged and denied bond for an alleged drug trafficking scheme that ran cocaine from Carbondale, Ill., to Sikeston. Leonard L. Phillips, 27, of Charleston, Mo., and Vincent M. Gray, 25, of Carbondale, were each charged with felony drug trafficking, a news release from the Sikeston Department of Public Safety stated...

HOUSTON -- Eight members of rival New Orleans gangs who had moved to Houston since Hurricane Katrina have been arrested in connection with the slayings of 11 fellow refugees and other violent crimes, police said Friday. Investigators said those slain also belonged to the gangs or had some connection to them. Violent crimes attributed to these gangs also have been committed on Houston residents, said police spokesman Alvin Wright...

TOWN AND COUNTRY, Mo. -- The young men walking the halls at Christian Brothers College High School in suburban St. Louis couldn't look more clean cut than they do in their school-sanctioned collared shirts and dress pants. But administrators here -- looking to move beyond appearances-- are proposing a mandatory drug testing program to make sure all of the private school's 1,100 students are drug-free...

SAN DIEGO -- Brandt Jobe now can say he is leading the Buick Invitational after handling the tough South Course with a 5-under 67 on Friday. How he got there remains a mystery to him. Coming off a brilliant round of putting on the easier North Course, the long-hitting Jobe kept the ball in play and made the only eagle on the par-5 18th to build a two-shot lead over Tim Clark and Jesper Parnevik. Jobe is at 12-under 132...

The Associated Press MELBOURNE, Australia -- Amelie Mauresmo won her first Grand Slam title earlier today, dominating Justine Henin-Hardenne before the Belgian retired in the second set of the Australian Open final because of stomach pain. Mauresmo won the first set 6-1 and was leading 2-0 in the second when Henin-Hardenne walked to the net and told the chair umpire she could not continue...

Meadow Heights exploded for 52 points in the second half to rally from a six-point deficit Friday night to beat host Scott City 78-71. The Panthers (11-5) made 24 of 29 field goals, including four of eight 3-pointers, in the second half to climb out of a 12-point third-quarter deficit. They beat Scott City for the second time this season, duplicating the decision that belied the seedings in the first round of the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament...

Even now, the sound of 3 million voices lifted in unison beneath the stars resonates in Zulekha Reza's ears. Allahu Akbar, Allahu AkbarÉ God is great, God is greatÉ Only a few weeks have passed since Reza traveled to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, but the Dexter, Mo., pediatrician hopes the memory will last forever...

"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8 A couple of weeks ago a lot of folks in Cape were excited about the "Killshot" filming. I was reminded of years ago when I was working evenings and weekends at a second job at one of Cape's motels...

By Kenneth W. Dobbins We were delighted to see more than 950 people at the Show Me Center Tuesday night to participate in the first Southeast Missouri State University-sponsored dinner celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and to hear a message from his son, Martin Luther King III...

A bad season for Southeast Missouri State got even worse Thursday night, when Morehead State picked up its first Ohio Valley Conference win at the expense of the host Redhawks. But if ever the depleted Redhawks would figure to be extra motivated to put on a good show -- and perhaps end their five-game losing streak -- today appears to be that time...

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- Missed free throws and turnovers by Central helped Poplar Bluff rally from a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit to stay unbeaten in SEMO Conference play with a 62-56 win. The Tigers missed 16 free-throw attempts, including nine in the final quarter when they also turned the ball over seven times to fuel a 25-11 run by the Mules...

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. -- Bell City proved to be the heavyweight of the Stoddard County Activities Association with a 73-58 win over Puxico in the conference's tournament final Friday night at Bloomfield. Six-foot-10 junior Will Bogan led Bell City with 24 points, while sophomore guard Nick Niemczyk added 21...

The proposed sale of Missouri's student-loan agency could provide money to help fund Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus project, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and two local state representatives said Friday. Kinder and state representatives Scott Lipke and Nathan Cooper, all Republicans, vowed to add the River Campus project to the list of projects that would be funded by Gov. Matt Blunt's proposed sale of the not-for-profit Missouri Higher Education Student Loan Authority...

The Missouri Medicaid program will undergo an extensive overhaul in the next two years in an attempt to restrain growth in the taxpayer-funded health-care program. Changes in the works include an emphasis on preventive care and a concerted effort to recover money from people who try to hide assets while receiving help from the program, Gary Sherman, director of the Missouri Department of Social Services, said during Friday during a visit to Cape Girardeau...