Stories from Saturday, August 26, 2006

With less than three weeks left before the SEMO District Fair begins, organizers say ticket sales are meeting expectations for the fair's blend of old and new on the entertainment grandstand. This year's headliners on the grandstand include country legend Ronnie Milsap on Sept. 14 and two acts likely to draw young audiences -- former "American Idol" contestants Josh Gracin Sept. 15 and Bo Bice Sept. 16...

ORAN, Mo. -- Despite rumors that have circulated through Oran, the Fall Festival's cancellation this year has nothing to do with police chief Marc Tragesser, organizers say. "That's just simply not the case," said Brandon Patterson, president of the Oran Jaycees, which organizes the festival. "Certain people just assume things, but this has nothing to do with the cop...

Lee Slinkard of Cape Girardeau wandered the aisles of Sears Grand Friday afternoon, eyeing new refrigerators and high-priced dishwashers. But she wasn't buying. "I haven't bought an appliance in two years," she said. "I have to watch my budget. I live on a fixed income. I'd like to convince my landlord to buy me a new fridge or stove, though."...

New Cape street maps for sale at city hall; Power outage hits rush-hour Jefferson City

The Washington, D.C., home of Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, and husband Ron Gladney was burglarized earlier this week. No one was home at the time of the break-in, and it was not discovered until Gladney notified police at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. The home had been empty since Monday...

Cape Girardeau...

Cape Girardeau...

Friday; Sunday

I heard there was a secret chord, that David played and it pleased the Lord... -- from the motion picture "Shrek" Quick now: Think of any movies that come immediately to mind. Time magazine film critic Richard Shickel, who has written about the motion picture industry for three decades, says 20 million Americans go to the movies every week...

Enthusiasm continues to grow within the struggling Chaffee football program under second-year coach Charlie Vickery, evident by a 40-man roster. The Red Devils got to show off all 40 players Friday at home in a four-team jamboree. Charleston, Fredericktown and Malden joined Chaffee...

Darnell Wilks, one of the top basketball players in the area this past season at Central, will not finish his high school career with the Tigers. After leading the Tigers to the Class 5 district finals as a junior, Wilks has enrolled at Pioneer Christian Academy, a college preparatory school in the Nashville suburb of Whites Creek, Tenn...

Amanda Nichols shut out Chaffee on two hits Friday to lead Central past the Red Devils 1-0 in high school softball action. Nichols struck out 13 and walked two over seven innings. The Tigers (2-1) scored the only run of the game in the first inning. Courtney Schuessler singled, stole second base and scored on Sirena Watkins' basehit...

The first goal of Megan McGrath's Southeast Missouri State soccer career allowed the Redhawks to capture their season opener. McGrath headed home a free kick from Caitlin Huber about 9 minutes into the second half Friday night and Southeast held off visiting Arkansas-Little Rock 1-0...

Many people have a good time in the summer tubing and canoeing on rivers or boating and swimming at lakes. For some, the fun is enhanced by drinking. But the recent death of a young man from Cape Girardeau in a drinking-related accident at Lake of Egypt is a reminder that water is not a benign environment for partying...

WASHINGTON -- The death toll among National Guard and Reserve troops in Iraq has plunged this year as citizen soldiers play a smaller combat role against an insurgency that increasingly targets Iraqis. Thus far in August, five members of the Guard and Reserve have died in Iraq, compared with 44 at this point in August 2005, the deadliest month of the war for the Guard and Reserve...

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Kurt Busch won the pole Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway, putting him in perfect position for a season sweep at his favorite race track. Busch ran a qualifying lap at 124.906 mph to put his No. 2 Dodge out front for tonight's race. He beat Jeff Burton, who turned a lap at 124.808 to qualify second...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Royals outfielder Reggie Sanders will undergo season-ending knee surgery, after leaving in the ninth inning of Thursday night's 8-4 loss to the Cleveland Indians. The 38-year-old Sanders will have surgery to repair a partial tear of his left patellar tendon and to treat a synovial cyst under the bottom portion of his left knee cap...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Sure, it's only the preseason, and sure, preseason wins and losses are as meaningless in the NFL as last month's weather report. That doesn't mean the Kansas City Chiefs do not need very much to play well Saturday night against St. Louis. In fact, the Chiefs all agree that this could be an especially important night in many ways...

ST. LOUIS -- Jeff Suppan more than made up for Chris Duncan's mistakes. Suppan pitched shutout ball into the eighth inning, overcoming three balls that St. Louis' rookie left fielder turned into doubles, and the Cardinals defeated the Chicago Cubs 2-0 Friday night...

Tiger Woods hit a 9-iron over the clubhouse roof and escaped with a bogey on the final hole of an otherwise stellar second round at the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio, on Friday. Woods birdied his first four holes and shot a 6-under 64 to take a one-shot lead over Davis Love III...

David East, 50, of St. Peters, Mo., formerly of Cape Girardeau, died Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2006, at his home. He was born July 17, 1956, in Cape Girardeau, son of John Jefferson and Dorothy Ladd East Jr. Mr. East graduated from Central High School in 1974, and from Southeast Missouri State University in 1980 and played on the university's former Indians football team...

Marshall Addision Walker, 91, of Jackson died Thursday, Aug. 24, 2006, at Missouri Veterans Home in Cape Girardeau. The funeral will be at 2 p.m. today at Cracraft-Miller Funeral Home, with the Rev. Craig Petzoldt officiating. Burial will be in Russell Heights Cemetery with full military honors...

The Southeast Missouri State volleyball team opened its season Friday with a pair of losses at the University of Mississippi Magnolia Invitational in Oxford, Miss. Southeast fell to Pittsburgh 30-23, 30-32, 31-29 and host Mississippi 30-21, 30-27, 30-28...

To the editor: Respect for the police can only occur if there is a perception of consistency with the application of the law. I am not sure this is always the case in Cape Girardeau. For example, the week before the beginning of classes at Southeast Missouri State University, a police cruiser was parked in the small shopping center on northbound Sprigg Street in a hard-to-see location with radar aimed at cars going too fast down a steep hill. ...

To the editor: The U.S. House of Representatives' report on the threat from Iran toward the U.S. has recently been released. Reading the document you see almost every claim in the report modified with words like "probably" or "believed." Of special interest is a map of the eastern hemisphere of the world complete with concentric circles indicating the range of various Iranian missiles. ...

Charles Knight, 63, of Barnesville, Ga., died Thursday, Aug. 24, 2006, in a health-care facility in Atlanta, Ga. He was a native of Cape Girardeau, son of George Ferris and Bessie Gail Kitchen Knight. Mr. Knight had made his home in Barnesville for a number of years. He was a teacher at Lamar County Comprehensive High School, and a member of First United Methodist Church in Barnesville...

John Bruce Kelly, 55, of Jackson died Thursday, Aug. 24, 2006, at his home. Cracraft-Miller Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Williams aces No. 18 at Cape Jaycees course Jeff Williams fired a hole in one Wednesday on the 18th hole at Cape Jaycee Municipal Golf Course. He used a 5-iron on the 177-yard par-3 finishing hole. Witnesses were J.R. Richardson and Butch Smiley. Joellen Haas won the play of the day -- best score on odd holes -- Tuesday in the J.C. Chip-A-Ways women's golf action at Cape Jaycee Municipal Golf Course...

Milton Ellebracht, 83, of Cape Girardeau died Friday, Aug. 25, 2006, at the Arbor Creek Care Facility in Cape Girardeau. Friends may call from 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday at McCombs Funeral Home in Cape Girardeau. The funeral will be at 1:30 p.m. Monday at the funeral home. Burial will be in Fairmont Cemetery...

Merrick; Quintas-Cruz; Hays

25 years ago: Aug. 26, 1981 Enrollment early into Cape Girardeau Public Schools' new year is down -- and predictably so in view of a continuing trend of declining pupil numbers; yesterday, there was a total of 4,180 pupils in the district's nine schools; that compares with 4,300 at the same time last year...

Keep our freedoms; Potential for harm; Troubling dropouts; Disaster area; Love one another; They need help

Two Cape Girardeau businessmen and their families announced Friday their $375,000 donation to go toward helping the poor in Nicaragua. Midamerica Hotels Corp. owner Jim Drury and his wife, Charlotte, donated $239,000 to the Rainbow Network, a nondenominational Christian organization based in Springfield, Mo., that helps the needy in Nicaragua. The Drurys were joined by Rite Group president Robin Cole and his family, who donated $136,000 to the network...

Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., spoke before about 25 people Friday on the subjects of clean energy, the "death tax" and the war on terror. On each subject he drew distinctions between his stance and that of his opponent, Democratic State Auditor Claire McCaskill...

The listing in Friday's Arts and Leisure calendar for the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri should have said the arts council is exhibiting the work of James V. Parker and Nicholas Kyle in its galleries through Aug. 30.

ROGERSVILLE, Mo. -- Earlene Stirts was not surprised eight years ago when her son, Zach, then 13, announced his decision to become a firefighter. It's in his blood. There's his father, Rich Stirts, 42, chief at Logan-Rogersville Fire Protection District...

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union swept away a major hurdle to keeping the peace between Israel and Hezbollah by agreeing Friday to provide the "backbone" of a French-led peacekeeping force of 15,000 soldiers in Lebanon. Israel said it would lift its air and sea embargo of Lebanon once the U.N. ...

ESSEX, Vt. -- A man accused of killing two people and wounding two others in a shooting rampage that began at his ex-girlfriend's home and continued at an elementary school pleaded not guilty Friday, while a prosecutor said the suspect confessed to the crimes...

NIAMEY, Niger -- The U.N. food agency inaugurated a program Friday to help feed hundreds of thousands of people in Niger as the impoverished West African nation struggles to recover from severe shortages. Scant rainfall and locusts ruined crops two years ago and Niger suffered through a massive food crisis in 2005. Crop yields picked up last year but food stores are again dwindling ahead of this year's harvest...

Correction The Southeast Missourian regrets the errors...

NEW YORK -- When Venus Williams is healthy, she's still one of the top players in women's tennis. Like her sister, though, Williams has had plenty of problems with injuries, and the bum left wrist that's sidelined her since Wimbledon is forcing her to skip the U.S. Open...

When Jeremy Verhines walked into a music store to buy his first bass guitar, he didn't know why, but it just felt right. After buying it with borrowed money, he realized he still had no idea how to play. The store's usual teacher wasn't in, so they called in a replacement, and from there, Verhines' musical ministry began...

City officials say they are at "wit's end" over a Broadway street resurfacing job that should have taken only three weeks but instead has taken most of the summer. Private contractors, however, say the city should have known about buried utility lines, which are to blame for the delay. At issue is a 900-foot section of Broadway near the entrance of Southeast Missouri State University...