Stories from Saturday, February 16, 2008

Thousands of people were still without electric service in Southeast Missouri late Friday, most of them customers of rural electric cooperatives. But the numbers are decreasing, and utilities say their crews will work through the weekend to get power to more homes...

Though a schedule won't be released until April, River Campus managers got a peek Friday at next year's slated performances. Battleworks Dance Company, the Russian National Ballet, tap dancer Savion Glover and Cirque Eloize, performing the acrobatic show "Nebbia," are booked to take the stage...

Southeast Missouri State University regents will consider approving bond projects totaling $10.23 million to improve residence halls when they meet at 3:30 p.m. Monday. They will also consider raising room and board rates by 2.67 percent and consider approving a schedule of capital improvement projects for 2009...

Zachary C. Snyder, the 23-year-old victim in a shooting that occurred Thursday night at a Themis Street apartment complex, did not appear to be armed when he was shot once in the upper torso, a witness said Friday. Pam Dintelmann, a tenant at the apartment complex, was helping a friend unload groceries from her car when she saw Snyder speaking with a man in the parking lot near the door of her building...

The Central boys basketball team hoped for a solid performance to warm up for Monday's Class 5 District 1 basketball tournament. The Tigers were forced to settle for a lopsided defeat, falling at Dexter 71-43. Central trailed by 10 at halftime, then the Bearcats pushed the lead to 25 entering the fourth quarter...

Southeast Missourian MONROE, La. -- The Southeast Missouri State softball team picked up its third straight win to start the season Friday. The Redhawks defeated Central Arkansas 5-3 in their first game of the Mardi Gras Tournament hosted by Louisiana-Monroe...

Only lowly Tennessee-Martin stands in the way of the Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team making program history. Since joining the Ohio Valley Conference for the 1991-92 season, Southeast never has posted a perfect OVC road record. Beating the last-place Skyhawks today in Martin, Tenn., would complete that feat. Tipoff is scheduled for 4 p.m...

So much for taking momentum to Tennessee-Martin. That was the plan for the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team entering Thursday's home game against Eastern Illinois. The Redhawks hoped to pick up a much-needed win before visiting one of the Ohio Valley Conference's hottest squads...

Jackson junior Blake Peiffer's march toward a state wrestling title ended Friday when he lost his Class 4 215-pound state quarterfinal match in Columbia, Mo. Peiffer lost to Oak Park's Kolton Kono, 6-4. But Peiffer rebounded to defeat Ritenour's Derreon Richardson, 6-1...

Jackson sophomore Cailin McGinnis and Notre Dame junior Brittany Menz earned the top finishes among local competitors at the state girls swimming meet in St. Peters on Friday. McGinnis took 18th in the 100-yard backstroke, finishing in 1 minute, 4.75 seconds...

Both coaches involved with Friday night's women's gymnastics meet came away believing their team hit a high mark this season. Even if the scores didn't reflect it. "Our performance was the best of the year. The scores didn't indicate that," Southeast Missouri State coach Tom Farden said. "That's the liabilities of a subjective sport like gymnastics."...

BAD AXE, Mich. -- Donald Ertman got a little agitated when he found out he'd have to make the 150-mile trip to Lansing to collect his lottery winnings. All that for $150, he complained. Then the owner of the store that sold Ertman the $1 Mega Millions ticket set him straight: It was worth not $150, but a cool quarter of a million...

CONCORD, N.H. -- The chief songwriter and founder of the band Boston has more than a feeling that he's being ripped off by Mike Huckabee. In a letter to the Republican presidential hopeful, Tom Scholz complains that Huckabee is using his 1970s smash hit song "More Than a Feeling" without his permission. A former member of the band, Barry Goudreau, has appeared with Huckabee at campaign events, and they have played the song with Huckabee's band, Capitol Offense...

MILWAUKEE -- From Maine to Iowa and beyond, the unusually snowy winter has left dozens of communities with dwindling salt supplies and blown snow removal budgets -- five weeks before the official start of spring. The cities, many already cash-strapped, are trying to buy more supplies or make do with what's left by mixing salt with sand or selectively salting high-traffic intersections...

Graveside service for Cople Lillie Evans, 89, of Austin, Texas, was held Friday at Cape County Memorial Park in Cape Girardeau. The Rev. Donny Ford officiated. Evans died Monday, Feb. 11, 2008, at South Austin Hospital in Austin. She was born Oct. 3, 1918, in McGee, Mo., daughter of Charles and Maud B. Lincoln Carnes. She married James R. Jones in 1941. He preceded her in death in 1953. She then married John B. Evans in 1971. He preceded her in death in 1989...

DEKALB, Ill. -- If there is such a thing as a profile of a mass murderer, Steven Kazmierczak didn't fit it: outstanding student, engaging, polite and industrious, with what looked like a bright future in the criminal justice field. And yet on Thursday, the 27-year-old Kazmierczak, armed with three handguns and a brand-new pump-action shotgun he had carried onto campus in a guitar case, stepped from behind a screen on the stage of a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and opened fire on a geology class. ...

DWI; Theft

In the wake of this week's ice storm, AmerenUE is receiving high praise from customers whose power was cut off. From a high of outages experienced by close to 12,000 customers in Cape Girardeau County on Tuesday, the number had been reduced to only a handful by Friday morning. Ameren confronted the widespread outages with hundreds of repair crew members that included employees as well as personnel brought in from other companies...

In his 18 years as its superintendent, Hershel Price has never had to close Trail of Tears State Park before. Even in the Flood of 1993, when the Mississippi River submerged the marina and a few campsites, the park remained open. But the ice storm that wracked southern Missouri earlier this week forced Trail of Tears State Park to close indefinitely Friday out of concern for visitors' safety...

BEIJING -- As China prepares to dazzle the world at the Beijing Olympics, an uninvited guest is showing up early and threatening to mar the spectacle:~ this summer's games likely will be among the most politicized in decades free speech. A political row erupted in Europe when some Olympic committees and officials tried to muzzle athletes from speaking out about human rights and other sensitive issues at the games...

Christian history marks St. Valentine's Day with the separate martyrdoms of two individuals, one a priest and the other a bishop. Tradition traces the exchanging of cards and love tokens to an early European belief that the second week of February was when birds began to mate...

Casey Wayne Rhodes, 25, of Panama City Beach, Fla., died Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008, at his home. Visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Cracraft-Miller Funeral Home in Jackson. A service will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Francois Memorial Park in Bonne Terre, Mo...

Owens; Williams; Jansen; Thorn; Miget; Seyer; Rainey; Heacox; Bryant; Zoellner

CREVE COEUR, Mo. -- The pain continues in Kirkwood more than a week after a gunman shot to death five people at City Hall. But amid the gloom there was some good news Friday -- Mayor Mike Swoboda is showing signs of improvement. The mayor had been in critical condition since being shot Feb. 7 as part of Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton's rampage at a city council meeting. Family friend Tom Noonan said at a news conference that the 69-year-old mayor's condition has been upgraded to serious...

Seven-part series begins at Grace UMC "Walking the Path to Spiritual Growth," a seven-part sermon and study series begins next week at Grace United Methodist Church. The series is written and will be presented by the Rev. Scott Moon. It is inspired by "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard J. Foster. Worship is at 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., study at 9 a.m. Sunday...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- In a city where fashion sense has always played a distant second to staying warm, a cluster of boutiques in the budding "SoNo" district, south of Alaska's only Nordstrom store, does a surprisingly brisk business in $50 body lotions and $180 designer jeans...

CHICAGO -- Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who risked his life seeking to set records in high-tech balloons, gliders and jets, was declared dead Friday, five months after he vanished while flying in an ordinary small plane. The self-made business tycoon, who in 2002 became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon, was last seen Sept. 3 after taking off in a single-engine plane from an airstrip near Yerington, Nev., heading toward Bishop, Calif. He was 63...

WASHINGTON -- With a government eavesdropping law about to expire, Washington is awash in accusations over who's to blame. President Bush said Friday that "our country is in more danger of an attack" because of Congress' failure to adopt a Senate bill that would have renewed a law that made it easier for the government to spy on foreign phone calls and e-mails that pass through the United States...

ROME -- An 83-year-old former SS prison guard who was sentenced to life in jail in Italy for Nazi war crimes was extradited by Canada to Rome on Friday, officials said. Canadian authorities handed Michael Seifert over to Italian police in Toronto and a special military flight departed late Friday afternoon, said Alain Charette, a spokesman for Canada's Department of Justice...

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Daryl L. Burch, 60, of Perryville died Friday, Feb. 15, 2008, at Veterans Administration Medical Center in St. Louis. He was born Oct. 7, 1947, at Kaskaskia Island, Ill., son of Lee J. and Dorothy A. Lawrence Burch. Burch was a member of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church at Kaskaskia Island and VFW...

n At 6:43 p.m., emergency medical service in the 1800 block of Woodlawn Avenue. n At 5:17 p.m., emergency medical service in the 2800 block of Themis Street. n At 12:30 a.m., emergency medical service in the 800 block of Elm Street. n At 2:11 a.m., an alarm at Towers Circle...

ANNA, Ill. -- Mary Louise Newberry, 78, of Anna died Friday, Feb. 15, 2008, at her home. She was born Sept. 18, 1929, in Jonesboro, Ill., daughter of Ernest and Nancy Dixon Hurst. She married Haskell Newberry July 17, 1948, in Osceola, Ark. He died Oct. 6, 1996...

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Mabel A. Korando, 70, of Perryville died Friday, Feb. 15, 2008, at Perry County Memorial Hospital. She was born Feb. 15, 1938, in Perry County, daughter of Frank J. and Delith Ann Welker Krumm. She and Allen R. Korando were married June 1, 1963...

WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes...

The following government offices will be closed in observance of Presidents Day on Monday:n City of Cape Girardeau n City of Jackson n Scott City n City of Chaffee n Scott County n Cape Girardeau County n Bollinger County n State of Missouri offices...

MIAMI -- Every day, American Airlines Flight 914 takes off from Bogota, Colombia, at 8:~ no business or person has been charged with a crime 20 a.m. and touches down at the Miami airport at noon. In the jet's cargo hold are usually bags and bags of euros that investigators say are part of a huge $1.4 billion cocaine money-laundering scheme...

Denist O. Gibson, 76, of Cape Girardeau died Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008, at his home. Friends may call from 1 to 4 p.m. today at the Masonic Lodge in Cape Girardeau. A Masonic service will be held at 2:30 p.m. today. Announcement courtesy of McCombs Funeral Home in Jackson...

Storm decision; Smart dismissals; Recession lie; Troop morale; Uplifting stories; Waste of money; We earned it; Driving too fast; Rising to the occasion

BENTON, Mo -- A traffic stop on Highway 77 near Benton Thursday night resulted in two arrests and the recovery of a controlled substance from the vehicle, according to Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter. Dawonn Taylor, 26, of Cape Girardeau was arrested on an existing Scott County drug sales warrant. ...

ATLANTA -- The flu season is getting worse, and U.S. health officials say it's partly because the flu vaccine doesn't protect against most of the spreading flu bugs. The flu shot is a good match for only about 40 percent of this year's flu viruses, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday...

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Two Perryville men were charged with sex crimes, and Perry County officers have placed one in custody as of Friday. Robert M. Hager, 18, was charged with two counts of statutory rape and one of statutory sodomy, both with people younger than 14. ...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius warned city business leaders Friday that an expanding gap in math and science education will lead to more high-tech jobs going overseas or simply disappearing. Speaking at the Governors' Summit on Regional Economic Development, Blunt and Sebelius said they were pushing initiatives in their respective states to encourage more students to pursue technical careers and to increase the number of math and science teachers.. ...

Cape Girardeau County authorities praise the actions of 77-year-old Willard F. Hill of Jackson who dragged another Jackson man to safety after he was overcome with smoke from a fire yesterday which destroyed the concession stand at Lake Girardeau near Crump; Timothy P. Gillen, 26, was attempting to extinguish the blaze when he was overcome by smoke...

JOPLIN, MO. (AP) -- A Joplin teenager accused of firing an assault rifle at his middle school will remain in jail while his case is being appealed. A district judge Friday rejected a defense motion to put Thomas White, 15, on home detention or reduce his $250,000 bond while the Missouri Supreme Court decides whether he can be tried as an adult...

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Republican Sen. Kit Bond praised a bipartisan effort Friday that could secure up to $4 million in coming years to rebuild a floodwall that borders the Mississippi River here. Bond said it's been a long struggle to win funding for the project. But a new infusion of federal money means construction can finally begin to refurbish a rusty wall that holds back flood waters from an industrial area along the river's edge...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Some senators are blocking a proposed 50 percent fee increase on clean water permits that has been promoted as a way to improve Missouri's water pollution control efforts. The Department of Natural Resources estimates it needs an additional $30 million over the next five years for water quality monitoring, permits and inspections. Legislators created a special committee last year to study the problem...

"I didn't think it would work," Lou said, a touch of disgust in her voice that she was even trying to prove such a silly thing. Standing on tiptoe, looking over her shoulder into the bowl where she was beating an egg, I agreed that it wasn't working...

What if we kept performing the same job all our lives and expected things to remain the same? We all know that situation doesn't happen. So what can we do to prepare for what's next as our lives twist and turn? People develop from infants into adults, attend school and search for recreational, social and spiritual avenues they like. ...