Wappapello residents injured in collision

ADVANCE, Mo. -- Highway 51, about five miles west of Advance, at Route P, was closed for several hours Wednesday after a two-vehicle accident injured two elderly Wappapello, Mo., residents. The Missouri State Highway Patrol said Lavon Griffith, 76, was traveling east, failed to yield and struck an older model Ford truck that was traveling north. The driver of the Ford truck, Kevin Hawkins, 34, of Poplar Bluff, Mo., was not injured in the accident. Lavon Griffith and her passenger, Billie T. Griffith, 84, were taken by a Stoddard County ambulance to Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. Emergency crews responded to the accident around 9:45 a.m.