Stories from Sunday, April 26, 1992

JACKSON -- Bessie Ross, 91, of Herington, Kan., died Friday evening, April 24, 1992, at the Lutheran Home in Herington. She was formerly from the Jackson area. She was born March 23, 1901 in White City, Kan., daughter of Dan and Annie Hird Lee. She first married Glenn Burford of Jackson. He preceded her in death...

Ross Perot is at the crossroads. He is not facing the question of run or not run. Perot is well beyond that. The crossroads are know or not know. Does Perot pretend that he comprehends the problems the country faces and has some possible solutions? Or does he admit he doesn't know much about our problems and has no solutions? Up until now it has been the latter...

With all the hoopla in the media about the rising health care cost, I, a psychiatrist, could not resist throwing my two cents in. Let me tell ya: when all the laboratory tests are negative; when every type of scan one can think of has failed to reveal anything; when every cavity in the body has been explored; when every organ system has been visualized; when there are not more tests left to do, no more specialists left in the Yellow Pages, and the insurance has run out, they come to me with their pockets turned inside out.. ...

Dr. K.P.S. Kamath is a Cape Girardeau psychiatrist. What is the nature of this nation's malaise? Examining this question is a curious study. America is at peace, and the its most formidable adversary of the latter part of this century the Soviet Union has been disbanded. ...

Betty Domenoe, president of TOPS Club, Inc., will be keynote speaker during the groups's state convention, to be held at the Arena Building in Cape Girardeau Friday and Saturday. More than 1,200 Missouri members of Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS) Clubs are expected for the two-day event...

SIKESTON -- Kenny Dement, a Sikeston lawyer and former football standout at Southeast Missouri State University, has donated a 34-acre farm to the Abe Stuber Scholarship Endowment Fund at Southeast Missouri State University. Proceeds from the eventual sale of the land will go to the scholarship fund...

Daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Stephen E. Gallant of Olivette, Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, 1:01 a.m. Friday, April 17, 1992. Name, Madison Ross. Weight, 7 pounds 14 ounces. Second daughter. Mrs. Gallant is the former Melissa March, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bryce D. March of Cape Girardeau. She is a vice president and senior project director with The White Co. Gallant is a vice president with A.G. Edwards, and is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Gallant of Harrison, N.Y...

JACKSON -- Lydia Mathilda Haertling, 84, of Jackson, died Friday, April 24, 1992, at Jackson Manor. She was born March 25, 1908, at New Wells, daughter of Theodore and Sarah Grebing Gerler. She married Alfons E. Haertling Dec. 28, 1930, at New Wells. He died Nov. 17, 1957...

Mildred M. Bierbaum, 76, of Cape Girardeau, died Saturday, April 25, 1992 at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, where she had been a patient for some weeks. She was born Aug. 28, 1915 in Cape Girardeau, daughter of Oscar and Selma Keller Crites. She married Carl Bierbaum on Feb. 14, 1942 in St. Louis. He survives at Cape Girardeau...

MARBLE HILL - Marble Hill resident Cecil J. Sawyer, 81, died Saturday, April 25, 1992 at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. Sawyer was born at Miami, Fla. on Feb. 26, 1911 to the late James A. and Illma Baker Sawyer. On March 1, 1931, he married Mildred Codrick. She survives at Marble Hill...

PULASKI, Ill. - Carl Edward Stringer of Pulaski, Ill. died Friday, April 24, 1992 at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. He was 75. Stringer was born March 7, 1917 at Lakeland, Fla., son of the late Willie Webster and Nettie Kaupher Stringer...

Jerry Rachels was hacking away at a piece of 30-inch tulip poplar log. Robert Woehler kept his feet and hands busy as he turned a potter's wheel. Charlie Mungle was demonstrating a cutting tool which dated back more than a century. Rachels, Woehler and Mungle were among the more than 20 artists and crafters who were demonstrating their crafts Saturday at Black Forest village...

Mark Yeargian has spent a lot of time the past two days getting acquainted with a new wheelchair. "I've been practicing all week for a wheelchair race," said Yeargian, a student at Fredericktown Middle School. "But, my wheelchair developed a major short and we had to rent another one. This one is faster, and it takes some getting used to."...

Despite the chilly, damp weather Saturday, more than 500 people turned out to help beautify the Cape Girardeau city parks during Friends of the Park Day. Most of the activity was concentrated at Capaha Park, where flowers were planted, playground equipment painted, leaves raked and litter picked up...

Bill Phillips arrived at Alma Schrader school early Friday to get the jump on enrolling his daughter in kindergarten. But as it turned out, the anticipated enrollment rush never materialized. Only 54 kindergarten students for the 1992-93 school year were enrolled during the day-long registration, well short of the projected 100...

MARBLE HILL - The Missouri Highway and Transportation Department will conduct a series of public meetings in Marble Hill Monday to gather comments and suggestions for priorities on its 15-year highway construction and improvement plan for Southeast Missouri...

Police said a Jackson teenager was moderately injured Saturday afternoon when a vehicle pulled out in front of the vehicle she was driving on Kingshighway. Sgt. Carl Eakins said driver Heather Green, 18, of 623 Greensferry in Jackson, was taken to St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. She was treated and released, said a hospital spokeswoman...

Long-time, former Cape Girardeau police chief Irvin E. Beard died Thursday. Co-workers, who had been under his command at the Cape Girardeau Police Department, remembered him Friday as a meticulous and dedicated police officer. Beard, 85, of 132 S. Louisiana served as city police chief from May 1964 to September 1974. Prior to serving as police chief, he served for 20 years with the Missouri Highway Patrol. He died Thursday at 9:25 p.m. at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau...

Meeting the environmental challenge of the 1990s, including a discussion on the Clean Air Act, will be the topic of a day-long seminar to be held at the Holiday Inn in Cape Girardeau May 6. The seminar, presented by Dames & Moore, an environmental consulting firm and Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, a national law firm, will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m...

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council has declared today through next Sunday as the 1992 Days of Remembrance. Southeast Missouri State University will host two programs about the Holocaust this week. On Tuesday, Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen of St. Louis will discuss Jewish identity and the Holocaust. The program will begin at 7 p.m. in Room 125 of Crisp Hall on the university campus...

Eight Southeast Missouri State University alumni who majored in social science will discuss career possibilities during a panel discussion Thursday. It will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Program Lounge of the University Center. Admission is free, and the public is invited to attend...

Alfred C. Sikes, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), will present the spring commencement address May 9 at Southeast Missouri State University. As chairman, Sikes has established an FCC International Communications Office for global markets, expanded access to communications for handicapped and disabled Americans, and spearheaded adoption of telephone rate regulation reforms. He was appointed FCC chairman in August 1989...

I had some unusual research to do recently, so I headed for Kent Library. My first thought upon preparing for the journey was where will I park the car. My second thought was about the hill I'd, no doubt, have to climb, the hill that I used to run up from 383 N. Henderson if I was late for class...

Gary Gilbert believes his employees turn out a fine product: students trained to do jobs employers need done. Gilbert, director of the Cape Girardeau Area Vocational Technical School, has been instrumental in transforming students into workers since 1965...

Choose top quality bedding plants for your garden and then get them off to a good start. Apply the same strict standards to buying bedding plants that would to choose a melon or corn on the cob. Buy fresh, high quality plants. Bedding plants are young plants that have been grown in green houses form seeds or cuttings for those persons who do not, or cannot, start their own. ...

The Institute for Nursing Excellence at St. Francis Medical Center will host a day-long nursing seminar May 13 at the Holiday Inn Convention Center. The event is part of the medical center's observance of National Nurses' Week and National Hospital Week next month...

U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson of Cape Girardeau announced last week that the East Missouri Action Agency has been awarded $630,000 for Project Head Start in Southeast Missouri. Head Start, an early education program for "at-risk" children ages 3-5, relies solely on federal funding. The $630,000 awarded this week is the balance of the organization's $1.27 million annual budget...

The American Red Cross blood services will hold its community drive on Wednesday from 2-7 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Convention Center. Anyone age 17 or older may donate. No doctor permit is needed for a senior citizen to give blood. The drive is being sponsored by "Telephone Life Member Club" of Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. The goal is 100 units...

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Rust & Martin, Inc., a home furnishings and design center, opened Friday in new quarters at Mid City Business Center in Cape Centre. The 26,000-square-foot structure is located adjacent to Route K and next to Applebee's Restaurant, which opened in the Centre last year...

Universal Physique Gym has added an indoor sports center to its operation at 24 S. Minnesota St. in Cape Girardeau. "The sports center includes a baseball batting cage, golf driving range and putting area and a basketball adjustable goal area," said Doug Friese, owner of the operation. "We have also added various video games...

Father and son physicians, Dr. Melvin C. Kasten and Dr. Mark C. Kasten, both of Cape Girardeau, were elected to posts in the Missouri State Medical Association (MSMA) during the group's annual convention. Melvin Kasten was elected president-elect of the 6,000-member MSMA. He is a past chairman of the MSMA Council and has served on the council since 1983. He will assume the presidency of the association at its 1993 annual meeting...

Dial-A-Page, Inc., a privately owned radio paging service, has established an office in Cape Girardeau. The office, at 121 S. Broadview, Suite 6, will service Cape Girardeau, Sikeston, Dexter and Poplar Bluff in Missouri, Carbondale, Ill., and Paducah, Ky...

Farm & Home Savings will hold its second annual "Family Week" celebration April 27-May 2. The celebration will honor past and future generations of families that bank with the firm. Activities, prize drawings and refreshments will highlight the event, which will be held during normal business hours at the Cape Girardeau branch office, 211 Silver Springs Road...

Michelle Mills, a native of Cape Girardeau, has joined Pearson-Williams Court Reporting Firm in Bowling Green, Ky., as a court reporter. Mills is a winter-quarter graduate of the University of Minnesota-Crookson. She has an associate degree in applied science, majoring in court and conference reporting...

ST. LOUIS Spartech Corp. has announced the conversion of $10 million of debentures (bonds) into equity. "This conversion is just part of the company's previously announced $30 million debt-to-equity restructuring," said Bradley B. Buechler. Spartech, which operates three divisions, manufactures a wide range of products for the plastics industry, including rigid plastic sheets, specialty plastic alloys and compounds and extruded-blown polyethylene film...

ST. LOUIS Ted C. Wetterau, chairman and chief executive officer of Wetterau Inc., recently received the first J. Frank Grimes Founder's Award. The award is presented by Chicago-based IGA, Inc., for extraordinary achievement. Wetterau, which was founded almost 125 years ago, in 1869, and includes a warehouse distribution facility at Scott City, provides products and supplies to IGA and other supermarkets...

Richard Pisani, president of 2004 Missouri and a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, will be guest speaker at Southeast Missouri State University's Marketing Club Spring Banquet, to be held at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau Friday. "We're excited to have Pisani as our guest speaker," said Charles R. Wiles, club advisor for the marketing club. "He will be speaking on how a `Bullet Train' might lure the World's Fair and the Olympics to Missouri in 2004."...

Sharan Light and Karen Lewis have joined Classic Real Estate Ltd., Better Homes and Gardens as sales associates. Both associates have been in real estate seven years, and area life members of the Million Dollar Club. The also belong to the Missouri Association of Realtors, the National Association of Realtors and the Cape Girardeau Multiple Listing Service...