Stories from Friday, May 14, 1993

Cape Girardeau, at least for a time, loses a bit of its soul after today. Southeast Missouri State University students complete their finals today and most head for the city boundaries, summer for many collegians being a time to set aside the books, replenish the finances or just take it easy. A summer session commences at the school, but the enrollment is lower and the tempo is slower. We will miss the vitality of another academic year gone by...

Three area students are among 651 seventh-grade students in Missouri recognized for academic achievement by TIP, the Duke University Talent Identification Program. Adam Andrews, who attends Scott City Junior High, was selected, as were Scott Essner of St. Augustine School in Kelso and Nick Underwood of Woodland Junior High School in Marble Hill...

JACKSON -- The Jackson Community Teachers Association has elected new officers. President for the 1993-94 school year is Edna Estes. Betty Meyer is vice president, Gerri Beussink is secretary and Cindy Moore is treasurer. Estes attended a spring leadership workshop at Southeast Missouri State University...

Ryan Hagedorn of Cape Girardeau has been named to the dean's list at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. Students must earn a grade point average of at least 3.5 to be named to the list. Hagedorn attended Southeast Missouri State University two years before transferring to the Aeronautical University, where he is majoring in aeronautical science. He hopes to become a commercial or corporate pilot...

Notre Dame High School Concert Choir members participated in state music contests at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Participants are judged on their performances and given a rating of I, II, or III. Juniors Ann Ostendorf, Adam Cox and Tracy Gragg and senior Matt Strohmeyer received a I rating on their vocal presentations. Seniors Jeff Augustine and Josh Adams received a II rating for their vocal solos. Sophomore Susannah Gillon received a I for her piano presentation...

Three area nursing students have been elected to Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. John Mason of Cape Girardeau, Bobbi Diane Kohlfeld of Scott City and Lorena LeGrand of Oran are undergraduate members of Lambda Theta chapter at Southeast Missouri State University...

The Notre Dame High School publications class earned first place for its yearbook at the Missouri Interscholastic Press Association contest. The school was honored in the thematic presentation for the book with it theme "Under No Condition." The entire class helped create the idea...

Mimi Higgins of Cape Girardeau received top honors at the 1993 Missouri State Vocational Industrial Clubs of America skill and leadership olympics. Higgins, a student at Cape Girardeau Vocational-Technical School, received first place in the SRI welding contest...

Michelle Marshall and Thomas Broussard, music majors at Southeast Missouri State University, have been selected for membership in the International Youth Wind Orchestra. They were two of four American students selected by taped audition to participate in the group...

Jenni Horn of Cape Girardeau has been initiated into Phi Beta Kappa at Centre College. Horn, the daughter of Paul and Barbara Horn of Huntington Drive, is a 1989 graduate of Notre Dame High School. At Centre, Horn is a dean's-list student, an undergraduate fellow, a residence director, a member of the leadership honorary Omicron Delta Kappa, and secretary of both the political science honorary Pi Sigma Alpha and the history honorary Phi Alpha Theta...

Marie Statler of Cape Girardeau demonstrated her quilting skills and displayed a number of her quilts at the Florida Folklore Festival sponsored by South Florida Community College. Her son, Gene Statler, is dean of adult and community education at the college. While visiting him, Statler was invited to participate in the annual event...

Nora Renka, a seventh-grader at L.J. Schultz Middle School, recently attended the state Geography Bee. Out of 2,000 entrants, Renka was chosen as one of the top 100 students. At the state contest she placed in the top 10. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Russell Renka. Teacher Betty Schuetts was her sponsor...

The math team at L.J. Schultz Middle School placed first in the nine-county regional Missouri Math League competition. Wendy Bartosik tied for the second highest score in the region. Members of the team include Bartosik, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Bartosik; Jill McCloskey, daughter of Patricia McCloskey; Darcy Ridgon, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Ridgon; Brandon Belvin, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Belvin; and Dane Imerman, son of Mr. and Mrs. Joel Woodring...

Ford Motor Credit Co. announced winners of an essay and poster contest held for 11th- and 12th-grade students at Notre Dame High School and Shawnee High School in Wolf Lake, Ill. Ryan Boren of Shawnee won the poster contest and Cassandra Wilson of Shawnee won the essay contest. They received $1,000 savings bonds...

I wrote a regular column of personal commentary in Cape Girardeau for 11 years. During that time, I let loose of roughly 800 pieces of opinion, water-torturing readers with foolishness 16 inches at a time. On May 6, 1992, I wrote a column and then didn't write any more...

St. Francis Medical Center's vascular laboratory, a service of the Heart Institute at St. Francis, has become the first lab of its kind in Southeast Missouri to be accredited. The lab was recognized by the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Vascular Laboratories...

Despite the rainy weather, construction work on the Cape LaCroix Creek-Walker Branch flood-control project continues to progress. As of April 29, the contractor Dumey Excavation and Brenda Kay Construction Inc. of Oran had completed about 70 percent of the work on the first phase of the project, which involves channel improvements along Cape LaCroix Creek from south of Bloomfield Road north to Arena Park...

Southeast Missouri State University student Melissa Compton died early Thursday in a St. Louis hospital, only hours after receiving the diploma she so desperately wanted. The 22-year-old Eureka woman, who majored in elementary education, died at 1:15 a.m. Thursday in Barnes Hospital, her life cut short by a brain tumor diagnosed only a few weeks earlier...

The Cape Girardeau City Council next month will have its first opportunity to consider a minimum property maintenance code. The city's Board of Appeals Thursday recommended the 1990 Building Officials and Code Administrators (BOCA) version of the code be presented to the council...

JEFFERSON CITY - After losing nearly nine hours of work time in the Senate due to a filibuster on the education tax package, members of the Missouri General Assembly will be trying to make up for lost time today. Adjournment is scheduled for 6 p.m. Nearly all major issues - including the education tax package, workers comp, health care, and economic development - entered the final day of the session with floor action still required in at least one chamber...

General Sign Co. of Cape Girardeau and Universal Sign Co. of St. Louis have entered into a sales agreement which will benefit both companies, says a spokesman of the local firm. "General Sign has the ability to produce huge electric signs," said the spokesman Thursday. "Universal has the sales staff to sell signs. This agreement will help both companies."...

In Cape Girardeau, Bubble Day comes after after Memorial Day. Bubble Day is the day the covering over the Central Municipal Pool comes down. In a way, it's the city's unofficial beginning of summer. This year, Bubble Day is June 8, but much work has to be done before the bubble actually can be deflated...

JEFFERSON CITY - Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan signed the 12 appropriations bills making up his first state budget Thursday afternoon, saying it was a conservative document that would not likely be subjected to the same withholdings as previous budgets...

Randall James Jeffries will be signing his third book, "Totally Tasteless Tragic Jokes," from 1-3 p.m. Saturday at Waldenbooks in the West Park Mall. Jeffries was once known as Randall Fetcho, the youngest candidate in the history of Illinois to run for the 59th District seat in the state legislature in 1974. Since then, he has been writing and acting under the name Jeffries...

Ann Lesetta Klipfel, 71, of Portageville, died Thursday, May 13, 1993, at the Lutheran Home. She was born March 15, 1922, at Lutesville, daughter of John and Bernadine Brands. She and Charles John Klipfel were married in 1942 at Portageville. He died March 15, 1970...

MARBLE HILL -- P.L. "Leo" Shrum, 86, of Marble Hill, died Wednesday, May 12, 1993, at Southeast Missouri Hospital. He was born Nov. 13, 1906, in Bollinger County, son of Leo Benton and Mary Catherine Wills Shrum. He and Marie A. Conrad were married May 21, 1936...

Pleasant weather today is expected to give way to a return of thunderstorms in the area Saturday. In the latest six-to-10-day outlook through the rest of next week, the weather service says Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois can expect above normal precipitation and near seasonal temperatures...

JONESBORO, Ill. -- Bill Thomason, 69, of Percy, formerly of Jonesboro, died Wednesday, May 12, 1993, at Three Springs Lodge in Chester. He was born May 31, 1923, in Bowling Green, Ky., son of Red and Jennie Witcher Thomason. He and Tessie Boldeon were married in 1944. She died in 1979...

Gilbert E. Hassen, 43, 1520 N. West End Boulevard, died Thursday, May 13, 1993, at his home. He was born Aug. 21, 1949, in St. Louis, son of Gilbert and Elsie Peak Hassen. He and Barbara Dodson were married Aug. 9, 1991, at Jackson. Hassen was sales manager with Prairie Farms Dairy here 15 years. He served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War...

CHARLESTON -- Alice Martha Faris, 92, of Ironton, formerly of Charleston, died Thursday, May 13, 1993, at Missouri Baptist Home in Ironton. She was born June 10, 1899, at Wolf Island, daughter of John Crockett and Amy Lydia Faris Jr. Faris attended Hardin College at Mexico, Mo., and graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in 1951. She began her 45-year teaching career in 1920 at Charleston Schools...

CAIRO, Ill. -- Ruth Sams, 92, of Paducah, Ky., formerly of Cairo, Ill., died Thursday, May 13, 1993, at Lourdes Hospital in Paducah. She was born Nov. 23, 1900, at Benton, Ky., daughter of Sam and Ida Mae Burton. She married Jewell Sams. He died Oct. 16, 1989...

EAST PRAIRIE -- Funeral service for Lola Margrett "Sis" Grogan of East Prairie will be held at 2 p.m. today at Shelby Funeral Chapel. The Rev. George White will officiate, with burial in East Prairie Memorial Park Cemetery. Grogan, 74, died Tuesday, May 11, 1993, at her home...

The McBride-Campbell-Every home and the Centenary United Methodist parsonage are two of the Bicentennial Home Tour's jewels, if only because the public has had little or no chance to view the interiors until now. The McBride-Campbell-Every home last was opened to the public 17 years ago. The current owners, William Scott Campbell and Pamela Every, bought the house in 1988 and are nearing completion of a project she calls "a restoration-renovation."...

Close encounters of the historic and architectural kind await visitors on Sunday's 1993 Bicentennial Spring Tour of Historic Homes & Places. For instance: Twin sisters Paula and Mary Kempe shared their ancestral home for 85 years until Mary, the former city librarian, died last year. Paula, a retired school teacher, moved to the Lutheran Home. Now the house at 226 N. Ellis St., replete with original chandeliers and a five-landing staircase, is for sale...

Art work by James V. Parker, retired founding director of the University Museum and Gallery, has been selected to appear in a new book by Watson-Guptill Publications. The 160-page book will consist of 250 full-color examples of collage techniques. The work of 50 American artists will be represented...