Stories from Thursday, June 3, 1993

To the Editor: We've all heard that history repeats itself, and that those who are wise have the ability to learn from other people's mistakes. I hope and pray that we in Cape Girardeau possess this ability. For if we don't, the gambling issue could mark the beginning of the end of our beautiful city as we now know it...

ALTENBURG -- The Altenburg Lions Club has donated $600 to the Missouri Lions Eye Research Foundation in Columbia. The Foundation is the state sight project of the Missouri Lions. Money raised through state Lions Club groups supports the Missouri Lions Eye Tissue Bank, research into the causes and cures of blinding eye diseases, the mobile glaucoma detection programs and eyeglass recycling...

Patricia Foster, of Cape Girardeau, has received the Chapter B.I., P.E.O. Scholarship Grant for her final semester at Southeast Missouri State University. Foster will receive a bachelor of science degree in education in December. She will then be certified to teach English, speech, theater and English as a second language...

J. Heath Hensley, of Cape Girardeau, has been initiated into the Epsilon Mu Chapter of the national decision sciences honor society, Alpha Iota Delta, at the University of Missouri-Rolla. He has been elected to serve as president of the organization for the 1993-94 school year...

The Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School will offer a Computer Camp this summer for students entering grades 7-9. The camp will be July 12-23, Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. each day. Students will learn how to use IBM personal computers and some beginning DOS. Most of the class time will be spent learning how to write simple programs using the BASIC programming language...

Two Cape Girardeau residents have been awarded Regents' scholarships to attend Southeast Missouri State University during the 1993-1994 academic year. They are Chad Reimann and Jessica Colleen Hogan, who are graduating from Cape Girardeau Central High School...

Three Cape Girardeau Central High School graduating seniors and a Jackson graduate have been awarded President's scholarships to attend Southeast Missouri State University during the 1993-94 academic year. The students are Anna J. Fornkahl, Laura J. Krone and Rebecca J. Rigdon, all of Cape Girardeau; and Sandra K. Oliver of Jackson...

The Area Vietnam Veterans and Support Group is having its regular monthly meeting at 7 tonight, at the American Legion Post 63 above Beards Sports Shop. All Vietnam veterans, spouses of veterans and other interested persons are welcome to attend. For more information, call Roy Rhodes at 335-0683 or Jim Holloway at 335-0354...

Two local registered nurses will discuss "Current Issues in Nursing," tonight on "Ask Your Doctor." Marcie Southard-Ritter, RN, DON, at St. Francis Medical Center and Karen Hendrickson, RN, DON, at Southeast Missouri Hospital will lead the program at 8 p.m. on Cable Channel 5...

TIP, the Duke University Talent Identification Program, is sponsoring a recognition ceremony to honor some of Missouri's most talented seventh graders today. Boyne Park, a student at L.J. Schultz Middle School will be among those honored at the Drury College Weiser Gymnasium in Springfield, Mo...

Cape Girardeau Central High School turns out its senior class Friday night, the last of area schools to do so. These are joyous times for those who are completing high school degrees, a passage of sorts for these young people from secondary school to whatever comes next. We hesitate to offer in this space what is more often supplied by commencement speakers, but there are some thoughts worth sharing with the Class of 1993...

To "~g~amble" on finishing out in front, or being triumphant, maybe if you would turn on the lights and look at th~e loss that is very much~ a part of gambling~. The men and ~women that wil~~l be st~~anding~ on ~the other side of tha~t table,~ sailing, ta~kin~g your m~oney and~ sa~ying, "So~rry, yo~u lose." These people want you to lose. It's their job to take ~our ~money...

To the Editor: The Chamber of Commerce has come out in support of riverboat gambling, which was their duty as the members' vote dictated. Immediate response was dropped membership and threatened boycott. Why would anyone want to boycott community leaders' places of business when they were only the messengers of what the chamber membership wanted...

To the Editor: Are our young people not infinitely more important than dollar signs dancing before our eyes? Should we not be feeling a sense of responsibility for the environment they are to ~grow up in? Will we be tying another millstone around their necks as they fight to keep their heads above water in a sea of present day promiscuity, alcohol and drug addictions? Is the new peer pressure to become a look ahead to the glamour and glitz of the casinos? Is not, for some, the addiction ~~of the ~video arcades, in time and money, enough?. ...

To the Editor: May 27, 1993, wa~s not a ~good day for C~ape Girardeau area residents. Today, Gov. Carnahan signed the largest tax bill in the hi~story of Mi~ssouri.This ~so-called education reform bill total~~ $315 million in new taxes, without the vote of the people. ~He apparently thinks the voter~s are too ~stupid to make the right and proper deci~sion~ for their educational system~s. You can't "reform" Missouri~'s educational problems by throwing money at it...

To the Editor: Have you ever hear~d of a community wanting to waste 800 jobs? Believe it or not there is a faction locally that is in favor of such a measure. They claim the industry that will provide the jobs, riverboat gaming, is immoral. But, what really is immoral is not allowing some 800 people the opportunity of obtaining these jobs that will improve their standard of living immensely...

The Salvation Army will begin summer daycamp sessions June 14, for students ages kindergarten through fifth grade. The camps will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, running through Aug. 13. The theme for the camps this year is "Friends Around the World."...

Students at Franklin Elementary collected $350 for the Cape Girardeau Regional Fraternal Order of Police Bulletproof Vest Fund. The student council sponsored a Quarter Rally, which ran for one week. The council challenged all students to bring in a quarter a day to be donated to the vest fund...

If it seemed spring was a lot cooler than normal, that's because it was. And you can again blame it on El Nino and Mount Pinatubo. The months of March, April and May were the eighth coolest in 46 years in Cape Girardeau, said Al Robertson, climatologist and professor of geo-sciences at Southeast Missouri State University...

COLUMBIA - The Notre Dame Bulldogs scored two runs in the top of the seventh inning Wednesday to march into the Class 2A state championship game. They beat Wright City 5-3. Ace right-hander Greg Rubel fired a three-hitter at the Wildcats in the semifinal contest to continue the Bulldogs' postseason drive...

The Missouri Highway and Transportation Department is considering options to improve traffic safety on Highway 61-34 beneath Interstate 55 between Cape Girardeau and Jackson. One plan includes relocating the westbound lanes closer to the eastbound lanes, and eliminating the median from near the Veterans Home westward to where the dual lane highway comes together...

DUBUQUE, Iowa Once the home of lead-mining magnates and lumber barons, Dubuque's largest employer now is John Deere, and tourism has become an essential industry. Those mansions have been turned into bed-and-breakfasts that entertain some of the one million tourists who visit the city annually...

DUBUQUE, Iowa The London Times came to Dubuque when the nation's first riverboat casino opened here in April 1991. Riverboat gambling's spread to the Midwest was big news. But gambling was no big deal to this city of 60,000. Hoping to revitalize the city's flagging economy, in 1983 Dubuque voters passed a $7.8 million general obligation bond that enabled the city to build Iowa's first greyhound racetrack...

The Southeast Missourian has earned four awards for coverage of education in the annual Missouri State Teachers Association media awards competition. The Missourian won the association's first-ever award for a literacy program, honoring the YELL for Newspapers campaign...

CAIRO, Ill. -- Cairo Mayor James Wilson hopes to see a new police chief in place by Aug. 1. "We have started our search process," said Wilson. "Anyone can apply for the position. We'll review all applications." The position became vacant recently when Police Chief Harold Nelson announced his plans to retire after a year as head of the department...

"This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that was good, and that could be good again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come." From the movie "Field of Dreams" DYERSVILLE, Iowa Each year as many as 40,000 people fulfill the famous promise: "If you build it they will come."...

DUBUQUE, Iowa The Rev. Tom Grey is an anti-gambling crusader who lives in Galena, Ill., a town of 4,000 just 20 miles from the gambling boats on the river in Dubuque. "You are cannibalizing your own citizens," he says of the cities which have taken the gambling option...

JACKSON - Since May 20, the Boyd Group has spent $17,985 toward urging voters of Cape Girardeau to approve riverboat gambling for the city next Tuesday. Based in Las Vegas, the company has indicated it will try to locate a boat on the Mississippi River here if voters approve the issue. The Boyd Group has promised a $37 million investment in a gambling operation if they are chosen as the licensed boat operator here...

A Kennett man was killed late Monday when his truck ran off a highway and overturned. Timothy Madden, 35, was killed on Highway 25, about five miles south of Malden. A Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesman said that Madden was traveling south at a high rate of speed when he failed to negotiate a curb and his truck ran off the road, struck a utility pole guywire and overturned...

MARBLE HILL -- Dorothy Virginia Collins, 73, of Marble Hill, died Wednesday, June 2, 1993, at Southeast Missouri Hospital. She was born July 5, 1919, at Sank, daughter of Melvin Andrew and Elizabeth Hawn Eaker. She and Rev. Truman Edward Collins were married Dec. 23, 1939. He died March 17, 1992...

EAST PRAIRIE -- Lexie Ann Mitchell, 85, of East Prairie, died Wednesday, June 2, 1993, at East Prairie Nursing Center. She was born May 10, 1908, in Clinton, Ky., daughter of John William and Robbie Jefferson Jackson Taylor. She and James Milum Mitchell were married Sept. 6, 1926, in Conway, Ark. He died Sept. 11, 1977...

Son to Mr. and Mrs. Lin Baker, Jackson Route 3, Southeast Missouri Hospital, 10:27 a.m. Wednesday, May 26, 1993. Name, Clayton Paul. Weight, 6 pounds 14 ounces. Second son. Mrs. Baker is the former Kelley Oathout, daughter of Paul and Joyce Oathout of Coulterville, Ill. She is a medical technologist at St. Francis Medical Center. Baker is manager of Cape Starter and Alternator, and is the son of Leon Baker of Cape Girardeau...

In the obituary Wednesday of Esther Anita James, Cape Girardeau Route 2, information was omitted that a son also preceded her in death. James, 88, died Monday, May 31, 1993, at the Lutheran Home. Funeral service is at 10 a.m. today at Ford and Sons Mt. Auburn Chapel. The Rev. Karl Leeman will officiate, with burial in Memorial Park...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Capt. Dennis R. Lovell has been named commander of The Illinois State Police's District 12 Operations at Effingham. Lovell, a McClure native, joined the State Police in 1976. He first worked in District 2 at Elgin. Three years later he was transferred to Macomb, where he was promoted to corporal...

When the building trades class at Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School winds up for the year, instructor Bud Thompson sells the classroom. The classroom, a quad-level house at 1962 David, is being built by students in the program during this academic year...