Stories from Thursday, August 5, 1993

Flood water that has meandered into our area this summer has done more than find a place throughout residential areas and atop productive land. It has also lodged itself in our collective psyches, weighing as heavily on our minds as it does on some levees. The barren (and occasionally reckless) off-shoot of this is rumors that consume the time of officials and startle the population. The flood is bad enough; the flood of hearsay compounds the problem...

I don't know about you, but I'm one who hopes the folks responsible for having brought us last month's "Balloon Fest '93" will make plans to bring them back again next year, and the year after, and the year after. What a delightful, even thrilling sight it was to see those beautiful craft soaring over our community a couple of weekends ago. ...

As a prelude to Cape Girardeau's BBQ Fest later this month, there will be a barbecue training session and "practice cook" Saturday after at Cape County South Park, Shelter 20. A training session will begin at 2 p.m., with ribs and burgers on the grill. The "practice cook" will be at 3 p.m...

DELTA -- The start of school at Delta has been postponed three weeks due in part to flooding. The first day of classes is scheduled for Sept. 7 instead of Aug. 19. "We've got lots of water in parts of our district," Delta School District Superintendent Larry Beshears said...

The net apparently will be coming down on the men's tennis program at Southeast Missouri State University. The university administration has recommended terminating the program, partly because of gender equity concerns in intercollegiate athletics at Southeast...

Officials were relieved Wednesday to hear that Cape Girardeau County will receive state and federal disaster relief funds for public flood efforts. City officials said the announcement was timely, with the Mississippi River's greatest and, hopefully, final surge expected to pass Cape Girardeau Saturday...

Southern Baptist volunteers from Tennessee cook about 2,500 meals each day in their tents on the First Baptist Church parking lot. Once the hot food goes into the carrying containers, Red Cross volunteers in red and white vans called Emergency Relief Vehicles speedily take the handoff...

JACKSON -- To the untrained eye, Safety City, U.S.A. in Jackson, looks like a maze of sidewalks supplanted in a field of street signs, sprinkled with miniature buildings. But for the children of Jackson and surrounding areas, it is a kid-sized city, where they are the motorists following the rules of the road...

The Missouri Department of Conservation, in cooperation with Cape Girardeau VFW Post 3838, is conducting a hunter education class Saturday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., at the VFW Post, 1049 N. Kingshighway. The course will include gun safety, information about firearms and ammunition, responsibilities of the outdoorsman, outdoors ethics, and the role of the hunter and hunting in wildlife management and conservation...

Son to Mr. and Mrs. David Ludolph, 3022 Melrose, Southeast Missouri Hospital, 2:02 p.m. Monday, July 26, 1993. Name, Wade Joseph. Weight, 8 pounds 5 ounces. Fourth child, second son. Mrs. Ludolph is the former Susan Trenhaile, daughter of Earl and Judy Trenhaile of Manly, Iowa. She is a registered nurse in ICU at Southeast Hospital. Ludolph is a driver with Pennzoil in Marion, Ill. He is the son of Robert and Shirley Ludolph of Peoria, Ill...

FRIEDHEIM -- Melvin F. Zoellner, 64, of Friedheim, died Tuesday, Aug. 3, 1993, at his home. He was born Dec. 18, 1928, at Friedheim, son of Gustav and Mathilda Pohlman Zoellner. On July 3, 1954, he married Clara Bell Lohman. He was a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim, where he served as a trustee and on the church's finance board. He also was superintendent of the swine department for the Southeast Missouri District Fair Board...

CHARLESTON -- Gerald Dorothy Kitchen, 72, of Charleston, died Tuesday, Aug. 3, 1993, at her home. She was born Dec. 26, 1920, in Columbus, Ky., daughter of William and Ruth Webster Knox. She married Eddie Kitchen. Kitchen was a member of Perry Chapel AME Church and its Usher and Stewardess Boards...

BELL CITY -- W.T. Brown, 94, of Bell City, died Tuesday, Aug. 3, 1993, at Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston. He was born March 5, 1899, in Fox, Ark., son of Benjamin and Corna Aldona Johnson Brown. He and Plumer Jane Dowdy were married in June 1922. She died in March 1965. He later married Eva Mae Worsham Dec. 18, 1967. She died April 22, 1993...

FORT A.P. HILL, Va. - Thirty-one Boy Scouts from Southeast Missouri are among 30,000 Scouts from around the country attending the 1993 National Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill. The Scouts left July 28 and arrived at the jamboree Tuesday. The week-long event began officially Wednesday. Jamborees are held every four years in the United States to provide a chance for Scouting fellowship and for boys to learn about other parts of the country...

She was born Feb. 7, 1898, at Paris, Tenn., daughter of William and Maud Mueller Ball. She married Alfred Dewey Hill, July 6, 1917. He died in 1976. Hill was a homemaker and a member of the Concordia Ladies Aid. Survivors include three daughters, Betty Johnson of Jackson, Floretta Brewer of Crescent City, Fla., Joyce Peters of Indianapolis, Ind.; 17 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren...

JACKSON -- Alma Williams, 72, of Crump, Mo., died Wednesday, Aug. 4, 1993, at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. She was born June 13, 1921, at Crump, Mo., daughter of Jesse and Abba Proffer. She married Arthur Williams in May 1941. Williams retired in 1983 from the former International Shoe Company in Jackson where she had worked for more than 30 years...