Stories from Sunday, May 1, 1994

Memorial service for Gerald Lee Slinkard, 65, of Hastings, Neb., will be held at 10 a.m. Monday in the gazebo at Memorial Park. No visitation is planned. Ford and Sons Mt. Auburn Chapel is in charge of arrangements. The wrong time for the service was published in Saturday's newspaper...

Dear Editor: Well, it looks like they're going to do it to us again. Less than three weeks after the election, House Speaker Bob Griffin is trying to get the gambling issue back on the ballot. This, of course, came after Griffin was quoted as saying, "As we stand here, I don't have any intention of bringing it back up."...

Warranty deeds issued at the office of Janet Robert, Cape Girardeau County recorder of deeds: JACKSON -- Marvin N. Popp to Gary W. and Donna L. Birk; Alan Journet to John M. and Susan D. Pettet; Helen G. Welker to the Helen Welker Trust. Howard G. Kinder Jr. to Zoi Mousadakos; Gregory R. Wilkerson to Chares R. Carter; Peter L. Cheneler Sr. to Clyde E. and Gina G. Quick...

The Missouri General Assembly finds itself in a "Groundhog Day" sort of dilemma. The movie concerned a man who keeps living the same day over and over. In the legislature's case, it keeps reliving the same issue: riverboat gambling. The Missouri House finds itself hesitant to ask state residents to address ballot questions they've addressed before. ...

"What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it." ---George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Pursuing games of chance for riverboat casinos in Missouri as if they were morally responsible solutions to more revenue for government, many of the state's political leaders are now striving to submit for a third time a revision of the constitutional prohibitions against gambling. ...

Powerful and famous people from all over the world came to honor and bury Richard Nixon. Thousands more walked past the flag-draped casket. But even those few who knew him best didn't claim to understand how his mind worked. They honored a perplexing, painfully aloof man who came closer to dominating American politics than any other person of the post-World War II era...

President Clinton spent two weeks during the month of April on the road, conducting a series of Town Hall meetings on the subject of his health care plan. During this period, public support for it dropped steadily. Apparently, the more people learn about ClintonCare, the less they like it. ...

Dear Friends, Early on the morning of April 2, 1994, I was critically injured on duty while working a marathon race on a police motorcycle. Within minutes of the accident, a doctor, a nurse, and a emergency medical technician participating in the race came to my aid. ...

Dear Editor, During his eulogy of Richard Nixon, Sen. Robert Dole said that the last half of the twentieth century will be remembered as the Age of Nixon. I doubt that he -- and know I -- have no idea whether that will ultimately be the case. Still, those words moved me. And I imagine they moved millions of others as well...

Theodore J. Glenn, M.D., will discuss Mental Health Month on this week's "Ask Your Doctor" program. "Ask Your Doctor" airs Thursday at 8 p.m. on Cape Girardeau cable channel 5. It features local doctors answering questions from viewers. Martha Muench and Dr. Jean A. Chapman interview doctors each week. The program is sponsored by Southeast Missouri Hospital, St. Francis Medical Center, the Cape Girardeau County Medical Center and channel 5...

EAST PRAIRIE - Jeanette P. Smotherman, 54, of East Prairie, died Friday, April 29, at the Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston. She was born Aug. 6, 1939, at Charleston, to Thomas and Clara Hale Johnson. On June 30, 1983, she married James "Shack" Smotherman. He survives, of the home...

Elma Haas, 96, of Cape Girardeau died Saturday, April 30, 1994 at The Lutheran Home. Funeral arrangements are incomplete with the Ford and Sons Funeral Home.

SIKESTON - Curtis Welborn, 77, of Sikeston, died Friday, April 29, at the Hunter Acres Caring Center, in Sikeston. He was born Sept. 19, 1916, at Double Springs, Ala., to William J. and Flora Curtis Welborn. Survivors include two sons, David Welborn and Tony Welborn, both of the state of Georgia; two daughters, Lisa Welborn and Barbara Welborn, both of the state of Ohio...

Norma Maxine Stone, 82, of Cape Girardeau, died Saturday, April 30, at the Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau. She was born Sept. 20, 1911, at Neelys Landing, to Loran and Addie McCormac Humes. On Nov. 1, 1929, she married Willis Stone, at Benton. He preceded her in death on Aug. 15, 1971...

Ervin Hobbs, 82, former presiding commissioner of Cape Girardeau County, and a life-long resident of rural Cape Girardeau County, died Friday, April 29, at the home of his daughter, in Cape Girardeau County. He was born Feb. 27, 1912, in Cape Girardeau County, to Charles J. and Etta A. Brooks Hobbs...

OAK RIDGE -- Ruby Elbrecht, 81, of Oak Ridge died Saturday, April 30, 1994 at Jackson Manor. She was born May 30, 1912 at Old Appleton, the daughter of Fritz and Rosie Bess Banbach. On Jan. 3, 1934, she married Norbert Elbrecht at Uniontown. He survives. She was a member of Trinity Lutheran Church at Friedheim...

SIKESTON - Verna Irene Hirschowitz, 74, of Sikeston, died Friday, April 29, at the Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston. She was born March 7, 1920, in Stoddard County, to John and Bertie Sims Harris. In March 1941, she married Abram S. Hirschowitz, in Galveston, Tex. He preceded her in death on Aug. 23, 1992...

PERRYVILLE - Florence L. Richardet, 88, of Perryville, died Friday, April 29, at the Perry County Memorial Hospital in Perryville. She was born July 1, 1905, at Silver Lake, to Houston and Anne Henneke Layton. She married Lester L. Richardet in 1924. He preceded her in death on Dec. 29, 1983...

Cape Girardeau's new bridge route has beaten a path to Mark Farmer's door and sent him packing. The local artist -- who specializes in pen and ink drawings of old buildings -- had lived in the rented, unassuming, one-story, frame house at 603 S. Benton for the past 14 years...

Under Missouri's gambling law, riverboat casinos can't float the Diversion Channel, an official with the Missouri Gaming Commission said Saturday. "It's got to be on the Missouri or Mississippi River -- period. There is no other place it can be," said Tom Irwin, executive director of the Missouri Gaming Commission...

JEFFERSON CITY -- The first construction phase of the $68 million Mississippi River bridge at Cape Girardeau could be let out for bid as early as October of 1995. But the project engineer said this can only happen if all federal money is in place. "And that's a big `if," said Al Laffoon from his Missouri Highway and Transportation office in Jefferson City. He is a former District 10 engineer at Sikeston...

A piano sale at the Show Me Center this weekend and a campus clothing sale April 22 renewed a debate about using the building as a retail outlet. Harry Rediger, manager of JCPenney in Cape Girardeau, said, "When you take a tax-funded facility and use for retail events it does border on unfair competition...

Tammy Sue Brotherton always admired and respected her school teachers. "My teachers were always real positive and had good thoughts to share with the class," said Brotherton. "I tried a couple of different things after graduating from college. All of my jobs were in the helping field...

Mayday! Mayday! It's not a distress call but rather a call to attention. Attend to the merry month as poets describe it. "Tell that to the Bosnians," says an inner voice. Poet Edmund Spencer says, "Then came faire May . . . throwing flow'ers out of her lap around."...