Stories from Wednesday, March 15, 1995

JACKSON -- Gladys Mae Farmer, 85, of Cape Girardeau died Tuesday, March 14, 1995, at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau. Arrangements were incomplete at Ford and Sons Funeral Home.

SCOTT CITY -- Lawrence A. Westrich, 83, of Scott City, died Tuesday, March 14, 1995, at Jackson Manor in Jackson. He was born July 28, 1911, in Kelso. He first married Clara Glastetter, who preceded him in death. He later married Nona Brockett, who also preceded him in death. He and Lettie E. Green were married Oct. 5, 1972...

Son to Archie W. and Ann Sprengel, 2848 Oakshire, Southeast Missouri Hospital, 8:18 a.m. Tuesday, March 7, 1995. Name, Russell Curtis. Weight, 8 pounds 1 ounce. Third son. Mrs. Sprengel is the former Ann Dickerson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. Edward Dickerson of Salisbury. She is a professor of nursing at Southeast Missouri State University. Sprengel is a computer programmer at the university, and is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Archie H. Sprengel of Cape Girardeau...

Thank you, Southeast Missourian, for your editorial of March 11 in which you remind the administration and Board of Regents of Southeast Missouri State University that tuition should be kept as low as possible. The university is in complete agreement with this position. ...

SCOTT CITY -- Ronnie Whitaker of Chaffee, the newest commissioner of the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority, said he was pleased to be part of the port's continued development. "There's quite a bit involved," Whitaker said as he attended his first regular monthly meeting Monday. "It will take a while to get my land legs under me."...

JACKSON -- School board candidates for the Jackson R-2 School District will face off from 7-9 p.m. Tuesday at the Jackson High School library. The three candidates, incumbents Marvin Adams and Jeanette Bollinger, and challenger Jewell Beauchamp, plan to participate in Meet the School Board Candidate, a forum sponsored yearly by the Jacksonian Chapter of the American Business Women's Association to help voters make informed school board choices...

Luck of the Irish Truffles combine whipping cream with Hershey's Cookies "n' mint bars. Pat Flanagan Litwicki served up her festive St. Pat's day corn beef cabbage for dinner along with Irish potatoes and green jellow. It has been said that there are two kinds of people in the world, those that are Irish and those that wish they were...

When the House Agriculture Committee's handling of food stamp reform prompted the conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal to call 8th District Rep. Bill Emerson a "welfare cheat" and the liberal editorial page of the Washington Post to praise him for doing "a good deed," it should have sent a signal across Emerson's bow that he might not be on the right side of the issue. ...

A committee of three Cape Girardeau councilmen has made several recommendations regarding city committees and advisory boards. For the most part, the panel has made some sensible and, in some cases, much-needed suggestions for improving the operations of the boards and committees...

ANNA, Ill. -- Daniel Monroe "Dan" Murrie, 86, of Anna, died Sunday, March 12, 1995, at Union County Hospital. He was born May 24, 1908, in Vienna, son of Newton J. and Mary Elizabeth McCall Murrie. He and Clare Henehan were married Dec. 1, 1945, in Cobden...

DONGOLA, Ill. -- Verna E. Medlin, 84, of Dongola, died Tuesday, March 14, 1995, at the home of a son in Dongola. She was born Sept. 10, 1910, in Dongola, daughter of Will and Mary Smoot Coffman. She and Darwin Medlin were married Sept. 12, 1928. He died June 17, 1980...

MATTHEWS -- Lee Henry Galloway, 71, of Matthews, died Monday, March 13, 1995, at Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston. He was born April 6, 1923, in Conran, son of Albert and Roxie Frazier Galloway. He and Elizabeth Helen Bunn were married April 26, 1957...

JACKSON -- Estella V. Thorne, 82, of Jackson, died Monday, March 13, 1995, at Heartland Care Rehab Center in Cape Girardeau. She was born May 22, 1912, near Burfordville, daughter of Francis "Frank" and Hester Meadows Howard. She and Otto Thorne were married Oct. 15, 1930. He died May 7, 1974...

OLMSTED, Ill. -- Dessie Curt, 86, Olmsted Route 1, died Monday, March 13, 1995, at Charleston Manor Nursing Home in Charleston, Mo. She was born July 1, 1908, in Olmsted, daughter of Oscar and Effie Billingsley Corzine. She married Oscar Curt. Curt was a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Mound City...

DONGOLA, Ill. -- Mark Dill Taylor, 45, Dongola Route 1, died Friday, March 10, 1995, at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo., from injuries received in a fall at his home. He was born April 15, 1949, at Holden Hospital in Carbondale, son of Dr. Jack B. and Elizabeth Dill Taylor. He and Sally Bass were married March 24, 1973. He later married Trish Cook Johnson June 26, 1989, in Cape Girardeau...

JACKSON -- Chester Gerecke, 69, of Jackson, died Tuesday, March 14, 1995, at Southeast Missouri Hospital. He was born Dec. 28, 1925, at Gordonville, son of Albert and Frieda Graden Gerecke. He married Dorothy Borgfield Oct. 7, 1948. Gerecke farmed in the Gordonville area several years. He owned Mac's Restaurant from 1961-65, and established Wayside Inn and operated it from 1966-93...

BENTON -- Madonna Suzanne Hulshof, 27, of Benton died Tuesday, March 14, 1995, at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. Arrangements were incomplete at Amick-Burnett Funeral Chapel in Benton.

SIKESTON -- Myrtle Lee, 86, of Taylorsville, Miss., died Monday, March 13, 1995, in Biloxi, Miss. She was born March 19, 1908, in Granite City, Ill., daughter of David C. and Elizabeth Hall. Survivors include a son, Ernie McConnell of Marble Hill; a daughter, Davida Quinn of Biloxi, and a sister, Ruth Hall of Providence, Ky...

ADVANCE -- Helen M. Rainey, 78, of Brandon, Fla., died Tuesday, March 14, 1995, at the home of a daughter in Brandon. She was born June 16, 1916, in Advance, daughter of James and Anna Hartwick Bagbey. She and Robert L. Rainey were married Dec. 22, 1941, at Bloomfield. He died Sept. 24, 1990...

Cape Girardeau Central High School seniors will complete graduation requirements prior to participating in commencement, if a new policy is adopted. Superintendent Neyland Clark said at Monday's school board meeting that the proposal is back in the hands of a high school committee drafting a suggested policy...

Rachel and Michael Sweet have taken steps to keep other parents from having to endure the loss of a child the way they did. "I'm telling other parents that they should get the vaccinations updated and to take their child to the hospital if they're not sure what's wrong," Rachel Sweet said, four days after losing her 13-year-old son, Michael, to HIB meningitis...

MAP -- CONTROLLED BURN JONESBORO, Ill. -- More than 800 acres in Shawnee National Forest burned near here Tuesday. Motorists traveling routes between here and Reynoldsville may have observed smoke emerging from the Atwood Ridge Research Natural Area, from 10 to dark...

The biographical poem that Michael Dennis Sweet wrote for his Louis J. Schultz seventh-grade class assignment made me think this was someone much older and wiser than a 13-year-old boy. Wrote Sweet, who was felled by a case of HIB meningitis, "I am the son of a happily married man. ...

If the dry, warm weather continues into today, County Park Superintendent Chester McCain and his crew will burn off the last of Cape County Park's wooded area. It's a controlled burn around the trees. McCain said it gets rid of leaves and debris, encouraging grass to grow...

I'D LIKE to comment on the Nieland girl who writes. She does a good job. I like what she writes. Also I would like to say that I hope there are submarines cruising up and down the Mississippi so they can blow that riverboat out of the water. WHERE'S THE coverage? Why does SEMO basketball have the Ron Shumate Show, KBSI-TV coverage, K103 radio coverage for their games, when all that SEMO baseball has is the box scores the next day in the paper? No radio, no TV or coach coverage. ...

METROPOLIS, Ill. -- Marvin R. Isoline, a 38-year-old motorcyclist from Metropolis, was killed in his hometown Tuesday when a tractor-trailer made a left turn in front of him. According to the Illinois State Police, Robert Williams, 39, of LaCenter, Ky., was northbound on U.S. 45 at around 12:20 p.m. Tuesday when he made a left turn into the entrance of Fort Massac Park...

The committee studying redistricting Cape Girardeau's elementary school attendance areas will look at the merits and pitfalls of pairing schools, a sixth-grade center and a magnet school. These first three scenarios were chosen based on ideas gathered at parent meetings held March 6 at each of the six elementary schools. Slightly more than 200 parents attended the meetings...

The League of Women Voters will hold a candidate forum Thursday for the Cape Girardeau Board of Education. The forum begins at 7 p.m. at the Central Junior High School cafeteria. Candidates for two three-year terms are Ed Thompson, Larry H. Trickey, R. Ferrell Ervin, Terry Taylor and Harold W. Hager...

CAIMITO, Panama -- Missouri National Guard troops participating in Task Force Mule aren't only building roads, schools and health clinics in Panamanian villages southwest of the capital city, but their building relationships with the Panamanian people...

The Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation on Tuesday asked a city task force to help find ways to pay for the anticipated $100,000 to $150,000 annual cost of maintaining St. Vincent's Seminary. The foundation made no specific proposals for how the money could be raised...

JACKSON -- Howard Alexander, business manager for Jackson Public Schools, had good news for the board Tuesday night: more receipts than expected, less expenditures than expected. The board reviewed Alexander's estimate for the rest of the budget year, which ends June 30. If all goes as planned, the district will take in $159,590 more than expected and spend $384,394 less than expected, resulting in an estimated ending balance of $3.9 million in the operating account...

No people on earth love flower bulbs more than the Dutch. In the Netherlands, where bulbs were first commercially produced more than 400 years ago, bulbs aren't only an important industry, but a national passion. It is appropriate that this tiny country should be home to the world's largest garden devoted to spring flowering bulbs...

Dr. Trish Volp will be the featured speaker at the Cape Girardeau Public Library's Third Thursday Travelogue Thursday at 7 p.m. Her program, "An Introduction to the People and Animals of East Central Africa," will present images from a three-week trip Volp took in 1989...