Stories from Monday, May 22, 1995

At last, it's here. The finals completed, and it's graduation time. Students who have spent the past 17 years -- counting kindergarten -- in school are preparing to enter the "real world." For many, more school looms as students look to classes for master's and Ph.D work. For some, the clock is ticking off the hours until they say, "I do," in June, and for others, now is the time to travel...

Sixty Southeast Missouri State University full-time and visiting students will get a flavor for international business when they tour several overseas companies -- two with local ties -- during a three-week European Study Program which began last week. Students from Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Scott City, Sikeston, Perryville and other parts of Southeast Missouri, and the St. Louis metropolitan area are participating...

Jim Tilghman, pharmacist at Medical Arts Pharmacy Inc., says about 55 percent of the prescriptions he fills are generic drugs. At left are various generic drugs for high blood pressure, tranquilizers and aspirin while at right are name-brand drugs. Most generic drugs sell for half the price of name-brand drugs...

With a $5,000 check for the first installment of $25,000 pledge, Ford and Sons Funeral Homes of Cape Girardeau and Benton gave a significant start to the newly-established Perpetual Trust Foundation at the Cape Girardeau Missouri Veterans Home. Interest earned from the trust will be used to help pay for many needs of the Cape Veterans Home residents which are not funded by the State of Missouri or the Veterans Administration...

Sarah Young, formerly of Cape Girardeau, has joined Smith & Co. Engineers at Poplar Bluff as a design engineer. Young, who has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla, previously worked with the U.S. Public Health Service at Billings, Mont. She worked as intern in the engineering department with the city of Branson, Mo...

Wild animals roam Cape Girardeau's manicured lawns and open fields every night at this time of year -- raccoons, coyotes, deer, muskrats, skunks, beaver, fox and others. They're foraging or, like raccoons and coyotes, giving birth right now. Of all the wild animals in the city, raccoons are the most troublesome. ...

Cape Girardeau officials closed Water Street between Themis and Main Sunday in an effort to limit traffic over seeping cracks in the road. Kevin McMeel, assistant public works director, said water seeping through cracks and boils along the floodwall is normal as the river rises...

The swirl of smoke from Civil War black powder muskets mixed with the spicy aroma of barbecued beef, carnival cotton candy and various other cuisine that defines the region will set the stage for the 18th annual Riverfest celebration June 9 and 10. A variety of musical entertainment will include the rock band Rare Earth along with country music luminaries Joy Lynn White and Daron Norwood. All entertainment events are free...

DUTCHTOWN -- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials and Dutchtown residents cringed Sunday afternoon as light rain began to fall about 4 p.m. A levee protecting much of the town from the widening Diversion Channel is built, but Corps officials said additional rain or an increase in the predicted Mississippi River crest will demand the levee be built up further...

PATTON -- Raccoons aren't the pet for everyone, Nancy Johnson says. She knows. She has two of them. The raccoons -- Mr. Bojangles and Bandit -- occupy the basement of her log home on Highway 51 between Patton and Marble Hill. Raccoons are shy around people they don't know and don't get chummy with children. "They don't like screaming and yelling," she says. "That's a no-no."...

@$: The Southeast Missourian asked seniors at Cape Girardeau Central High School what they will miss about school after graduation. Chad Abernathy: "I'll miss my friends, because I'm going to Nashville Auto Diesel College in Tennessee. I'll miss teachers too, because they have been pretty helpful, especially my auto body teacher. He's crazy."...

Large crowds due during Riverfest weekend, June 9 and 10, have enabled KBSI to lure the first-ever Fox Sports Virtual Reality tour here. "The tour only goes to 34 cities in the country this year and there are over 180 Fox affiliates, so we needed to have something to show it would be worthwhile to bring it here," KBSI spokesman Brian Uptain said. "When they heard how many people would be downtown, they decided to include us in the tour."...

Relocating animals five or 10 miles outside town might not be the best solution to the problems that can occur when humans and wild animals share territory, Cape Girardeau Animal Control Officer Charles Stucker says. In a way, the city's problems are just being transferred to those who live outside town, he said...

YOU'RE RIGHT. Play Day is for the kids. Can you explain to me how spending two hours in the postal processing center and one and a half hours on the bus is fun? Lets have the kids take a vote. I think they would much rather stay at school outside and use the concession stand, the same way everyone else has for the past 30 years. Sounds like a lot of fun at Chaffee Play Day...

BLACK -- Jerry Dale Nolen, 19, of Black and formerly of Charleston, died Sunday, May 21, 1995, near Lesterville from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. He was born Jan. 15, 1976, in Charleston, the son of Fay Nolen Taylor of Marion, Ill. Other survivors include his maternal grandmother, Anna P. Nolen of Wyatt; his maternal great-grandmother, Mildred Dyer of Wyatt; and two half-brothers, Arnold Taylor and John Taylor of Marion, Ill...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Mary Ellen Sims Burke, 81, formerly of Mississippi County, died Sunday, May 21, 1995, at her son's home in Louisville. She was born April 16, 1914, in Dyer, Tenn., the daughter of Samuel Franklin and Sarah Ellen Alexander Sims. She married the Rev. Robert L. Burke on March 11, 1950, and he preceded her in death June 13, 1992...

ST. LOUIS -- Tommie Dean Pepper, 57, of St. Louis and formerly of Mississippi County, died Sunday, May 21, 1995, at the Incarnate Word Hospital in St. Louis. He was born Aug. 7, 1937, in East Prairie, the son of Clarence "Dutch" and Bessie B. Byassee Pepper. He married Betty Hill on Dec. 8, 1962...

PATTON -- Gertrude L. Lafarlette, 89, of Patton died Saturday, May 20, 1995, at Madison Memorial Hospital in Fredericktown. She was born July 29, 1905, in Perry County, the daughter of August and Roselle Moore Kiefer. She married Floyd Lafarlette in 1926, and he preceded her in death...

ADVANCE -- Everett Earl Looney, 87, of Advance died Sunday, May 21, 1995, at Puxico Nursing Center. He was born Sept. 13, 1907, in Advance, the son of Albert and Grace Mae Straney Looney. He married Vivian Pauline Ashcraft on May 10, 1936, in Marble Hill...

BERTRAND -- Otis C. Finley, 94, of Bertrand died Sunday, May 21, 1995, at Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston. He was born Nov. 2, 1900, in Paris, Tenn., the son of Jasper and Florence Lemons Finley. He married Ada Davis in 1919, and she preceded him in death in 1940. He married Pearl Reed in 1943, and she preceded him in death on May 9, 1992...

The current outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the 600,000-population city of Kikwit in the African country of Zaire has been widely publicized around the world. But a spokesman for the World Health Organization put the situation into some perspective: "When you have an epidemic of disease, you have two other epidemics -- panic and rumors."...

For all the knowledge that our species has acquired, it is interesting to know that nature still has some secrets. For example: The flood of 1993 inundated thousands of acres of woodlands, including areas near Cape Girardeau along the Mississippi River. After the water receded, the flooded trees began to snap off in the wind -- not at the bottom of the tree nor at the top, but precisely at the high-water mark during the flood...

To the editor: Thank you for your recent coverage of the Ameritech volunteer awards. The news article and recent editorial were both very supportive of the community's voluntary efforts Look around this fine community of ours and you will see that there are many people worthy of nomination. ...

There is always a certain degree of comfort for Missourians who live in the isolated safety of suburbs and small towns as they read the crime statistics that daily hint of the unsafe world existing within the state's largest cities. The comfort is not in the pleasure of seeing others subjected to the constant threat of violence but in the knowledge that our lives and those of our families are not subjected to the same stresses of urban, inner-core-city lives...

To the editor: I am a member of Freedom From Religion Foundation and an avid reader of the periodical Freethought Today. I have also had a chance to read some of the comments that appeared in the Southeast Missourian on March 31 regarding the cross in Cape Girardeau...

The American Wind Symphony Orchestra has scheduled a return performance in Cape Girardeau for June 23 and 24. The Pittsburgh-based orchestra, under the direction of Robert Austin Boudreau, is making its seventh tour and plans to perform while on board the Point Counterpoint II, which is a floating arts center and stage for the group...

The Cape Girardeau, built in 1923 by the Howard Ship Yard in Jefferson, Ind., was a 210-foot packet boat that carried passengers and cargo between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis before it was sold and renamed in 1935. The Cape Girardeau model built by Ken Marvin is only 54 inches long but will make Cape Girardeau its permanent home port on Wednesday...

Monday, May 22 7:30 p.m. Action Items Depository agreement. Approval of previous policy indicates school system would continue to alternate local banks as clearing banks and secure competitive bids for investment purposes. Agreements become effective July 1, 1995...

The same characteristics that made Ronnie and Dee Wright's Habitat for Humanity home a challenge to build add to its safety. Volunteers, friends and family gathered at the Wrights' two-story, four-bedroom home on high ground at 1515 Water St. Sunday while neighbors a few blocks over furiously filled sandbags to save almost-flooded homes. Others had fled the area days ago as Mississippi River waters rolled into Cape Girardeau...

Cape County Private Ambulance Service Inc. has put two new ambulances into service, replacing two older units. The custom-ordered ambulance chassis were purchased from Coad Chevrolet in Cape Girardeau and were converted by Osage Conversions of Linn to custom specification provided by CCPA...