Stories from Monday, August 5, 1996

Famous Cuts, a family beauty salon, is holding its grand opening at 2031 Independence Thursday. The new salon, which opened last week, is owned by Shim Yi, a 1979 graduate of Stage One The Hair School at Cape Girardeau. She previously owned a beauty shop...

Nabisco Brands Inc., a manufacturer of cookies, cakes and other bakery items, is closing its National Biscuit Distribution Center at Cairo, Ill. The distribution center warehouse at 111 Washington Ave. opened in Cairo during the mid-1920s at 417 Ohio St. It moved to 111 Washington in the 1950s...

Missouri's unemployment rate for June is 4.4 percent. That rate is up 0.4 of a point from the previous month but is down 0.9 of a point from a year ago. The state's latest labor market report shows 32,800 more Missourians working in June than in May, pushing the number of Missourians with jobs to 2,768,000, up 40,000 from June 1995...

A framed sheet of "Annie Laurie" sheet music rests on the desk near the front of the newest mall to sell antiques in Cape Girardeau. "My brother gave it to me," said Mary Ann Robertson, owner of the Annie Laurie Antique Mall at 536 Broadway. The song was one reason for the name of the antique mall, which opened recently and has more than a dozen antique and collectible dealers...

Jeffrey A. Krantz, planning director at Southeast Missouri Hospital, spoke at the American Health Planning Association recent annual meeting in Chicago. Krantz, a board member of AHPA, discussed community health. Krantz, who is involved with several local community health programs here, also served as a moderator for a workshop, "Community Health Planning: Partnership with the Community."...

June construction activity in Missouri was down 22 percent from June 1995, but construction for the year is up 1 percent. June construction was reported at $486,427,000, compared to the $623,868,000 during the same month a year ago, according to the F.W. Dodge Division of McGraw-Hill, an authority on the construction market. For the year, construction was $3.09 billion, up from the $3.05 billion through the first six months of 1995...

Paramount Headwear Inc. has issued a notice to close its manufacturing facility at Advance over the next two months. Paramount Headwear, which operated in more than a dozen sites, is headquartered at Bourbon. The Advance operation opened in 1989, and in 1993 it employed more than 200 workers. Only 50 workers remain at the plant...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold a public meeting today concerning air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter. The EPA is be seeking public reaction on the two air standards. Mary Nichols, assistant administrator for air and radiation, Washington, and EPLA Region 7 Administrator Dennis Grams of Kansas City, will conduct the daylong event, beginning at 10 a.m...

Fastenal Co. sales were up 27.7 percent during the second quarter, ended June 30. Fastenal, a national distributor of threaded metal products and related construction supplies, reported quarter sales of $70.8 million up from the $55.5 million sales during the same period in 1995. Net earnings grew from $6.7 million in 1995 to $8.4 million during the second quarter of 1995, an increased of 26 percent. Earnings per share increased from 18 cents to 22 cents...

The Federal Land Bank Association of Southeast Missouri recently conducted annual meetings at Kennett and Sikeston. "Cotton" Ivy, a country humorist from Decaturville, Tenn., spoke at both meetings. The Federal Land Bank serves more than 1,200 stockholders in a dozen Southeast Missouri counties. ...

People with tax filing extensions must file by Aug. 15. The Internal Revenue Service reminds people who filled out Form 4868 and sent it to the IRS by the original April 15 deadline, received an automatic four-month filing extension. Taxpayers are reminded interest is charged on taxes paid after April 15...

Saturn could sell about 50,000 more cars a year if it could produce them, the president of General Motors Corp.'s small-car unit said. While Don Hudler said Thursday that Saturn continues to make improvements to increase production at its Spring Hill, Tenn., plant, he gave no indication when or if GM would expand the plant or build another. An additional 50,000 cars sold would generate more than $600 million in annual revenue...

Tonya Wells has joined the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce as communications director. Wells, a native of Wardell, is a graduate of Murray State University in Murray, Ky., with a bachelor's degree in electronic journalism. She was selected as the 1996 outstanding senior in electronic journalism at Murray State...

Penzel was building the Osage Park Community Center along North Kingshighway. Construction equipment used by Penzel included a crane on site at Osage Park. A local business is being honored by Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville for its 86 years in the construction business...

Flo Milburn, assistant cashier at Commerce Bank at Kennett is retiring after 32 years in the banking industry. Milburn joined Cotton Exchange Bank in April 1964 as a bookkeeper and has worked in every area of the bank. Milburn will be honored during a special open house/reception at the bank Aug. 30, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m...

Stephen J. Heddle has been named president of the primary products division at Noranda Aluminum Inc. near New Madrid. Heddle, who joined Noranda in 1980, has been serving as vice president of Noranda metallurgy and general manager of the CCR refinery at Montreal...

Richard and Sandy Hastings, owners of SERVPRO of Cape Girardeau/Scott Co., were honored recently at SERVPRO's National Convention in Seattle. The Hastings, who have been with SERVPRO for 17 years, received the Executive's Silver Award, and a Double Volume Award, for outstanding sales in 1995...

Steve Jackson, owner and manager of Snelling Personnel Service in Cape Girardeau, has been elected director and ethics chairman for the Southern Missouri Chapter of the National Association of Personnel Consultants. The Southern Missouri chapter, one of three in Missouri, serves the employment industry across the southern half of Missouri and northern half of Arkansas...

Cape Girardeau City Manager Michael Miller and Cape Girardeau school official, Richard Bollwerk, will speak at the August meeting of the West Cape Merchants Association, to be held at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 27 at Dumplin's Restaurant. Miller will present an update and review of Cape Girardeau, its progress and planning. Bollwerk will present a review of the School Facilities Committee report...

The same day Dr. Richard Martin committed to establishing an ear, nose and throat and general surgical clinic in Jamaica, he got a flyer in the mail advertising a 172-acre farm for sale. The price was good. The location southwest of Cape Girardeau was good. And Martin, a Cape Girardeau otolaryngologist and facial plastic surgeon, had always wanted a farm...

Voting was free and easy years ago before registration was required. Cape Girardeau County voters authorized voter registration in November 1964. The county clerk's office started registering voters in 1965. Statewide, mandatory registration wasn't required until legislation was signed by then governor Christopher Bond in 1973...

The celebration is over, and today hospital visitors will walk through a newly completed lobby at Southeast Missouri Hospital. On Sunday, the hospital threw a party for the community to celebrate the lobby's opening. It marked the culmination of Southeast's five-year development plan...

Missouri has a record number of registered voters. But most of them won't vote in Tuesday's primary, state and local election officials predict. More than 3.23 million people are registered to vote. But Secretary of State Bekki Cook anticipates that only 35 percent of them or around 1.2 million people will actually vote...

I've been in a very restless mood lately. Skittish. Jumpy. Utter hell, my friends tell me, to live with. You know the feeling. You know, deep in your bones, that something's going to happen, and you just want it to happen and be done. I don't have any logical reason to think anything's going to happen...

Reporters who have spent years covering political speeches have learned that to do their job efficiently, they must write like the wind and wait for a rereading to make sense of what was being said by the person on the other side of the podium. You can usually tell the age of a reporter by how fast he writes, particularly when covering a political oration that is traditionally long on style and extremely short on content...

Aware that it could be committing Southeast Missouri State University to a number of significant and costly campus improvements far into the future, the Board of Regents is considering a master plan for campus development over the next two decades. The plan, which the board has indicated it will adopt in some fashion at its meeting Aug. ...

Jackson's uptown business district not only has withstood the test of time, but a lot of competition that has sprung up over the years on the city's east side and in Cape Girardeau. Despite all of the retail businesses that can be easily reached in a 15-minute drive, Jackson and rural Cape Girardeau County residents continue to do business uptown. And the businesses continue to meet the needs of those shoppers as they always have...

This week the Southeast Missourian asked, "Do you think cartoon characters in cigarette and alcohol advertisements encourage children to drink or smoke?" Susan Cobb, Cape Girardeau "Now days they do, but I don't think when I was growing up it did because we had the Hamms Bear and stuff like that and it didn't really affect us whether we did or not ... I'd say now days probably it does because it is pounded at them so much on television."...

Democrats Max G. Stovall and Robert E. Meisenheimer are vying for the nomination for the Second District seat on the Cape Girardeau County Commission. The winner of Tuesday's primary will face incumbent Joe Gambill in the November election. Stovall, 72, is a lifelong Cape Girardeau resident and a former member of the Cape Girardeau City Council. He and his wife Evelyn have two children and three grandchildren...

The next Scott County assessor will be determined Tuesday when one of the three Democratic candidates on the primary ballot advances unopposed to the general election in November. Incumbent Teresa M. Houchin of Sikeston said there have been several improvements in the assessor's office since she took the position in September 1993. ...

Monday, Aug. 5 7:30 p.m. Action Items Power and Light Committee -- Consider motion authorizing pay request in the amount of $89,043 to Caldwell Tanks Inc. as final payment under the 300,000-gallon elevated tank contract. -- Consider ordinance accepting dedication of sanitary sewer and drainage easement from Cantaberry Properties...

Cape Girardeau City Council Agenda Monday, Aug. 5, 7:30 p.m. Public Hearing -- A public hearing regarding the request of Six Sisters Inc. to rezone 1641 Kingsway Drive and part of Lot 3, Six Sisters Subdivision from R-1 to C-2 general commercial. -- A public hearing regarding the request of Lynwood Baptist Church for a special-use permit for a church site on property in the 2000 block of Cape LaCroix Road in an R-1 district...

PERRYVILLE -- Alma P. Swank, 95, of Perryville died Sunday, Aug. 4, 1996, at Perry County Memorial Hospital. She was born Sept. 1, 1900, in Perry County, the daughter of Henry and Theresa Unseld Scheetz. She married Roy L. Swank, who died in 1957. Swank had been a sales clerk for Eggers General Merchandise Store in Menfro and was a member of the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Perryville and the American Legion Auxiliary Post 133...

Douglas Koch, 67, died Friday Aug. 2, 1996, at Cape Girardeau. He was born June 23, 1929, in Cape Girardeau, son of Gilbert Emil Louis and Avis Anna Rhyne Koch. He and Daisy Myer were married Sept. 3, 1949, at Jackson. Koch was a veteran of the Korean Conflict before being employed at Lone Star cement plant for 38 years, retiring in 1991 as a supervisor. He was a member of the Kiwanis Club, former president of the Marquette Fishing Club and a manager and coach with Cape Youth Baseball...

JONESBORO, Ill., -- Henry A. "Monk" Meisenheimer, 81, of Jonesboro died Sunday, Aug. 4, 1996, at the Union County Hospital in Anna, Ill. He was born in Reynoldsville, Ill., on Sept. 26, 1914. He married Frances Wilson on Sept. 3, 1938, in Jackson. He worked as a timber buyer for Colemans and Koppers Sawmill and was a member of the Reynoldsville Baptist Church...