Stories from Monday, November 11, 1996

The Sikeston Area Chamber of Commerce promotional video has received the top marketing prize from the Missouri Industrial Development Council (MIDC). "Welcome to tahe Sikeston/Miner Area," a video which looks at the quality of life in the Sikeston-Miner area and profiles manufacturing, transportation, health services, tourism and financial services, received the MIDC award during the council's recent conference in Columbia...

Oliver J. Miller was recently honored during a retirement ceremony at Mercantile Bank of Southeast Missouri-Cape Girardeau. Shown, from left, Thomas H. Jacobsen, chairman and CEO of Mercantile Bancorporation Inc., St. Louis; Miller, Miller's wife, Mary, and John W. McClure, group president for community banking...

HAYNEVILLE, Ala. -- General Motors Corp. told an Alabama court that it had paid $67 million to settle lawsuits over a faulty $3 door latch installed in some 40 million vehicles. The payments came in 55 lawsuits challenging GM's Type III latches, which plaintiffs' lawyers contend are faulty and have led to hundreds of people being ejected from cars and trucks during accidents...

Drawings like Pat Malone's and Jeff Smith's concept of a self-defense item for women often accompanied patent requests. Fifty-seven patents have been granted to Cape Girardeau residents since 1977. From a remote control for alarm clocks to a device for operating on the back of the human eye, from spatulas to bibs, cat litter additives to fire resistant insulating compounds, the people of Cape Girardeau have expressed their inventive notions, then protected them through the U.S. ...

The Small Business Development Center will conduct counseling sessions in four areas this month. The counselor, Gil Degenhardt, will be available Nov. 20, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce office. The counseling sessions (about one hour) are free. Call 335-3312 for appointment...

"USA Rice -- Horizons" is theme of the 1996 USA Rice Outlook Conference to be held in Little Rock on Dec. 8-10. The annual conference, a major industrywide event, features a wide range of program topics, speakers and trade show. The host state, Arkansas, is the nation's largest rice-growing state, producing more than 40 percent of the U.S. rice. Rice is also grown in the Missouri Bootheel, which features one of the big rice processing centers -- Dreifus Rice Mill at New Madrid...

CALGARY, Alberta -- Canadian Airlines International said it will cut up to 250 jobs and impose a 10 percent wage reduction on employees as it struggles to remain in business. The airline also reported Friday that earnings in the third quarter -- typically its strongest -- fell 13 percent compared to the same period last year. And in the first nine months of the year, the airline said it lost 49 million Canadian dollars, worse than it had expected...

NEW YORK -- Confident that holding interest rates steady this year was the right move, the Federal Reserve will almost certainly keep the rates unchanged when it convenes Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal said last week. The newspaper quoted from conversations with federal officials, who note that inflation has been kept in check despite a relatively low unemployment rate...

JCPenney will conduct a special "Support Our Schools Day" shopping night Thursday at its West Park Mall store. JCPenney stores nationwide will close to the general public from 6 to 10 p.m. To obtain entrance into the store this special night, customers may purchase admission tickets for $5, which will represent a $5 savings on purchases of $50 or more during the evenings. The store will also feature a number of special discounts, door prizes and demonstrations...

DETROIT -- October sales reports from the U.S. auto industry have a familiar ring: Trucks are hot, cars are not. Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday that an 8 percent increase in light truck sales offset its 4 percent drop in car sales, for an overall 3 percent gain last month compared with October 1995. General Motors reported similar results Friday while Chrysler had good auto sales but better truck sales...

PLANO, Texas -- JCPenney Co. Inc. has announced it would buy Eckerd Corp. in a $2.59 billion cash-and-stock deal that would double the department store chain's revenues from the drugstore business. With the acquisition of Eckerd's 1,724 stores, which had sales of more than $5 billion last year, JCPenney's Thrift Drug Inc. subsidiary will operate about 2,800 drugstores with $10 billion in annual sales...

Hudson Foods Inc., headquartered at Rogers, Ark., reported net income of $8.8 million, or 29 cents in primary and fully diluted earnings per share during the fourth quarter that ended Sept. 28. For the year, Hudson reported net income of $28 million, or 76 cents in primary and fully diluted earnings. Sales climbed 14 percent, to a record $1.4 billion, from $1.2 billion a year ago...

WASHINGTON -- Unemployment held steady at a low 5.2 percent in October as businesses resumed hiring new workers at a brisk pace -- fresh evidence, President Clinton said, of a vibrant economy just days before the election. Clinton, who has made the economy the centerpiece of his re-election drive, contended Friday's report proved the falsehood of challenger Bob Dole's claim of a looming downturn...

WASHINGTON -- Responding to a worried public, the Big Three automakers said they will send letters to the owners of 22 million cars with passenger-side air bags, warning the devices can kill and injure children. The automakers also said Friday they would put less powerful air bags in cars sold in Canada and press for permission to do the same in the United States...

Bloomin' Balloon & Flowers, 101 N. Kingshighway, is under new ownership. Mark and Tammy Hoffman have purchased the business, which sells balloons and flowers. The business was previously owned by Rob and Diane Osborn.

HAYTI -- The Hayti Board of Aldermen has agreed to acquire the property now owned by the Hayti Industrial Development Corp. The property consists of 52 acres of vacant land and a building leased to the United Parcel Service. The industrial corporation was organized in 1949. The stockholders, at a recent meeting, agreed to sell its property to the city for a price not to exceed $70,000...

Bert's Barbecue has opened at 517 N. Silver Springs Road in Cape Girardeau. The family restaurant near North Silver Springs and Themis will feature barbecued ribs, chicken and sandwiches, and home-made pies and bread. Lieutenant and Bertha Smith are owners of the new restaurant...

The newspaper you're reading is the Southeast Missourian. Other newspapers you scan periodically are probably called the News, the Sun or the Post, maybe the Journal. And that's OK ... most American newspapers have names like these. In the "Shoe-Me State" alone, you'll find no fewer than 45 Journals, counting the 30 or so publications in the St. Louis Suburban Journals group...

Veterans Day has become a lost holiday to most Americans, area veterans say. Most people give little thought to the nation's former soldiers, they say. "Most of them don't give a damn," said World War II veteran Herb Nance of Cape Girardeau. Nance owns a business that sells American flags. He said many veterans are angry about the public's disinterest...

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- It was a cold, somewhat cloudy morning in rural Southern Illinois. A few snowflakes fell on open pasture, the Sunday quiet interrupted only by the occasional cry of a horn in the distance. Then came a loud bark. And another. Soon, a pack of 23 foxhounds was voicing, indicating they were on a scent...

Mel Carnahan may have just been re-elected Governor of Missouri but does he know of King Eringlen? It is unlikely since Eringlen and his barons, dukes, vassals, serfs, foot soldiers and princesses spend a good portion of their time in the world of the romanticized Middle Ages (See photo, Page 8A)...

On Sept. 7, 1951, near Pyongyang, N. Korea, a 19-year-old private from Poplar Bluff named Billie G. Kanell threw himself on a live grenade to save two comrades during a fire fight. A few seconds later another grenade fell into the foxhole and Kanell, mortally wounded from the first blast, rolled over toward the second grenade and used his battered body as a shield once again, sacrificing himself...

If the rest of the planet is getting ready to hibernate, why do I have to stay awake? Look! Up in the sky! It's...it's...it's a snowflake? There weren't many snowflakes the other night and they didn't stick around long (thank God), but something in my psyche objects to digging out the ice scraper before Thanksgiving...

Almost 3,400 men and one woman have received the Medal of Honor since the United States Congress made it a permanent decoration in 1863. It is the highest military honor awarded by the United States. Most of the medals have been awarded posthumously...

Every American except those who might have been unconscious for the past four years knows that the amount of money contributed and spent in U.S. elections is scandalous, reaching such an absurd point that candidates who have raised the most money are usually called winners even before the votes are counted...

When Cape Girardeau County officially becomes a first-class county in January, among the advantages will be the power to pass local ordinances to deal with local needs, rather than relying entirely on applicable state laws. One such set of ordinances that will likely come before the county commission will deal with regulating nuisances in the county ranging from littering to animal control...

It would be unfortunate, as a letter-to-the-editor writer recently observed, if we forgot to mark Veterans Day, which is being observed today around the nation. This is the day to honor all those who have served in the armed forces, particularly those who have fought on the battlefields around the globe in defense of the liberty and freedom Americans hold so dear...

To the editor: I would like to know what planet Donn Miller has been living on the past few years. His interpretation of the current situation in Afghanistan shows a complete disregard for history and a strange interpretation of what the goals of communism were in the post-World War II era. ...

Representatives from the Lutheran Family and Children's Services dissolved a few myths about adoption Sunday for about 45 people at Southeast's University Center. The members of both the St. Louis and the Cape Girardeau chapters of LFCS were at the university for a seminar to discuss the option of adopting African-American or bi-racial children...

This week the Southeast Missourian photographer asked, "Less than half of registered voters voted this election. Why do you think there is so much voter apathy?" Andrea Welker, Cape Girardeau "Because neither of the candidates is what the voters wanted, I think. Actually none of the three (candidates) had really what everyone wanted."...

November has always been the time of rebirth for the Native Americans of the Northern Cherokee Nation. Members hope a proclamation last week by President Bill Clinton designating November as National American Indian Heritage Month could mean a revitalization of the Native American society...

ORAN -- Irene M. Miller, 86, of Oran died Sunday, Nov. 10, 1996, at Chaffee Nursing Center. Arrangements are incomplete at the Amick-Burnett Funeral Chapel in Oran.

JACKSON -- Otto Christian Peetz, 77, of Jackson died Saturday, Nov. 9, 1996, at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau. He was born Aug. 12, 1919, in Tilsit, the son of Ferdinand and Amelia Burgfeld Peetz. On June 7, 1946, he married Lawana Farrow, who preceded him in death on June 14, 1989...

JACKSON -- Otto Sam Brandes, 88, of Jackson died Sunday, Nov. 10, 1996, at the Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau. Funeral arrangements are incomplete at McCombs Funeral Home in Jackson.

VASSAR, Mich. -- Beulah Rowland, 91, of Vassar, Mich., died Saturday, Nov. 9, 1996 in Flint, Mich. She was born Nov. 9, 1905, in Advance, daughter of the late Dallas and Ella Waddle Zimmerman. She is survived by one son, Dallas Hahn, of Clio, Mich.; one daughter, Dorthea Kemper, of Chicago; three sisters, Edna Welch, Carolyn Isbell and Lucile Long, all of Cape Girardeau; 11 grandchildren and 10 nieces and nephews...

JACKSON -- Barbara "Kiki" LaPierre, 76, of Jackson died Saturday, Nov. 9, 1996, at Bond Nursing Home in Marble Hill. She was born Sept. 11, 1920, in Arbor, the daughter of Cecil and Lucy Clippard Unger Sr. She married Charles "Snookie" LaPierre on June 28, 1941, and he preceded her in death on Oct. 17, 1996...

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- Mae Beggs, 88, of Murfreesboro, formerly of Dongola, Ill., died Saturday, Nov. 9, 1996, at the Boulevard Nursing Home in Murfreesboro. She was born on Oct. 24, 1908, in Union County, Ill., the daughter of Simon Edward and Dovey Ann Smoot Lingle. On Nov. 19, 1943, she married Jesse Beggs, who preceded her in death on May 23, 1977...

Patricia A. Brady, 55, of Cape Girardeau died Saturday, Nov. 9, 1996, at her home. She was born June 4, 1941, in Delta, daughter of Walter and Opal Gibbons Nix. On May 10, 1967, in Scott City, she married Donald E. Brady. She was a member of the First Assembly of God Church...

SCOTT CITY -- Charley "Lee" Anderson, 86, of Scott City died Sunday, Nov. 10, 1996, died at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau. Arrangements are incomplete at Amick-Burnett Funeral Chapel in Chaffee.

ULLIN -- George Jerald Fox, 62, of Ullin, died Sunday, Nov. 10, 1996, at his home. He was born Dec. 26, 1933, in Cobden, Ill., the son of John Knupp and Lela Mae Wilson Fox. He was a veteran of the Korean War and a member of the Carroll P. Foster Post 3455 VFW in Anna. He worked as a machine operator...