Stories from Monday, March 15, 1999

Beverly Cleair, a doctor of optometry from Cape Girardeau, recently attended the 76th Southern Educational Congress of Optometry, held at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. More than 200 hours of optometric-related courses, lectures, panel discussions and hands-on workshops were presented during the five-day conference...

This "Financial Focus" column is prepared by Edward Jones Investments, headquartered in St. Louis. Jones includes branches throughout the nation, including Cape Girardeau and Jackson. You probably know Trading Tom. He's the investor who buys and sells all the time. ...

Jack found out what bartering was when he traded a cow for beans, which grew into a giant beanstalk. You know the story. Jack, son of a very poor woman, traded his mother's only cow to a butcher, for a cap full of beans. In the case of Jack and the butcher, a barter deal was suggested and a deal was made, but no money changed hands...

Christine Byrd has received national certification as an acute care nurse practitioner through the American Nurses Credentialing Center. She is already certified as an adult nurse practitioner through the ANCC. Byrd received her bachelor's degree and master's degrees in nursing from Arizona State University in Tempe and her post-masters certificate as an adult nurse practitioner from Barnes-Jewish School of Nursing in St. Louis...

Amy Mezo of Wolf Lake, Ill., has received her certified public accountant license. Mezo, employed by Gail Lee, a certified public accountant in Scott City, is a graduate of Shawnee High School at Wolf Lake, and Southeast Missouri State University.

The new Buchheit store in Perryville held its grand opening last week. The new Buchheit's operation in the 64,000 square feet former Wal-Mart building at 1011 S. Highway 51, is the fifth store for the family-owned business. Other stores are at Biehle, Herculaneum, Sparta, Ill., and Jacksonville, Ind...

Jerry L. Reppert of Anna, Ill., has been elected director for Region 5, by the National Newspaper Association nominating committee. Region 5 includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Reppert is publisher of the Cairo Citizen and Anna Gazette. ...

Audrey Holifield of Jackson has joined Century 21 Key Realty as a sales representative. Holifield has nine years experience in real estate sales. She recently received the designation of graduate Realtor institute by the Missouri Association of Realtors, for completing 90 hours of specific education, outlined by National Association of Realtors...

Jim Pratt has joined LaCroix Pet Hospital as an associate veterinarian. Pratt, a graduate of University of Missouri-Columbia School of Veterinary Medicine in 1996, had worked at the Columbia Veterinary Hospital as an associate veterinarian. His wife, Dr. Julie Harper Pratt of Jackson is in her second year of dermatology residency at the UM-Columbia School of Medicine...

Matt Tanner of Sikeston has joined Union Planters Bank of Southeast Missouri as an assistant vice president and branch manager of the Sikeston South facility. Tanner, most recently an assistant vice president at Mercantile Bank, has experience in real estate, consumer and commercial lending...

Bradley B. Buechler, president and chief executive officer of Spartech Corp., headquartered in St. Louis, has been appointed chairman of the board. W.R. Clerihue will step down as chairman today, with Buechler assuming the responsibilities. Clerlihue was appointed chairman in October 1991, following a 16-year career at Celanese Corp. ...

Dr. Jagannathan Srinivasarghavan, staff psychiatrist at the John J. Pershing Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Poplar Bluff, and the Veterans Affairs Community Clinic at Cape Girardeau, recently presented a paper at the Indian Psychiatric Society and Indo-British-American Symposium in Bhubaneswar, India...

Attorney Paul F. Pautler Jr., formerly of Perryville and now of Kansas City, has been selected as a partner in the law firm of Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin, LLP in Kansas City. Pautler, a graduate of Perryville High School and William Jewell College, with a juris doctorate from the University of Missouri-Columbia, recently presented a series of IDA-sponsored seminars on employment law in the Perryville area...

Rapco International, 3581 Larch Laine, Jackson, will expand its manufacturing facility. A new 100,000-square-foot addition will house the sales, purchasing and accounting departments. Space vacated by these departments in the existing facility will be used to expand Rapco's manufacturing capabilities and warehouse capacity...

You can't sell a product if you don't get it on the shelf. That's the general topic of "Marketing Solutions," a seminar to be offered at Dunn-Richmond Economic Development Center at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale March 25. Daniel J. Frazer, who has worked with some of the nation's top advertising agencies working with such major brands as Anheuser-Busch, Ralston, Purina and Pet Corp., will be keynote speaker...

The Absent Secretary has opened at 1416 Themis and will specialize in transcription, word-processing and desktop publishing. It also provides newsletters, brochures, reports and manuscripts to clients. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday...

At one time in Paducah's downtown history, the first-floor occupancy rate of buildings in the downtown area barely topped the 30 percent mark. It was in the early 1980s, and drastic retail changes were taking place. Giant shopping malls were attracting stores and customers from downtown areas to sprawling areas near interstate highways, or urban areas...

Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4 percent in February as factories cut jobs to cope with the global financial crisis. But outside of manufacturing, job growth remained robust even as wage pressures lessened -- a combination that sparked huge rallies on Wall Street...

Missouri is the home of a multimillion-dollar elk industry, with more than 70 elk breeders. The major Missouri elk industry event of the year will be held March 20 at Macon at Lolli Brothers Livestock Market. More than 200 breeders from North American are expected to attend the event...

The annual Malden Business & Farm Expo, sponsored by the Malden Chamber of Commerce, will be held at the Malden Community Center March 27, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event is designed to help area merchants showcase their products and services, said Jared Brown, chamber director...

ShopKo Stores Inc. has announced fiscal 1998 earnings. Sales for the 52-week period ending Jan. 30 were $2.9 billion, up 15 percent over sales of $2.5 billion during the same period a year ago. Earnings for the year were $55.6 million. Diluted earnings per share, after a nonrecurring charge, were $2.10...

A drive past the construction site for Cape Girardeau's new elementary school, where steel work and concrete is all that can be seen, has left parents wondering why there is a rush to redraw boundary lines and move children. "Why do we have this sense of hurry?" asked Janet Berry, whose children would move from Alma Schrader to the new school, Barbara Blanchard Elementary School, under the proposal. "Let's slow down. There is no crisis or emergency. Why is this such an all-fired emergency?"...

Patric Stephens snowboarded down Academic hill Sunday. Stephens, who used to live in Oregon said the snowfalls aren't as frequent in Missouri, "but this is better than nothing." With just a week of winter left on the calendar, Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois got hit by a storm that left more than a foot of snow in some areas...

There was no favorite month for gambling in Missouri last year. In July, more than 3.5 million visitors pushed through the turnstiles of 16 gambling riverboat operations at 11 sites in the state -- an average of about 116,000 gamblers a day. In November, gamblers lost more than $243,000 a day, or $73 million for the month...

Art Simmers connected an automated pumping device to a cow's udders. Dairy farmers are faced with a drop in price after a recent USDA decision. Southeast Missouri dairy farmers won't soon forget the day Uncle Sam took their milk money. That day was March 5, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture slashed wholesale milk prices 40 percent...

A committee studying attendance boundaries in Cape Girardeau said its latest proposal moves toward resolving historically unbalanced minority distribution in the city's elementary schools. But some parents said the committee hasn't gone far enough. A proposal submitted to the Board of Education last month calls for nonwhite enrollments of between 15 and 35 percent per building when Barbara Blanchard Elementary School opens next fall. The districtwide minority enrollment is 25 percent...

With the opening of a substation, the Cape Girardeau Police Department not only is establishing a stronger presence in South Cape Girardeau, but it is embarking on a new direction as well. The department recently dedicated a neighborhood substation at 629 Good Hope in an area of the city that needs strong police presence. Plans are to eventually open a second substation on the city's west side, possibly in or near West Park Mall...

A letter in which National Rifle Association executive director James Baker urged lawmakers to support collective bargaining by public employees took a lot of lawmakers and many others by surprise. Lots of people have rightfully asked: Since when is the NRA interested in whether public employees unionize? They wondered: Why does the NRA even care?...

To the editor: Recently the Cape Girardeau School District's elementary-school attendance area committee proposed new boundaries. The resulting reaction has been predictable. People are upset, especially those who are affected most. It is important that a very public communication exist between the citizenry and the school board and that we be given thorough and complete answers to our questions and concerns...

Monday, March 15 City Hall Public hearing -- Hearing to consider the rezoning of all the property addressed as 2387 W. Jackson Boulevard from R-2 (single family residential) to C-2 (general commercial) as submitted by Stephen Wilson. Action items Power and Light Committee...

Tonight at 7:30 City Hall, 401 Independence Public hearing -- Hearing on applying for a Community Development Block Grant for water, sewer and street improvements at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport. Consent ordinances (Second and third readings)...

The mood was as somber as a gray winter day on Sunday afternoon at Houck Field House. Not only were hopes of ascending the Region 3 ladder dashed in Southeast Missouri State University's 193.525-192.475 setback to Auburn, but Southeast's top gymnast suffered an injury that stopped short her promising season...

DU QUOIN, Ill. -- Gordon Raymond Smith, 54, of Du Quoin and formerly of Jonesboro, died Saturday, March 13, 1999, at St. Joseph Memorial Hospital in Murphysboro. He was born Jan. 8, 1945, in Jonesoboro, son of Roy Lee and Thelma Bloodworth Smith. He married Darlene Sue Rulevish July 3, 1998, in Du Quoin...

GLEN ALLEN -- Thomas W. Anderson Sr., 80, of Glen Allen died Saturday, March 13, 1999, at the Bond Nursing Care Center in Marble Hill. He was born May 13, 1918, at Berkley, Ky., to George D. and Edna Lalone Anderson. He married Mae Burns July 4, 1942...

JONESBORO -- Robert C. Elkins, 68, of Jonesboro died Sunday, March 14, 1999, at the Union County Hospital in Anna. Funeral arrangements are pending at Hileman and Parr Funeral Services in Jonesboro.

SIKESTON -- Linda Peel, 60, of Sikeston died Sunday, March 14, 1999, at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Arrangements are pending at Blanchard Funeral Chapel in Sikeston.

JACKSON -- James H. Hendrickson, 83, of Jackson died Sunday, March 14, 1999, at Mission Hospital in Mission, Texas. Arrangements are incomplete at Cracraft-Miller Funeral Home in Jackson.

JACKSON -- Cecil Monteith, 93, of Jackson died Sunday, March 14, 1999, at Heartland Care and Rehab Center in Cape Girardeau. Funeral arrangements are incomplete at McCombs Funeral Home in Jackson.

PERRYVILLE -- Mary Lee Markwell, 60, of Wichita, Kan., died Thursday, March 11, 1999. She was born April 6, 1938, at Anthony, Kan., to Gilbert Earl Hornbaker and Florence Hafner. She married Darwin Markwell April 29, 1958, in Miami, Okla. Markwell was a retired executive secretary at H. and G. Marine Co. in Perryville...