Stories from Monday, March 3, 1997

Ford Motor Co. is selling its heavy-duty truck business to Freightliner Corp. as it continues to refocus on cars and light trucks. Terms of the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, were not disclosed. The companies hope to complete the sale by early 1998...

Scheffer's Office Furniture and Business Machine has opened at 909 Broadway. The company provides a variety of office machines and is an authorized Steelcase Office Furniture dealer. The new business, owned by Sonny and Bonnie Scheffer, is headquartered in Sikeston. The Scheffers have several years of experience in office machines and office furniture sales...

Joe Craig Photography of Dexter plans to open an office in Cape Girardeau. Craig, a certified professional photographer and a member of the Professional Photographers of America Inc., has purchased the former Lueders Studio in the 400 block of Broadway...

William D. Fender of Fender Gunsmithing replaced the feed throat on a shotgun at his shop, which is at the Re Armms firing range. A firing range provides a controlled setting for practicing with a handgun. SIKESTON -- Shooting a gun requires more than a steady hand, said Alan Reiman, owner of Re Armms Firearms and Indoor Firing Range in Sikeston...

With 24 apartments, 10 duplexes and 40 assisted living suites the Lutheran Nursing Home is a complete retirement complex. "Phase I of Saxony Village is complete," said spokesman Scott Sprandel. The Saxony Village project, announced in fall 1994, called for construction of one- and two-bedroom apartments, assisted living suites and a number of duplex apartments...

David C. Darnell, president of NationsBank Midwest, was in Cape Girardeau Friday, meeting with a number of the recently-acquired Boatmen's Bank staff members, board members and customers. NationsBank Midwest is responsible for all banking operations in the state of Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas and Iowa, including the Cape Girardeau area...

Red Letter Communications Inc. of Cape Girardeau, The Wright Group of Fredericktown and St. Francis Medical Center of Cape Girardeau were big winners of Addy awards Wednesday night by the Advertising Federation of Southeast Missouri. The three firms captured a combined 27 of the 52 awards...

Silk Tree Factory, headquartered at Paducah, Ky., opened Friday at 201 S. Broadview. The Cape Girardeau store is the 10th store in the Silk Tree Factory group founded by Joe and Cindy Wallace five years ago, Stores in the group range up to 60,000 square feet; the local operations consists of about 45,000 square feet...

The Cape Girardeau County Chapter of American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) will meet at 1:30 p.m. Monday at Grace United Methodist Church, Broadway and Caruthers. Dr. Dan Tallent will discuss the "Master Plan" for the improvements of Cape Girardeau Public Schools...

Mark Werner of Dutch Guttering and Insulation Inc. has attended a Gutter Helmet Dealers meeting in St. Peters where he received a Gutter Helmet Pro Certified Dealer award. Randy Hitt, a native of Cape Girardeau, has been selected as area engineer for the Southeast Missouri District of the Missouri Department of Transportation...

Wanted: Grape growers. Sales of Missouri wines and juices have increased so much during the past five years state grape growers can't keep up with the demand. The grape crop was short last year because of a harsh winter and a late, wet spring. Twice in the past three years, the state has suffered a grape shortfall...

CompuServe Corp. has quietly cut 500 jobs, or 14 percent of its work force, over the last nine months in a bid to reverse losses in its flagship online computer service. The job cuts, disclosed last week, were the latest evidence of the online company's troubles as it continues to lose members in an intense competition with America Online and other rivals. ...

Representatives from 20 area businesses attended a recent occupational medicine seminar held at the Drury Lodge in Cape Girardeau. Dr. Anthony C. Zoffuto discussed the scope and nature of occupational medical services during the seminar, which was sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Physicians Associates and HealthSouth of Cape Girardeau...

Raymond James & Associates, an affiliate of Robert Thomas Securities Inc., finished at the top of the list in stock picking among the nation's top 17 brokerage firms for two time periods -- one and five years -- in a study conducted for the Wall Street Journal by Zacks Investment Research,...

The A.G. Edwards Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 18 cents per share, to be paid April 1 to shareholders of record March 7. The investment company, headquartered at St. Louis, has been ranked among the top three in a recent stock-picking study conducted by Zacks Investment Research...

Raytheon Co. is looking for a buyer for its appliance business, known for Amana microwave ovens and Speed Queen washers. The planned sale, announced Sunday, will help cut into the $11 billion in debt Raytheon will incur in acquiring defense businesses from Texas Instruments Inc. and General Motors Corp...

"Profit Strategies '97," a farm marketing meeting, will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday at Ste. Genevieve. The three-hour session will be held at Family Inn Restaurant, Interstate 55 and M & N exit. Gene Paul, National Farmers national president, will discus the farm industry's latest marketing trends and techniques...

The City of Roses Charter Chapter of the American Business Women's Association will meet Thursday at the Drury Lodge in Cape Girardeau. The social time will begin at 6 p.m. with the meeting and meal at 6:30. The program will be presented by Glen Reeves, of Horizon Screen Printing and Promotional Products. The vocational speaker will be Pam Rutherford with Delta Express...

Spartech Corp. has announced record sales and earnings for the first quarter, which ended Feb. 1. Bradley B. Buechler, Spartech president and chief executive officer, reported quarterly sales for the first three months of fiscal 1997 at $113.5 million, up 30 percent from the $87.5 million during the same quarter a year ago...

Like a lot of people, Jeff Harms likes to read the newspaper first thing in the morning. Unlike a lot of people, his first objective is to look at the date -- "to associate myself." Then he reads the rest. "I'm a newsaholic," he says. "One of my favorite pastimes is to sit and read the newspaper...

Sheldon Tyler, left, director of the Alternative School in Cape Girardeau, congratulated graduates Sherri Loughary, center, and Jill Obergoenner-Prince at a ceremony Friday. The smell of pizza rather than the sound of "Pomp and Circumstance" was in the air, but the families of the graduates didn't seem to mind...

High-school students in Jackson and Perryville will have an alternative to regular classrooms when their districts get new alternative school programs underway later this month. Both school districts have been awarded a Division of Youth Services Juvenile Court Diversionary Grant to help develop creative education and life skills classes for at-risk students. The grants are worth nearly $49,000 each and are sponsored by the 32nd Judicial Circuit...

There were three collisions that first day of summer in 1986 when Jeff Harms rolled his Corvette. "The car flipped, the people inside crashed into the car and my organs began ricocheting off my body," he said. Harms sustained damage to his frontal lobe and to his brain stem...

Zoia Martin, the clerk of the Second Missionary Baptist Church, said the thought of tearing down the 130-year-old church building saddens her. "But it's fine with me if the Lord wills it," Martin said. "He knows what's best for me." Tonight's Cape Girardeau City Council meeting at 7 will include a public hearing to decide whether to issue a special use permit to allow Second Baptist to tear down its church building at the corner of Jefferson and Frederick and the abandoned parsonage next door. ...

Stop the presses! Great Britain has cut off funding for cloning research. And not because they were concerned about any ethical dilemmas cloning might present. Nope, the Brits pulled the money because the cloning research project was a success, so it's not research anymore...

If welfare reform measures designed to put more people to work are successful, the poor will find themselves with different needs as they begin the transition to becoming self-supporting. It is encouraging to see that a group of local organizations that help meet needs of the poor are gearing up for that transition...

At the risk of receiving a mail bomb from a disgruntled reader, let me be among the first to proclaim the start of Campaign 2000. Realizing that I am only one small and insignificant columnist in a cast of hundreds, I am reasonably certain that someone has already written a learned piece about the start of the next presidential/gubernatorial contests, which, according to my calendar, are only 1,348 days away...

TALKING ABOUT different things being taxed, I'd like to see them tax these dadblasted old yard sales and garage sales. Bargain hunters will actually block the road, and you can't get through. I say tax them and cut some of them out. I CAN'T believe this Trinity Broadcast Network canceled Pat Boone who has finally got with it with his new appearance. TBN needs to get a life and do something worthwhile...

Eagle Ridge Christian School, which has grown by more than 70 students since it moved in 1994 from Scott City to Cape Girardeau, is set to begin construction of a $1.2 million building that will contain 16 classrooms, a gymnasium and cafeteria. A ceremonial ground-breaking was held recently at the site. ...

Eddie Craft's first game bowling at Jackson Lanes last Monday night certainly gave no indication of just how special the evening would turn out to be for him. Competing for the Johannes Auto Sales team in the Monday Night Men's League, Craft rolled a 200 to get his series going...

Tickets are on sale for the fourth annual Doctor-Lawyer Basketball Game to benefit the Community Counseling Center Foundation. The game will take place Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Cape Central High School Tiger Field House. Tickets are $5 for adults and $2.50 for children under 12. A patron party will be held at the Royal N'Orleans at 5:30 p.m. That costs $30 per person and advance tickets are required...

Entering its games with Southeast Missouri State University, Northern Iowa's baseball team was averaging 13.5 runs per game through four contests. In Southeast's three previous games, the Indians allowed an average of 11.6 runs per game. So it was almost a given that Sunday's pair of seven-inning games at Capaha Park would be an offensive showcase, right?...

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Despite going winless in the season-opening SIU Tournament, Southeast Missouri State University softball coach Lana Flynn Richmond is not disappointed. "Not at all," she said. "As the games progressed throughout the tournament, I felt the team stepped it up a level. We played some of the best competition in the region."...

Members of Southeast Missouri State University's campus ministry organized a meal Sunday to sensitize the public to world hunger. The meal was a kick-off to the university's World Food Day events held this week despite the fact that the actual World Food Day was in November...

MATTHEWS -- Emergency workers looking for a man who disappeared after a traffic accident in New Madrid County Saturday plan to resume their search this morning. Harold Cailteux, 65, of Clifton, Ill., was heading north in driving rain on Interstate 55 just north of the Matthews exit at 3:18 Saturday afternoon when he lost control of his car and skidded off the road, said Gene Carter, a deputy with the New Madrid County Sheriff's Department. ...

City Hall Monday, 7:30 p.m. Public Hearing -- Hearing to consider rezoning request for lots 67, 78, 79, 91, 103 and part of lot 66 of the Original Town of Jackson from R-3 (General Residential) to C-3 (Central Business), as submitted by John Palish, trustee for St. Paul Lutheran Church...

E. Lucille Alcorn, 94, of 2825 Bloomfield Road died Sunday, March 2, 1997, at the Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau. She was born April 1, 1902, in Greenway, Ark., daughter of Andrew and Helen Birk Stokes. She married Esco Alcorn on Aug. 3, 1919, in Piggot, Ark. He preceded her in death on Nov. 28, 1986...

JACKSON -- Caleb Aaron Clark, 3 days old, of Jackson, died March 2, 1997, at his home. He was the son of Aaron and Kimberly Clark. Funeral arrangements are incomplete at Lorberg Memorial Funeral Chapel.

JONESBORO, Ill. -- James Carl Wilkins, 88, of Jonesboro died Saturday March 1, 1997, at Union County Nursing Home. He was born July 27, 1908, in Balcom, Ill., son of B. Franklin and Nellie M. Hileman Wilkins. He and Martha Roberta Rich were married June 7, 1932. She preceded him in death May 6, 1989...

BENTON -- Hermina Josephine Compas, 91, of Benton died Saturday, March 1, 1997, at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. She was born Dec. 23, 1905, in Kelso, daughter of John and Bertha Bles Dumey. She had been a cashier at St. Francis Medical Center and a telephone operator in Benton...

SIKESTON -- Donald Vance Parker, 77, formerly of Sikeston, died Saturday, March 1, 1997, at the Missouri Delta Medical Center. He was born Sept. 9, 1919, in New Madrid County, son of J.U. and Cora Mae Baker Parker. He had worked for General Motors in St. Louis for 25 years. He was a member of the Sikeston Eagles Aerie #3319, the Henry Meldrum Post of the American Legion and was a member of the United Auto Workers in St. Louis...

EAST PRAIRIE -- Lillie Mae Burgess, 96, of East Prairie died Saturday, March 1, 1997, at the Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston. She was born Feb. 19, 1901, in Mississippi County, daughter of George and Cora Fleming McMikle. She lived her entire life in Mississippi County and was a member of the First Church of God in East Prairie...

ANNA, Ill. -- Brenda Edgar will be keynote speaker at the Union County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner, to beheld at the Sunshine Inn Community Center in Anna Saturday. Edgar, wife of Gov. Jim Edgar, is a former Union County resident. Other speakers at the 6:30 p.m. dinner include Illinois Sen. Dave Luechtefeld (Okawville) and Ill. Rep. Mike Bost (Murphysboro)...

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Dorothy B. Sanguinetti Wolff, 69, of 406 Sheridan died Saturday, March 1, 1997, at Southeast Missouri Hospital. She was born Aug. 5, 1927, in St. Louis, daughter of George and Katherine Bruenger Sanguinetti. She had been a waitress at a Red Lobster in St. Louis...

This week the Southeast Missourian asked, "What do you think of the decision to put a full-time police officer at Cape Central High School?" Paul Kesterson, Cape Girardeau I think it's a good idea. A full-time officer there may be able to deter some of the activity they have over there now. Maybe the presence of a police officer will help to keep the kids in line."...