Stories from Saturday, June 20, 2020

Southeast Missouri State University's board of regents, faced with the prospect of steep state budget cuts due to high unemployment and a pandemic-stifled economy, will consider a fiscal 2021 budget Monday. On June 1, Gov. Mike Parson announced $34 million in new cuts will hit Missouri's four-year colleges, including SEMO...

More than two dozen new COVID-19 cases were reported in the region Friday. Perry County reported 13 new cases; a total of 103 positive cases, 67 recoveries and zero deaths. Union County in Illinois also experienced a spike in cases Friday, with eight new cases reported in the county (176 total, 93 recoveries, 18 deaths)...

Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when Union soldiers brought news of the end of slavery to Texas, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and Friday, three events in Cape Girardeau brought people together for fun, food, music and fellowship...

Rodney Barnes, owner of Stooges in Jackson, said he thought the retaining wall around his restaurant parking lot looked "plain." No longer. In the last two weeks, six separate mural panels have been painted on the wall. "I did one of the Beatles myself," said Barnes, "and I wanted to give others the opportunity."...

A food truck rally is heading to the St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad depot, from 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays, starting June 24, according to a social media post. The depot, at 252 E. Jackson Boulevard, will feature several vendors, including:...

As the COVID-19 pandemic imposed unprecedented complications to the already-difficult job of parenting, mothers and fathers reinvented their home lives in previously-unimagined ways this year. Fathers of high school seniors found ways to celebrate graduations within recommended health guidelines, and grandparents were forced to develop drive-by relationships with grandchildren...

The Scott County sheriff's department is out of the aerial search and surveillance business for the time being. Department personnel sent off for repair a broken high-definition drone, purchased with funds raised by family and friends to honor a 23-year old Scott City man who died more than four years ago...

A cool glass of lemonade is just the ticket on a summer afternoon, and the Cape Girardeau police department had a hand in helping one lemonade stand get going. Behind Ruler Foods grocery store in Cape Girardeau, there's a small stand -- The Best Lemonade Stand -- and its proprietor, Dekaveon Walton-Bell, 7, of Cape Girardeau...

Fathers too often get the short end of the stick. You can chalk it up, at least in part, to a culture that too often paints dads to be ignorant, incompetent or worse. But the reality is fathers play a vital role in society. Last week, President Trump held a roundtable discussion at a Texas church. ...

Missouri's two largest military installations are unlikely to be among those targeted for a name change, as both are named for American heroes. In the wake of recent racial unrest across the country, some have called for the renaming of military installations named after Confederate officers. ...

A petition opposing the removal of the Confederate States of America monument in Cape Girardeau's Ivers Square has been circulating on the Internet since Tuesday. As of 4 p.m. Friday, the petition, written by Erin, a Cape Girardeau County resident who declined to give her full name due to safety concerns, had garnered 390 signatures...

Today is Saturday, June 20, the 172nd day of 2020. There are 194 days left in the year. Summer begins at 5:44 p.m., Eastern time. Today's Highlight in History: On June 20, 1837, Queen Victoria acceded to the British throne following the death of her uncle, King William IV...

The economy is reopening. Consumer spending increased by almost 18% last month, sending the stock market soaring. That's the good news. The bad news is that with no COVID-19 vaccine or cure on the horizon, consumers have not fully resumed their prepandemic activities, and they might not do so for quite a while. ...

Daughter to Jim and Brandy Mustain of Chaffee, Missouri, Southeast Hospital, 12:40 a.m. Monday, June 15, 2020. Name, Piper Susan. Weight, 8 pounds, 5 ounces. Fourth child, third daughter. Mrs. Mustain is an inventory analyst at Best Buy. Mustain is a fumigation supervisor with Presto-X...

Norma Louise Tuschhoff, 75, of Jackson passed away Tuesday, June 16, 2020, at Southeast Hospital in Cape Girardeau. She was born July 9, 1944, near Shawneetown, daughter of Norman H. and Mayovah L. Mirly Ludwig. Norma was a graduate of Oak Ridge High School and worked many years as a greeter at Walmart in Jackson. She was a lifelong member for St. John's Lutheran Church in Pocahontas, where she was baptized and confirmed...

Barbara Jean Klein, 84, of Cape Girardeau passed away Friday, June 19, 2020, at Chateau Girardeau. She was born Feb. 20, 1936, in Cairo, Illinois, to the late Roy and Helen Worthington Blank. She and Karl H. Klein were married Aug. 26, 1953, at Corinth, Mississippi. He preceded her in death Sept. 8, 2017...

ORAN, Mo. -- Pastor Brian Keith Gill, son of the late James Roland and Irene Alberta Howell Gill, was born Oct. 9, 1956, in Chaffee, Missouri, and departed this life Thursday, June 18, 2020, at Southeast Hospital in Cape Girardeau at the age of 63. Brian was the pastor at Perkins (Missouri) Baptist Church for the past 13 years and was formerly employed at Kirby sales. He enjoyed fishing, music, good food and family. He was a resident of Oran...

Mary Lee Ford Davis, 82, of Scott City died Friday, June 19, 2020, at Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau. She was born Nov. 21, 1937, in Cape Girardeau to John Henry and Mary Elizabeth Lynn Smith. She married Lloyd Ford on Nov. 29, 1957, and he preceded her in death April 28, 1986. She later married Joe Davis. He also preceded her in death...

Aileen H. Campbell, 85, of Saint Mary, Missouri, died Thursday, June 18, 2020 at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. Visitation will be from 9 to 10 a.m. July 2 at Ford and Young Funeral Home in Perryville. Funeral will be at 10 a.m. July 2 at the funeral home. Burial will be in Home Cemetery...

Curtis L. Brown, 56, passed away Wednesday, June 17, 2020, at his home in Jackson. He was born Sept. 27, 1963, in Iowa City, Iowa, to Dale and Joyce Sasseen Brown. He and Kara Cracraft were married June 6, 2015, in Jackson. Curt was a 1982 graduate of Jackson High School, where he played football, wrestled and ran track. In 1982, he placed second in the Missouri State Wrestling Tournament...

The Cape Girardeau County Commission is temporarily moving its meetings across the street, from the county's administrative building in Jackson to the county's former courthouse, beginning with its next meeting at 9 a.m. Monday. Commission meetings will be held in the third-floor courtroom of the historic courthouse...

Unlike coups or political revolutions, cultural revolutions don’t just change governments or leaders. Instead, they try to redefine entire societies. Their leaders call them “holistic” and “systemic.” Cultural revolutionaries attack the very referents of our daily lives. The Jacobins’ so-called Reign of Terror during the French Revolution slaughtered Christian clergy, renamed months and created a new supreme being Reason. Mao cracked down on supposed Western decadence like the wearing of eyeglasses and made peasants forge pot iron and intellectuals wear dunce caps.

Reversing earlier decisions, the Cape Girardeau City Council last night voted 5-0 to trim back golf and recreation fee increases to bring them within the constraints of a 5% tax-and-fee cap approved by the council last June; the council, with two members absent, also defeated a sewer fee hike, 3-2...

Capital Bancorporation Inc., a multi-bank holding company headquartered in Cape Girardeau, has announced an agreement to sell to Union Planters Corp. of Memphis, Tennessee; the banking company, founded in this county more than a century ago under the banner of Cape County Bank, operates 31 facilities through five subsidiary banks in Southeast, central and eastern Missouri and northern Arkansas...

Mike and Laura Kern of New Hamburg, Missouri, announce the engagement of their daughter, Anna Catherine Kern, to Jacob Michael Wagner of Bernie, Missouri. He is the son of Mike and Betty Wagner of Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Anna is a 2015 graduate of Scott City High School. She received a bachelor's degree in early-childhood education in 2019 from Southeast Missouri State University. She teaches third grade at Southeast Elementary School in Sikeston, Missouri...

A week or so ago, a cousin of mine called, and we got to talking about all the fishing lakes up in the Sandhills where I grew up. He mentioned a lake where Mick and Marge and I went fishing while she was pregnant with Vic. Just the mention of the lake brought to mind the times I went fishing there with my Grandpa Piihl. ...

I took this photo June 11. It shows the seed pods of a cottonwood tree bursting with what looks like cotton. In the mass of fluff are tiny seeds that are dispersed by the wind. Cottonwood trees naturally grow in wet areas along riverbanks, lakes and ponds. This tree can grow to 100 feet tall. Its wood is soft, rots easily and is not a good choice for use in constructing buildings. The wood is often used for making pallets...

None of the men in my life has had such a profound impact on me as my father. The Bible teaches what modern psychology has affirmed: Fathers, and those men who step into the lives of young people as father figures, matter. (Sean Rossman, "Why Dads Matter, according to science," USA Today, June 13, 2017, usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/13/why-dads-matter-according-science/377125001/.) Ephesians 6:4 reads, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." There are four principles from this verse for fathers of every era.. ...

One of my best friends from my teenage years died in a plane crash June 10. Earlier that Thursday, I saw a Facebook post with him and his family in a group photo. I hit "like" and scrolled on without reading. I assumed he had received another award from the Navy. Hours later, a mutual friend messaged me and informed me, "Vincent Segars was killed in a plane crash yesterday. He was training a friend (Commander Joshua Fuller) who was trying to earn his commercial license."...

"If you sneeze, the guy on the radio says bless you," my brother often quotes when describing the size and community of our hometown. That would be fitting if Puxico, Missouri, was prominent enough to have a radio station. The town has one grocery store, one flashing yellow light and more churches per capita than any place I have ever known...

Within the original 6,000-acre Spanish land grant that Don Louis Lorimier received in 1795-1797 was a 365-acre farm deeded to Thomas Jefferson Rodney, son of Thomas Smith Rodney and Maria Louise, daughter of Louis Lorimier and wife, Charlotte Bougaunville Pemanpieh...

My friend Emily recently reminded me that we are free. Jesus purchased us with the price of his life so we could walk in freedom and joy and love with him. He wants to be in relationship with us, to see what we will choose, to decide and live together. We don't have to complicate things. He wants us to enjoy being with him...