Stories from Thursday, November 5, 2020

Ask my students and my colleagues, and they will agree: I love anything to do with leadership. Teaching it, talking and reading about it, experiencing it, and most of all, participating in people's leadership journeys in a variety of ways. As such, several years ago, I was asked to teach the capstone leadership course (BA664 Leadership in Management) for the Master of Science in Management degree in the Harrison College of Business and Computing at Southeast Missouri State University. ...

An exhibition of ceramics, metalwork, photography and painting by Southeast Missouri State University students will be on display Friday through Dec. 3 at Forge Gallery in Cape Girardeau. This inaugural exhibition in the recently opened Forge Gallery highlights the new space and the Southeast students' artwork...

Now that the calendar has turned to November, I feel like it is fair game to start with all of the holiday season recipe columns. I have several planned for you over the next several weeks, and we will kick off the holiday recipe season with cranberries...

The City of Jackson has approximately 6,200 commercial and residential electricity customers and will follow the dictates of Missouri’s Cold Weather Rule, even though the county seat community technically does not have to do so. The moratorium, established by the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) in 1977, forbids the cutoff of heat to customers under certain conditions during the winter months of November through March but municipally-owned systems, such as Jackson’s, are not under PSC jurisdiction. ...

I had it on very good authority that Tuesdays in Perryville, Missouri, were special for one reason: homemade chicken and dumplings at Incredible Edibles. Fall and the cooler weather had made this the perfect time to test that theory. The leaves were showing their color and falling in buckets across the road. The time had changed, and the world seemed to be moving slower and breathing a sigh of relief. I adore fall...

Mike Stevenson's service to country led directly to his service to community. The Cape Girardeau resident is a retired colonel who served in the Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard. He is a family practice doctor of osteopathic medicine, and in his military career, he was an infantry officer and field surgeon. His deployments took him throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. As a military doctor, he went where the troops needed him most...

Several Veterans Day events will occur in the region this year. Among them on Veterans Day: Flag presentation — 8 a.m., Cape Girardeau County Parks, 2400 County Park Drive, Cape. Presentation of new flags to honor those eligible service men from Cape County who passed away. Public is welcome...

John Dragoni served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. His military career took him to China, India, Burma and Guam. His experiences as a gunner were "very, very harrowing." Then, like the veterans of that war and others lucky enough to come home, Dragoni found other callings...

Jerry Lee Young, left, and his twin brother, Larry Dee Young, of Dexter, Missouri, are shown in this undated photo. The brothers trained together in Michigan before deploying to Okinawa, Japan, in air defense posts. ...

Lt. Jason Ladner's military career ended four and a half years ago, but he carries his soldier's mindset to work every day as the leader of Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Office jail division. Ladner served for nearly 13 years in the U.S. Army Reserve, primarily as a medic. He deployed to Iraq for nearly 18 months in 2008 and 2009 with the 955th Engineer Co. based at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. He also served with the 325th Combat Support Hospital based in Independence, Missouri...

Two area residents died because of COVID-19 Wednesday, and Cape Girardeau County marked its highest one-day increase in cases since the pandemic began. The deaths came in Stoddard and Bollinger counties in Missouri. Officials with Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center reported 102 new cases of the disease Wednesday, a day after reporting 54 new cases. The county’s total number of cases as of Wednesday was 3,312, with 2,820 recoveries and 53 deaths...

Wayne Wallingford celebrated his election as Missouri’s new House District 147 representative in an unexpected location Tuesday. Wallingford of Cape Girardeau received a kidney transplant the day before at Saint Louis University Hospital. “I had been on a waiting list (for a transplant) for a year-and-a-half and it just so happened a kidney became available this week,” said Wallingford, 74...

More voters than ever cast ballots Tuesday in Cape Girardeau County, but aside from some initial lines when polling places opened, most voting precincts reported steady, but not overwhelming, voter turnout. “It was like Black Friday when we opened the doors,” according to Maddie Hoffman, who served as an election judge at Good Shepherd Lutheran Chapel on West Cape Rock Drive in the City of Cape Girardeau, where 100 voters cast ballots between 6 and 6:30 a.m. Tuesday...

Pollsters and the national media missed big. An election that many predicted to be a Blue Wave for Democrats turned instead into a nail biter, with Republicans holding onto key U.S. Senate seats and even expanding their position in the House...

WASHINGTON -- The election scrambled seats in the House and Senate but ultimately left Congress much like it began, deeply split as voters resisted big changes despite the heated race at the top of the ticket for the White House. It's an outcome that dampens Democratic demands for a bold new agenda, emboldens Republicans and almost ensures partisan gridlock regardless of who wins the presidency. Or perhaps, as some say, it provides a rare opening for modest across-the-aisle cooperation...

Thank you, O God, that in you we can trade our sorrows for the joy of the Lord. Amen.

Today's issue contains a special section honoring our nation's military veterans, in advance of next week's Veterans Day. The section highlights a number of veterans who continued their service to our nation beyond their roles in the military. This is not unusual, even though their personal investments in their communities is extraordinary. To see pictures of veterans who served in war and peacetime at home and abroad is to glimpse fidelity to freedom and justice...

NEW YORK -- If anyone asks chef Marcus Samuelsson what African food taste like, he has a ready answer: Have you ever had barbeque? Rice? Collard greens? Okra? Coffee? "All of that food comes from Africa, has its roots in Africa," says the Ethiopian Swedish writer and restaurateur. "Everyone has had African American dishes, whether they know it or not."...

After an extraordinary night of shifting vote counts and a rebuke of President Donald Trump, news organizations kept vigil Wednesday as Americans waited to learn who their next president would be. Methodical vote counting Wednesday left Democrat Joe Biden on the cusp of the presidency. The Associated Press said he has won enough states for 264 electoral votes and a win in one of four uncalled states -- Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Nevada -- would make him the president-elect...

Regardless of the presidential election outcome, a vexing issue remains to be decided: Will the U.S. be able to tame a perilous pandemic that is surging as holidays, winter and other challenges approach? Public health experts fear the answer is no, at least in the short term, with potentially dire consequences...

WASHINGTON -- Scattered protests took place from Washington, D.C., to Washington state as votes were counted, but there were no signs of widespread unrest or violence linked to the U.S. election. The outcome of the hard-fought contest for the presidency remained undecided Wednesday, stirring worries prolonged uncertainty could yet spark conflict...

PHILADELPHIA -- They clung to their cocktails and proclaimed themselves sick with dread. They relentlessly checked the news and went outdoors for fresh air. They bemoaned a wipeout wave that never came and held out hope their favored candidate still would eke out a win...

ATHENS, Greece -- Coronavirus cases hit new daily highs this week in Russia, and Germany and the U.K. announced plans Tuesday to expand virus testing as European countries battled rapidly increasing COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations. Nations reintroduced restrictions to get ahead of a virus that has caused more than 1.2 million deaths around the globe, over 270,000 of them in Europe, according to Johns Hopkins University, and is straining health care systems...

CAPE GIRARDEAU Cape Girardeau Police Department released the following items. Thefts n Larceny was reported in the 100 block of Siemers Drive. n Theft was reported in the 400 block of Siemers Drive. n Larceny was reported in the 600 block of South Spring Avenue...

FROHNA, Mo. -- Tuesday morning at 9:03, Nov. 3, 2020, Wendy Ellen Reinbolt, a loving wife and mother of seven children, passed away at age 53 at her home in Frohna. Wendy was born July 3, 1967, in St. Louis to Ron and Arlyss Meyr Schmidt. She grew up as a farm girl out in the country with her two siblings, Pamela and Brad...

Sherri Lynn Mehner, 66, of Cape Girardeau went to be with the Lord at 8:47 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020, at her home. She was born Oct. 27, 1953, in Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, the daughter of Robert and Jeannette Heimburger. Sherri was married to James Brickler for 11 years, and they had two sons, Jim and Mark...

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Mary M. Lankford, 85, of Perryville died Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, at Holiday Residential Care in Perryville. Visitation will be 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday and 6:30 to 10 a.m. Saturday at Ford and Young Funeral Home in Perryville. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at the funeral home in Perryville with the Rev. Joseph Schlie officiating...

James Arthur Landgraf, 84 of Scott City died Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, at Country Place in Scott City. He was born Aug. 20, 1936, in Cape Girardeau to Arthur Ernest and Marie Bertha Eifert Landgraf. He became a Christian at his baptism on Sept. 2, 1936. ...

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- Robert L. Francis, 87, of Marble Hill, formerly of Jackson, passed away Monday, Nov. 2, 2020, at Southeast Hospital in Cape Girardeau. He was born Aug. 7, 1933, in Salem, Illinois, to Otto K. "O.K" and Louise Schanafelt Francis. He and Irene J. Forst were married July 11, 1959, in Salem. They had been married nearly 51 years when Irene passed away March 30, 2010...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's campaign filed lawsuits Wednesday in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, laying the groundwork for contesting battleground states as he slipped behind Democrat Joe Biden in the hunt for the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House...

WASHINGTON -- Joe Biden won the battleground prizes of Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday, reclaiming a key part of the "blue wall" that slipped away from Democrats four years ago and dramatically narrowing President Donald Trump's pathway to reelection...

ST. LOUIS -- Starting with the primary election in March, St. Louis voters will pick their mayor and other elected officials on a nonpartisan basis. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported city voters on Tuesday approved a measure requiring nonpartisan elections for mayor, comptroller, aldermanic president and alderman. The measure passed with nearly 70% approval...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- More than 3 million Missouri voters cast ballots in Tuesday's presidential election, marking the first time the state exceeded that threshold. Missouri's previous high mark was 2.9 million voters in the 2008 presidential election, which was won by Democrat Barack Obama. Since then, Missouri has added more than 100,000 voters to its rolls, for a total of 4.3 million registered voters...

The Rev. John S. Goff is the new pastor of Cape Girardeau Church of God, 624 S. Ellis St.; his new post was effective Sept. 18; a native of North Carolina, Goff attended York College of York, Pennsylvania, and received a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from Lee College of Cleveland, Tennessee; for the past 28 years Goff has served churches in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Tennessee...