Stories from Monday, February 8, 2021

Sometimes, life weaves our stories together with people in ways we couldn’t foresee until later down the road. That’s what Jerry and Carla Young of Cape Girardeau have found in their journey to each other. Their story goes like this: When Carla was 18 years old, she worked at a store next to a laundromat in Cape Girardeau. ...

Last week, the State of Missouri added a COVID-19 vaccine dashboard to its online resources regarding the virus, and the numbers showed Cape Girardeau County leading the state in vaccinations. Of Missouri's 114 counties, Cape Girardeau County continues to rank in the top three week after week, according to the information outlining where vaccine recipients live...

Jackson’s trash collection schedule will be adjusted next week because of the observance of Presidents Day on Feb. 15. Residential trash normally collected Monday, Feb. 15, will instead be picked up Tuesday, Feb. 16, along with trash scheduled for collection that day...

A group of Kappa Beta Gamma members from Southeast Missouri State University plunge in 39-degree water during the 15th annual Polar Plunge on Saturday at Cape County Park North in Cape Girardeau. ...

No one was hurt in an apartment fire Sunday evening in Cape Girardeau, but three people watching the fire were treated for injuries they sustained from falling on ice. The Cape Girardeau Fire Department responded just after 5 p.m. to 1076 Linden St. with four fire engines and a ladder truck, according to an incident report by battalion chief Dustin Koerber...

There are laws in place designed to protect those who, in good faith, seek emergency medical assistance for someone who is experiencing an overdose. Missouri’s “Good Samaritan” law provides people who witness or experience an overdose with immunity from multiple drug crimes if they call 911 to report it...

The City of Cape Girardeau issued 222 building permits in 2020, 17 fewer than the 239 issued in each of the previous two years. The estimated project costs covered by those 222 permits, however, exceeded the combined value of all the permitted projects in 2018 and 2019...

Chef Kelcie Miller has been all over the world but is ready to circle back to her hometown to open La Relance Cuisine. French for "revival," La Relance opened in January in City Centre at 2502 Tanner Drive in Cape Girardeau. Miller said she "wanted to bring something new to Cape. It's been a labor of love."...

Thanks to a 7-0 vote of Cape Girardeau City Council on Monday, the Humane Society of Southeast Missouri will continue to provide boarding, care and disposal services for animals in the city in 2021 at a cost of $64,260, a 2% increase. “We’ve had a good, longstanding relationship with the Humane Society,” said Cape Girardeau city manager Scott Meyer...

In the nearly half-century since I received my first paycheck, I have never joined a union. It's not that I have anything against unions; it's just that I never held a job in which union membership was an option. I suppose the closest I ever came was possible membership in a local apple-picker's union during the brief time I worked at an orchard as a teenager, and had I continued in a broadcasting career back in the '80s, I could have joined a broadcast journalism union...

When this reporter was a child, his late grandfather sometimes used an expression directly tied to the nation’s brief experiment known as the Pony Express. When a car passed him on an interstate highway at a high rate of speed, he was heard to remark, “That guy is really carrying the mail!” Months before Abraham Lincoln was elected as 16th U.S. president, a Missouri freight company, Russell, Majors and Waddell, had an idea for more rapid delivery of mail between the Show Me State and California. ...

In the event they should become diagnosed with a mental disability or depart the earth, most people hope they will leave their family members with unforgettable moments to cherish. Part of allowing your loved ones the ability to treasure your memory in a stress-free way is to leave this life financially stable, ensuring the ones you leave behind can manage your belongings and estate straightforwardly...

(President Joe) Biden wants to forgive $50,000 in student debt. That's great for those who currently have student loan debt, but what about the people who have busted their behinds for years to pay off their loans? What about the parents who did without or cashed in retirement to pay their kids' loans? I foresee a massive number of lawsuits filed for back payments if this ridiculous bill is passed by the Democrats. I'll get in line!...

Mary Jo Donna Way, 59, of Cape Girardeau passed away Friday, Feb. 5, 2021, at her home. She was born April 2, 1961, in Cape Girardeau to Joseph D. and Mary "Marty" Fulton King. She and Donald T. Way were married July 25, 1980, in Cape Girardeau. Mary Jo was a 1979 graduate of Cape Girardeau Central High School...

McCLURE, Ill. -- Sophia Mae Poirrier, 94, of McClure died Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021, peacefully in her sleep at her daughter's home. She was born Aug. 2, 1926, in Gorham, Illinois, to Chester Arthur Killian and Gettie Pierce Killian. Sophia and James A. Poirrier were married Jan. 27, 1951, in Piggott, Arkansas...

EGYPT MILLS, Mo. -- Ronald Dean "Ronnie" Lohmann, 83, of Egypt Mills died Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021, at his home. He was born Oct. 16, 1937, in Cape Girardeau to Arnold Edward and Dahlia Regina Fornkohl Lohmann. He was raised by his mother and stepfather, Lacy Owen Humes. He and Shirley Bolen were married May 14, 1957, in Tupelo, Mississippi...

Lester M. Halter, 73, of Cape Girardeau died Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021, at the Lutheran Home. He was born March 13, 1947, in Cape Girardeau to Michael Halter and Loretta May Messmer Halter. He proudly served his country in the U.S. Army. He had attended St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church...

Clarence R. Dittmer, 86, of Jackson passed away Friday, Jan. 29, 2021, at his home. He was born March 11, 1934, in Lacona, Iowa, son of Edward and Mary G. Shaffer Dittmer. He and Delia R. Larson were married Nov. 27, 1954, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Boone, Iowa...

WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump's defenders in the Senate on Sunday rallied around the former president before his impeachment trial, dismissing it as a waste of time and arguing the former president's fiery speech before the U.S. Capitol insurrection does not make him responsible for the violence of Jan. 6...

MISSION, Kan. -- Mortuary owner Brian Simmons has been making more trips to homes to pick up bodies to be cremated and embalmed since the pandemic hit. With COVID-19 devastating communities in Missouri, his two-person crews regularly arrive at homes in the Springfield area and remove bodies of people who decided to die at home rather than spend their final days in a nursing home or hospital where family visitations were prohibited during the pandemic...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The first case in the state of a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus has been recorded in northeast Missouri, state health officials said Saturday. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said in a statement the variant of the virus first identified last fall in the United Kingdom had been confirmed in a person who lives in Marion County, which is just northwest of St. Louis near the Mississippi River...

O Lord Jesus, may we honor you and speak encouraging words to one another. Amen.

Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau officials worry a city plan to buy 16 acres of the old St. Vincent's College property could delay construction of a new CVB building; the city could tap into the Convention and Visitors Bureau Fund to buy the property; the CVB is facing a March 1 deadline to move out of its rented office space...

It's one of the great Hollywood ironies Christopher Plummer didn't like the film that made him a legend. He was an actor's actor and had cut his teeth doing Shakespeare. "The Sound of Music," he thought, was sentimental shlock. And he wasn't alone -- reviews at the time were famously terrible. Then, like a personal curse, it would go on to become a universally beloved classic. He'd played Henry V and Hamlet, and yet Capt. von Trapp, he said in 1982, followed him around "like an albatross."...

WASHINGTON -- Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a titan of American academia, business and diplomacy who spent most of the 1980s trying to improve Cold War relations with the Soviet Union and forging a course for peace in the Middle East, has died. He was 100...

After losing a national election, it's natural that a political party goes through a period of soul-searching and internal turmoil. The Republican Party, though, has taken it to another level. President Donald Trump brought most of the GOP along for the ride during his conspiracy-fueled attempt to overturn the election...

Today in History Today is Monday, Feb. 8, the 39th day of 2021. There are 326 days left in the year. Today's Highlights in History: On Feb. 8, 1952, Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed her accession to the British throne following the death of her father, King George VI...