Stories from Monday, August 2, 2021

Carter County, Missouri, officials reported two people were struck by lightning following a line of strong storms Saturday. "At 7:10 p.m., Carter County Emergency Management reported a couple of people were struck by lightning while recreating on the water," the National Weather Service reported...

Jackson and Cape Girardeau County will again participate in Missouri's "Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday" coming up this weekend. Starting Friday and continuing through Sunday, Jackson and Cape Girardeau County, along with the State of Missouri, will waive sales taxes on all qualifying purchases. The idea is to give students, parents and anyone else who needs school supplies an opportunity to save money on everything from clothing and calculators to computers and software...

Unemployment rates in every Southeast Missouri county increased in June compared to the previous month as high school and college graduates entered the job market and some seasonal workers left their jobs for the summer. The Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations issued June county-by-county unemployment data last week. According to the state data, Cape County's jobless rate increased for the second straight month in June to 4.2%, from 3.2% in April and 3.7% in May...

Eric Cunningham, longtime city attorney for the City of Cape Girardeau, was recently honored by his peers with the Lou Czech Award at a meeting in Osage Beach, Missouri. Cunningham, who has been the official legal specialist of Missouri’s 16th largest city for 26 years, has served through the administrations of four Cape Girardeau mayors and five city managers...

Big River has big plans. It was almost a year ago Big River Communications launched a subsidiary called Circle Fiber, which has embarked on a major project to bring high-speed fiber optic communications to Cape Girardeau, Jackson and other cities throughout the region...

ST. LOUIS — Kristen Bigogno knows with the end of the federal eviction moratorium, she and her two teenage sons could be forced out of their St. Louis apartment any day now, with no place to go. "My kids don't want to be homeless," Bigogno, 39, said. "If we don't have a place, we'll be in a tent. We don't have anybody. We have each other."...

A field of almost 200 applicants from across the country and around the world was narrowed to 10 finalists last week in Codefi's 2021 1ST50K Startup Competition. The 10 finalists, each vying for one of up to four $50,000 business startup grants, came to Cape Girardeau last week to meet the Codefi community and "pitch" their ideas to a group of local entrepreneurs, business executives and technology specialists...

This is the 23rd in a series of articles with Kellerman Foundation for Historic Preservation board chairman Frank Nickell, an emeritus faculty member of Southeast Missouri State University, commenting on Show Me State history on the 200th anniversary of Missouri being received as America's 24th state in 1821...

Today in History Today is Monday, Aug. 2, the 214th day of 2021. There are 151 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program...

Father God, may we be quick to forgive others as you have forgiven us. Amen.

If there is a good reason to do something, do it. If there are two good reasons, that’s a bonus. If there are three, we must be talking about last month’s Grappling 4 Good event, put on by Cape Girardeau’s police and fire departments. The grappling event served as a fundraiser for Special Olympics Missouri, and thanks to the 400 people who attended to show their support, that worthy cause will receive $8,000. ...

Marjorie "Marge" Jean Nichols Sullivan, 78, of Cape Girardeau died Saturday, July 31, 2021, at the Chateau Girardeau Rehabilitation Center, where she had been a patient for four weeks. Marge was born March 8, 1943, in Sweet Springs, Missouri, the daughter of Jerry and Beulah Nichols. She had two brothers, Jerry Nichols of Port Angeles, Washington, and the late John Nichols of Blackburn, Missouri...

PERRYVILLE, Mo. — Darwin A. "Buddy" Rodewald, 68, of Perryville died Thursday, July 29, 2021, at Mercy Hospital South in Saint Louis. Visitation will be from 7 a.m. to noon Friday at Ford and Young Funeral Home in Perryville. The funeral will be at noon Friday at the funeral home. Burial will be at Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Perryville...

BELL CITY, Mo. — Marilyn Richmond, 98, of Bell City passed away Friday, July 30, 2021, at the Chaffee Nursing Center. She was the daughter of Clyde and Avis Sneed and was the oldest of seven children. In 1933, Marilyn and her family moved to Painton, Missouri, where her father had purchased a farm. She was a 1940 graduate of Bell City High School...

MTV is marking its 40th anniversary with a relaunch of its iconic image of an astronaut on the moon, with an MTV flag planted nearby. On Sunday, the media network unveiled a large scale "Moon Person" during a ceremony at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. ...

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Sunday more "pain and suffering" is on the horizon as COVID-19 cases climb again and officials plead with unvaccinated Americans to get their shots. Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, also said he doesn't foresee additional lockdowns in the U.S. because he believes enough people are vaccinated to avoid a recurrence of last winter. However, he said not enough are inoculated to "crush the outbreak" at this point...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri has recorded more drowning deaths in the first six months of this year than in the same time period of any year since 2008, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The patrol doesn't report drowning deaths it handled earlier than 2008, and this year's numbers also do not include drownings officially classified as boating accidents, The Columbia Missourian reported...

PARK HILLS, Mo. -- A Black man who died during a party at the Fredericktown home of a man with a history of bigoted social media posts was killed by violence, not suicide, a jury found after a coroner's inquest. Friday's inquest into the death of 19-year-old Derontae Martin came after his family and racial injustice activists questioned the initial finding Martin shot himself in the head during a party at a rural house April 25...

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A Springfield hospital reached a "sad new record" on Sunday when the number of coronavirus patients in its care rose to 187, an administrator said. CoxHealth CEO Steve Edwards urged residents via Twitter to get vaccinated "to protect others, to protect children, to protect our community."...

A ribbon-cutting hosted by the Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce will take place at 2:30 p.m. Thursday to commemorate the opening of the new Saint Francis Clinic at 2130 E. Jackson Blvd. in Jackson. n The Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce's August First Friday Coffee is scheduled for Friday at the Century Casino Cape Girardeau Event Center. Doors will open at 7 a.m., with a program starting at about 7:40 a.m...

Former Missouri state representative and JCS Wireless president Kathy Swan has joined the board of directors of the Southeast Missouri Food Bank. Swan, who has a nursing background, served four terms in the Missouri House of Representatives and says she plans to use her legislative and health care experience to help address food insecurity in Southeast Missouri...

First State Community Bank (FSCB), which has branches in Cape Girardeau and Jackson, has been recognized on the Forbes Best-In-State Banks in Missouri and is one of only five banks in the state to make the list. The recognition was made in coordination with Statista Inc., a statistical portal and industry ranking organization...

Shawnee Community College in Ullin, Illinois, will host a pair of job fairs this month to connect people with job opportunities in the marijuana industry. The job fairs, hosted in partnership with cannabis company aeriz, will be held at the college's Anna Extension Center from 1 until 8 p.m. Aug. 17 and from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Aug. 21...

Morning Star Behavioral Associates, a provider of behavioral health services for clients with developmental disabilities, has opened corporate offices at 338 Broadway, Suite 101, in Cape Girardeau. The move has allowed Morning Star to allocate additional treatment space to its 4,500-square-foot behavioral services practice two stories above its new corporate offices in the Marquette Tower building...

Southeast Health Center of Stoddard County, damaged by an EF2 tornado that moved through the Dexter, Missouri, area July 10, is expected to reopen soon, according to a statement released late last week by SoutheastHEALTH in Cape Girardeau. "Extensive testing has been completed to assess the impact of the damage to inpatient units, the emergency services department and behavioral health unit," according to the statement...

Various SoutheastHEALTH employees, city representatives and chamber of commerce representatives break ground together on the site of the future SoutheastHEALTH West Campus expansion Friday in Cape Girardeau. ...

A Cape Girardeau man arrested in St. Louis on Wednesday is accused of robbing a Mercantile Bank branch in Cape Girardeau; the 30-year-old suspect was returned to Cape Girardeau yesterday, where he is charged with the July 26 armed robbery of the bank in Town Plaza Shopping Center...

The presidents of Southeast Missouri State University and Mineral Area College (MAC) in Park Hills, Missouri, have signed several "articulation agreements" designed to help students seamlessly transfer from MAC to bachelor's degree programs at Southeast...