Stories from Friday, September 22, 2023

Conversations with Cape and Jackson public school superintendents Education is where it all begins — where children learn skills that will translate into interests and blossom into careers after graduation. School districts are quite literally shaping tomorrow’s generation and workforce. It takes a number of people, and leadership, to make this happen...

Missouri State Treasurer Vivek Malek will host an unclaimed property auction next week at Drury Plaza Hotel, located at 3351 Percy Drive in Cape Girardeau. The auction will be held Wednesday, Sept. 27, and Thursday, Sept 28. Auction begins at 9 a.m. each day...

Missouri state Sen. Brian Williams will present the keynote address at Southeast Missouri State University's Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration dinner Wednesday, Jan. 17, at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau. According to a news release from the university, the dinner is a SEMO tradition celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. The release states the theme for the event is "Building Community Through Service"...

Southeast Missouri State University has been ranked among the best regional universities in the Midwest, according to the 2022-23 U.S. News & World Report rankings. According to a SEMO news release, out of 1,450 colleges, SEMO was ranked as the 26th best public school and 88th best regional university in the Midwest...

Cape Girardeau County's Aug. 28 land tax sale made available 31 properties. Barbara Gholson, county collector, said 18 properties were sold with an oversurplus of $49,651.48, By approval of Commissioners Clint Tracy and Paul Koeper, the money was remitted to county Treasurer Roger Hudson as required by statute...

Cape Girardeau Parks and Recreation Department hosts monthly recreational events for those with special needs as part of the STAR program. Special Therapeutic Activities in Recreation (STAR) is a community therapeutic recreation program serving individuals who have special needs...

Beggs Family Farm teamed up with Southeast Missouri State University to create its corn maze for this season. This year's maze theme celebrates SEMO's 150 anniversary. The corn maze was created with the help of Beggs Family Farm manager Bryce Beggs. ...

Gov. Mike Parson announced Thursday afternoon, Sept. 21, that federal authorities approved a major disaster declaration for 33 Missouri counties after severe weather affected those areas in late July and early August. Perry, Bollinger and Scott counties are among those in the declaration...

Trumpet players are used to cleaning their instruments, but Saturday, Sept. 23, the Southeast Missouri State University Marching Band's trumpet section will be cleaning something entirely different. The 20-member section will be holding a car wash at the Sonic Drive-In parking lot at 262 Siemers Drive in Cape Girardeau...

Southeast Missouri State University Department of Theatre and Dance will present a production of the Broadway musical "Head Over Heels", opening Wednesday, Sept. 27, at the River Campus in Cape Girardeau. Kit Lavoie, the play's director and assistant professor for the university's Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre & Dance, called "Head Over Heels" a "jukebox" musical that incorporates songs from the 1980s all-female rock band The Go-Go's into the story...

Hunter Juden wears many hats -- patrolman with the Cape Girardeau Police Department and chief of police in Morley, Missouri, among them -- and now he's throwing his hat in the ring to become sheriff of Scott County. "I have always enjoyed being in law enforcement. It's something I've devoted my entire life to and something I plan to devote the rest of my life to," Juden said. "I love this community. I plan to become sheriff of this community and serve it to the best of my ability."...

Marilyn Schlosser told Scott City Area Chamber of Commerce's monthly coffee Thursday, Sept. 21, the Scott County Transit System (SCTS) has not returned to pre-pandemic passenger levels. "We were running 2,000 one-way trips a month before COVID, and we're at about 1,500 monthly right now," said Schlosser, who has led the Sikeston, Missouri-based not-for-profit public transportation agency as its executive director since 1985...

Southeast Missouri is known for many things but has a few unusual traditions. To those living in the Cape Girardeau area, the idea of the Southeast Missouri State University gum tree easily passes through our minds with little thinking as it has "always" been there. ...

Crewmembers help get the stage ready for Shipyard Music Festival performances Friday, Sept. 22, and Saturday, Sept. 23, at Century Casino Cape Girardeau...

Today is Friday, Sept. 22, the 265th day of 2023. There are 100 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of January 1, 1863 if the states did not end the fighting and rejoin the union...

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease." Maryann "Miki" Gudermuth, 74, passed away Sept. 6, 2023. Her legacy of advocacy for those with disabilities will live on. Miki's story starts long ago when she was a baby, 9 months old. Diagnosed with polio, she spent most of her childhood years in a Shriners hospital, undergoing various surgeries on her hips, legs and feet. ...

The Biden administration is setting a booby trap in case a Republican wins the presidency in 2024. On Friday, the White House unveiled a proposed rule that would make it even harder than in the past for an incoming Republican president to wrestle control of the left-leaning federal bureaucracy and actually implement the conservative policies promised to voters...

Father God, may we be kind to all we meet, always seeking to glorify you. Amen.

CAPE GIRARDEAU Cape Girardeau Fire Department responded to the following calls. Sept. 20 n Medical assists were made at 9:33 a.m. on South Mount Auburn Road; 11:33 a.m. on Bertling Street; 11:50 a.m. on Carondalet Drive; 12:13 p.m. on William Street; 1 p.m. on Adeline Avenue; and 3:31 p.m. on William Street...

CAPE GIRARDEAU Cape Girardeau Police Department responded to the following calls. Assault n Assault was reported on South Pacific Street. Thefts n Shoplifting was reported on North Kingshighway. n Second-degree burglary was reported. n Shoplifting was reported on William Street...

PERRYVILLE, Mo. — Jeremy Edward Wengert, 44, of St. Mary, Missouri, died Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023, at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Visitation will be from 6 to 10 a.m. Monday, Sept. 25, at Christ the Savior Church in Brewer, Missouri. Funeral Mass will follow at 10 a.m. Monday, Sept. 25, at the church, with the Rev. Joe Geders, C.M., officiating. Inurnment will be at a later date at Christ the Savior Catholic Church Cemetery...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- When an Ohio father learned that his 11-year-old daughter had been manipulated into sending explicit photos to an adult, he turned to the police for help. But instead of treating the girl as a crime victim, an officer seemingly threatened to charge her under a law most people view as designed to protect child victims...

BRIGHTON, Colo. -- Colorado prosecutors focused on police body camera footage -- both raw and digitally enhanced -- as they began building their case Thursday against two officers charged in the death of Elijah McClain, a young Black man who was stopped, put in a neck hold and sedated with ketamine four years ago...

MIAMI -- A tropical storm warning was issued Thursday from coastal North Carolina to Delaware ahead of a potential tropical cyclone that's approaching the densely populated East Coast. The National Hurricane Center announced the formation of "Potential Tropical Cyclone Sixteen" on Thursday morning. The storm was located about 340 miles southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, and moving north at 7 mph, according to a 8 p.m. advisory from the center. The storm had top sustained winds of 35 mph...

JACUMBA HOT SPRINGS, Calif. -- A group of migrants from China surrendered to a Border Patrol agent in remote Southern California as gusts of wind drowned the hum of high-voltage power lines, joining others from Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia and elsewhere in a desert campsite with shelters made from tree branches...

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- A Kansas man has been charged with two counts of murder after detectives in a newly formed cold case unit connected him to the deaths of two women nearly three decades ago. DNA evidence led to the arrest of 52-year-old Gary Dion Davis, Kansas City Police Chief Karl Oakman and Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree said Wednesday. Davis is jailed on a $500,000 bond for two counts of second-degree murder, the Kansas City Star reported...

MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. -- A charter bus carrying high school students to a band camp veered off a New York highway and tumbled down an embankment Thursday, killing two adults and seriously injuring several others, officials said. The bus was one of six in a caravan taking the marching band, color guard and dancers from Farmingdale High School on Long Island on a beloved annual trip to a camp in Greeley, in northeastern Pennsylvania...

WASHINGTON -- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy worked to shore up U.S. support for Ukraine on a whirlwind visit to Washington on Thursday, delivering an upbeat message on the war's progress while facing new questions about the flow of American dollars that for 19 months have helped keep his troops in the fight against Russian forces...

CLAYTON, Mo. -- A man is hospitalized with what police describe as life-threatening injuries after a "gunfight" with two St. Louis County officers. Police received a call about a domestic disturbance just after 7 p.m. Wednesday and were told a man was intoxicated and refused to allow the caller to leave the home, St. Louis County Sgt. Tracy Panus said. Police also were told the man was armed...

WASHINGTON -- With House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's latest funding plan in ruins and lawmakers leaving town for the weekend, there's no endgame in sight as hard-right Republicans push dangerously closer to a disruptive federal shutdown. The White House will tell federal agencies Friday to prepare for a shutdown, according to an official with the Office of Management and Budget who insisted on anonymity to discuss the upcoming instructions. That's standard seven days out from a federal disruption...

NEW YORK -- Magnate Rupert Murdoch's surprise announcement Thursday that he's stepping down as leader of his two companies leaves his son Lachlan firmly in line of succession at Fox and the rest of the media empire. The 92-year-old Australian billionaire's creation of Fox News Channel has made him an enduring force in American politics. ...

TORONTO -- The allegation of India's involvement in the killing of a Sikh Canadian is based on surveillance of Indian diplomats in Canada, including intelligence provided by a major ally, a Canadian official told The Associated Press on Thursday. The official said the communications involved Indian officials and Indian diplomats in Canada and that some of the intelligence was provided by a member of the "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing alliance, which includes the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to Canada.. ...

UNITED NATIONS -- Azerbaijan regained control of its breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a deadly two-day military offensive and held initial talks with representatives of its ethnic Armenian population on reintegrating the area into the mainly Muslim country, Azerbaijan's top diplomat told the U.N. Security Council Thursday...

LANSING, Mich. -- When former President Donald Trump visits Detroit next week, he'll be looking to blunt criticisms from a United Auto Workers union leadership that has said a second term for him would be a "disaster" for workers. Trump will bypass the second Republican presidential debate on Sept. ...

A Canadian company might establish an airplane manufacturing plant at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport; Zenair of Canada of Toronto wants to move its manufacturing operations to the United States; the company manufacturers single-engine, two-seater and training aircraft; Zenair has narrowed the site selection to three cities, including Cape Girardeau, with a final decision by the end of the week...