Stories from Friday, January 15, 2016

By PAT PRATT Staff Writer Sweet Georgia Brown! The Harlem Globetrotters are coming (back) to the Black River Coliseum. The wizards of comedy basketball will hit the court 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 19 as part of their 90th Anniversary Tour and play, of course, the Washington Generals...

By MARK BLISS SEMO News Service State Rep. Kathy Swan wants to see the Missouri Legislature repeal the death penalty. Swan is one of five Republican lawmakers and one Democratic representative who have signed on to the bill. In addition, the measure would mandate any person sentenced to death before Aug. 28, 2016, be given life imprisonment without eligibility for probation or parole, except by act of the governor...

By DAVID SILVERBERG Associate Editor ''Tuesdays With Morrie," based on a book which made the New York Times best seller list for 23 weeks in 2000, is the next Center Stage performance in the Tinnin Fine Arts Center at Three Rivers College. It will be performed at 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Jan. 14-16, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17. Admission is $10 and seating is limited to 150 people per performance...

Annual RR depot meeting The annual meeting of the Poplar Bluff Historic Depot Restoration Corporation will begin at noon Friday at The Bread Company. "Membership is open to anyone with an interest in helping restore the 1910 Iron Mountain Depot," said Jim Chrisman, president of the historic depot restoration corporation...

PUXICO, Mo. -- The Valentine's Day weekend is the perfect time for Southeast Missouri women to relax and have fun hunting rabbits, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC). The MDC announces the annual Women's Rabbit Hunting Clinic is scheduled for Feb. 13, beginning at 8 a.m., near Duck Creek Conservation Area (CA)...

What can you do to stretch your food dollars? Living on less doesn't always mean doing without, but it does take some management. Learning how to spend less but still live well takes skill, determination, and know-how. Let's look at some food buying habits and see how you can save money...

By PAUL DAVIS Outdoors Editor Things are slowing down ... way down. It's come to the time of year when, for an avid sportsman, things start getting pretty darn boring, and they slowly sink into their own version of a winter hibernation. Folks like to talk about the "dog days" of summer. Right now, we're entering the "winter doldrums."...

By FRANK CAMPA Mo. Dept. of Conservation While there are still hunting seasons currently going on, many are quickly coming to an end for the 2015-16 season. And, here are a few reminders for each of these seasons. The South Zone duck season is open through Jan. 24. Canada, brant, white-fronted, and light geese (snows, blues and Ross's) are all in season through Jan. 31...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- The tragic death of country music singer Craig Strickland and friend Chase Morland serves as a shocking reminder that accidents on the water do happen, and can be fatal if hunters and anglers don't take the extra precautions to make their vessel as safe as possible. The two men died when their duck hunting boat capsized on Kaw Lake in Oklahoma, Dec. 27...

By DAN ZARLENGA Mo. Dept. of Conservation SPANISH LAKE, Mo. -- Due to extensive flood damage to the Missouri Department of Conservation's (MDC) Columbia Bottom Conservation Area, the Eagle Days events planned there for Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 16-17, have been canceled...

175,268. That is the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations. Across south central and southeast Missouri that number weighs heavy on the backs of small businesses, farmers and families. It also represents a serious problem in Washington: a president circumventing Congress to try and force his rejected policy ideas on the American people...

Ryan and Michelle Maddox of Poplar Bluff have chosen the name Maverick McKoi Maddox for their 7-pound, 4-ounce son born at 12:42 a.m., Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2015 at Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center. Grandparents are Debbie White of Ellsinore and Milford and Connie Maddox of Poplar Bluff...

By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER WASHINGTON -- If you're going to engage in a foreign policy capitulation, might as well do it when everyone is getting tanked and otherwise occupied. Say, New Year's Eve. Here's the story. In October, Iran test-fires a nuclear-capable ballistic missile in brazen violation of Security Council resolutions prohibiting such launches. ...

By PAUL DAVIS Outdoors Editor With less than two weeks remaining in Missouri's South Zone duck hunting season, most hunters likely aren't thinking ahead to future seasons, but they should be. "Every five years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allows states to make adjustments to their duck season structure," said Missouri Department of Conservation waterfowl biologist Andy Raedeke...

Throughout the history of franchise relocation in the NFL, no moving process looks like any other. But there are always two parties -- fans and players -- left in the dark and banished from the top floor of ritzy hotels where billionaire businessmen bicker back and forth over what's best for the state of the almighty league and ultimately make a decision that affects both...

No matter the sport, no matter the season, the awards keep piling up for Poplar Bluff coach Beth Lewis-Muse. Eight months after leading the Lady Mules to the MSHSAA Class 4 state championship followed by the induction into her college alma mater's Hall of Fame, Lewis-Muse was named the National Federation of High School Associations Missouri girls track & field Coach of the Year on Tuesday, culminating a year she described as one of the best in her coaching career...

Mildred Marshall VAN BUREN, Mo. -- Mildred Louise Marshall, 79, daughter of the late Hughie and Idell (Russom) Smith, was born March 24, 1936 in Risco and departed this life Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016 in the Riverways Manor Nursing Home in Van Buren. Mrs. ...

When 30 of 32 NFL owners approved Stan Kroenke's plans to move the Rams franchise from St. Louis to Los Angeles on Tuesday evening, the Kansas City Chiefs fan base grew exponentially. Perhaps you're a Rams fan looking for somewhere to turn and fill your gridiron needs. Let me be the first to welcome you into Chiefs Nation with open arms...

Join me in Soldier Field. Join me on the Miracle Mile in the City of Broad Shoulders. I'll buy you a Vienna beef hot dog -- no ketchup -- and an Old Style. I'll spring for some deep dish pizza to munch on while we walk through the Shedd Aquarium. And I suppose we'll go to a Bears game, too. ...

Howard Seal Lewis, Sr. VAN BUREN, Mo. -- Howard Seal Lewis, Sr., 97, of Van Buren, died Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, in the Riverways Manor Nursing Home in Van Buren. Visitation for the family and friends will begin at 10 a.m., Saturday, in the United Methodist Church in Van Buren, with the funeral service beginning at 11 a.m. Rev. Jim Cooper will officiate. Burial will be at 2 p.m. in the Des Arc Cemetery...

What's a Rams fan to do now that the team is headed back to Los Angeles? There are plenty of options for football fans to get their Sunday fix next fall. Here's a look at some options: Stick with them That new $100 Todd Gurley jersey is already in the closet and why part with a perfectly good Kurt Warner throwback?...

Twin Rivers senior Jaysea Morgan was just about ready to cut her basketball career short until one weekend changed her entire outlook on playing at the next level. At a tournament in Lexington, Kentucky during her junior year, Morgan's exposure grew and so did the interest of one team in particular...

By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH Associate Editor STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo. -- Jury selection began this morning in Ste. Genevieve County in the trial of a Doniphan, Mo., man for his alleged role in the 2010 deaths of two elderly couples whose bodies were found in their burned homes...

Taylor Laine Valmassoi has been awarded a $2,000 Tommy Parks Memorial Scholarship to help underwrite her training at Three Rivers College as a business teacher. The scholarship is administered by the Three Rivers Community College Foundation. Valmassoi, 18, is a 2015 graduate of Van Buren High School, where she was on the Honor Roll every semester and finished fifth in her graduating class. ...

By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH Associate Editor Another 10 Poplar Bluff, Mo., residents were arrested Wednesday on grand-jury indictments for drug-related offenses as part of the third multijurisdictional roundup to be held in the last six months. Members of SEMO Drug Task Force, Missouri State Highway Patrol, Poplar Bluff Police Department and Butler County Sheriff's Department began serving warrants at about 4 p.m. Wednesday, according to patrol Sgt. Mark McClendon, who heads the drug task force...