Stories from Monday, January 25, 2016

By DONNA FARLEY Staff Writer Poplar Bluff officials believe increasing the budget for a local city attorney will save taxpayer dollars as it sends less work out of town to a more expensive St. Louis firm. City manager Mark Massingham announced Friday former presiding circuit judge Mark Richardson will step in as city attorney in mid-February. Current city attorney Robert Smith is leaving to devote more time to his private practice...

By JONATHON DAWE SEMO News Service BLOOMFIELD, Mo. -- After hearing four days of testimony, a jury of 12 convicted Donald Lafferty on all charges: Attempted murder in the first degree, arson, armed criminal action, and financial exploitation of the elderly...

By PAT PRATT Staff Writer Twin Rivers R-X board of education members voted unanimously in closed session Tuesday to extend Superintendent Jeremy Siebert's current contract for one year. School board president Rodger Baxter lauded Siebert's work in balancing the budget and bringing summer school back to the district...

By PAT PRATT Staff Writer Poplar Bluff Public Schools lunch provider Chartwells faces a number of health department mandated corrections following the shipment of mouse dropping covered goods to the kindergarten center. A concerned employee anonymously reported to Butler County health inspectors on Jan. 5 that packaged food "covered in mouse droppings" and items more than two years expired were present in the Poplar Bluff Kindergarten Center walk-in cooler...

By CAROLYN SMITH Staff Writer Bud Letassy was born in Joliet, Ill., but he has lived and worked in Poplar Bluff as a pharmacist for 58 years, and is still working -- surely that qualifies him as a local. Bud came to Poplar Bluff at the urging of a family friend who "hailed from" Harviell. "He thought I'd like to settle in the nice small town of Poplar Bluff," Bud recalls. "I do like a small town where it only takes 15 minutes to get to downtown."...

The University of Missouri Office of the Registrar has announced the Deans' List. Area students and their hometown on the list include: Harviell: Jansen Reid Hoggard, Senior, Engineering, and Emily Dawn Hover, Junior, Arts & Science. Poplar Bluff: Madison McLane Baker, Freshman, Arts & Science; Robyn Breanna Barks-Singer, Senior; Carrie Lucile Davis, Sophomore, Arts & Science; Sarah Harley Davis, Senior, Natural Resources; Loren Lee Duckett, Senior, Arts & Science; Leeza Caroline Edmundson, Freshman, Nursing; James Dalton Harmon, Sophomore, Arts & Science; Jacob Daniel Henderson, Junior, Health Professions; Cody Lee Hillis, Senior, Health Professions; Jamie Alissa Hobbs, Freshman, Journalism; Landon Taylor Jones, Sophomore, Journalism; Aishwarya B Krishnan, Sophomore, Arts & Science; Cinnamon Lee Langley, Freshman, Arts & Science; Alexa Nicole Miller, Junior, Human Environment Science; Tristan Robert Moncier, Sophomore, Business; Christopher Lincoln Morse, Senior, Health Professions; Lauren Mae Rich, Freshman, Arts & Science; Robert Jeffrey Rowland, Junior, Arts & Science; Paul Anthony Rush, Senior, Arts & Science; Shelby Breanna Rushin, Junior, Education; Parker Nathaniel Ramsey Smith, Junior, Arts & Science; and Shelly Rena White, Senior, Business.. ...

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN The lights are burning late in Davos tonight. At the World Economic Forum, keynoter Joe Biden warned global elites that the unraveling of the middle class in America and Europe has provided "fertile terrain for reactionary politicians, demagogues peddling xenophobia, anti-immigration, nationalist, isolationist views."...

What are the charges Just a question. If you are found to be a suspect of something doesn't the Sheriff's Dept. have to tell what it is when they tell you themselves that you are a suspect or something? Please print this and I'd like to have some response from somebody that knows something. Thank you...

JONESBORO, Ark. -- Members of the Chancellor's and Deans' lists for fall 2015 at Arkansas State University have been announced. Combined, the group has 2,193 students. The two lists recognize undergraduate students who achieved the highest grade point averages while enrolled in 12 or more credit hours of study...

By WALTER E. WILLIAMS Last July, Anthony Hervey, an outspoken black advocate for the Confederate flag, was killed in a car crash. Arlene Barnum, a surviving passenger in the vehicle, told authorities and the media that they had been forced off the road by a carload of "angry young black men" after Hervey, while wearing his Confederate kepi, stopped at a convenience store en route to his home in Oxford, Mississippi. ...

Kenneth Beaird Kenneth Dale Beaird, 56, of Poplar Bluff, passed away Friday, Jan. 22, 2016 at Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center ER. Mr. Beaird was born Oct. 27, 1959 in Sherman, Texas. He was self-employed and enjoyed hunting and fishing. He is survived by his mother, Betty Beaird; brother, David Beaird and wife Mary Ellen of Poplar Bluff; nephews: Justin Beaird adn wife Rebecca of Harviell, Mo., and Jared Beaird and wife Elizabeth of Poplar Bluff; niece, Megan Beaird of Springfield, Mo.; great-nephews and nieces: Colby, Nora, Elllison and Layton Beaird.. ...

"Ruthie" Shivers Ruth "Ruthie" Marie Shivers, 59, of Malden, Mo., passed away Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016 at The Golden Living Center in Malden. Ms. Shivers, the daughter of the late Delmar Oral and Irma Christine (Klappstein) Shivers Tompkins, was born June 18, 1956 in St. Louis, Mo. and had been disabled since birth. She was the longest residing resident at the Living Center and was thought of by the entire staff as family...

BLOOMFIELD -- Bloomfield Wildcats coach Jason Karnes wanted a clutch January performance from his team and was treated to one in the closing seconds Friday night. Noah Vandiver delivered a pair of clutch 3-pointers in the final half-minute in an SCAA showdown against the Woodland Cardinals, lifting the Wildcats to a 49-48 win...

BERNIE -- The gym in Bernie was filled with emotion Friday for former player Shawn Green, who is fighting cancer. There was a fish fry in the cafeteria before the JV and varsity games. Luminaries for sale, a silent auction, a booth accepting donations toward a college fund for Green's daughter, tables and tables of baked goods...

Elizabeth Marie "Beth" Farris ELLSINORE, Mo. -- Elizabeth Marie "Beth" Farris, 31, of Colorado Springs, Colo., departed this life on Monday, Jan. 18, 2016 at her residence in Colorado Springs. Beth was born Sept. 22, 1984 in the Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Va. ...