Stories from Sunday, March 20, 1994

PERKS, Ill. - Genova McCall, 76, of Perks, in rural Pulaski County, died Friday, March 18 at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau. She was born in Perks on Dec. 19, 1917, to Pete and Nellie Ramage Wright. On Dec. 21, 1933, she married the Rev. Raymond McCall. He preceded her in death on April 23, 1987...

Congressman Mel Hancock, R-Springfield, was in Cape Girardeau Saturday to kick off a series of statewide petition drives to gather signatures for his Hancock II tax amendment. During the next month, Hancock will visit 55 cities around the state, in an effort to put Hancock II on the Nov. 8 general election ballot. Hancock plans to visit the cities during his weekends off from the U.S. House of Representatives...

Cape Girardeau has thrice voted on riverboat gambling -- first at the state level and twice on local options. Each election was hard fought. Gambling has proved an emotional issue that pitted friend against neighbor. Now it appears we'll vote two more times on gambling -- at the state level in April and possibly on the local option in June. It's enough to make citizens on both sides of the fence wince...

Son to Mr. and Mrs. Dan Berry, 1519 Sylvan Lane, Southeast Missouri Hospital, 9:03 a.m. Monday, March 14, 1994. Name, Elliott Jefferson. Weight, 7 pounds 12 ounces. Mrs. Berry is the former Cindy Gober, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Olen Gober of Lake Village, Ark. Berry is employed at Southeast Hospital, and is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Dean Colvard of Charleston, Ark...

SIKESTON - Mary D. Schumacher, 52, of Sikeston, died Friday, March 18, at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau. She was born Jan. 18, 1942, in East Prairie, to Harris E. and Bessie M. Roach Wright, who survive of Sikeston. On Dec. 2, 1972, she married Francis X. ...

PERRYVILLE -- Cecil Golden Randolph, 87, of Perryville died Saturday, March 19, 1994 at the Missouri Veterans Home in Cape Girardeau. He was born Oct. 8, 1906 at Logan Creek, near Ellington, the son of Allen and Easter Goforth Randolph. In 1930, he married Iva M. Mathis. She preceded him in death May 17, 1974...

CHARLESTON -- Leamon F. Neal, 83, of St. Louis died Friday, March 18, 1994 at Christian Northeast Hospital in St. Louis. He was born Dec. 10, 1910 at Desloge to Samuel and Elizabeth Bluw Neal. He lived in St. Louis most of his life, where he was employed as a sign erector with Garnett Outdoor Sign Company. He retired in 1977...

FREDERICKTOWN - Raymond A. Hollmann, 85, a retired Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper, of Fredericktown, Rt. 2, died Saturday, March 19, at the Mineral Area Regional Health Center in Farmington. He was born in Warrenton on July 31, 1908, to Henry and Wilhelmine Schultz Hollmann...

STEELE -- You will find in Steele no overt signs of a town threatening to be ahead of its time. The population of this Pemiscot County community is 2,395, not much different than the count taken 24 years ago. Like many rural towns, its main business area features some vacant storefronts. There is a garment factory and a few small industries to offer non-farm jobs, and a Piggly-Wiggly that pulls in shoppers from neighboring villages, from Cooter and Holland and State Line...

The promise of jobs and burgeoning tax revenues have enticed many cities to clamor for legalized gambling. But not everyone is joining the bandwagon. Robert Goodman, an adjunct professor of regional planning at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told the Southeast Missourian Friday that states and cities considering authorizing gambling ought to first consider the costs associated with the venture...

NEW HAMBURG -- Voters in the Kelso C-7 School District are being asked to raise their taxes once again, thanks to Senate Bill 380, Missouri's sweeping education funding and reform law. If voters say yes to the $1.23 increase on April 5, the tax rate in the district will have more than doubled in two years time to $2.75. In 1992-93, the tax rate was $1.25...

Three hours into the state spelling bee championships, Cape Girardeau seventh-grader Rebecca Thomas missed "rescissible," putting her out of the competition. Her performance earned her 10th place honors in the bee. Thomas, a student at L.J. Schultz Middle School, was among 65 students who participated in the 67th annual Scripts-Howard National Spelling Bee Saturday at the St. Louis Art Museum...

Starz!, a premium cable network featuring first-run releases, has been added to the lineup of TCI cable of Cape Girardeau. Starz! will be available on Channel 22, with a free preview from April 1-15. As part of the new offering, several of the channels will be relocated. ...

The sixth annual Easter Egg hunt will be held Saturday at Capaha Park. Egg hunters are to meet by the swimming pool. Two hunts are planned, one for children age 4 and under, beginning at 10 a.m., and another for children ages 5-10, beginning at 11:30 a.m...

Mary Blue loves to play in the dirt. So does G.H. Reglow and Anne Foust. They are among many area residents who love gardening, communing with nature amid the cucumbers and the crocus. "I am a dirt gardener," says Blue, a Cape Girardeau resident who has been proclaiming the joys of gardening in her "Ladybug" newspaper column for the past 30 years...

I seem incapable of dusting the bookshelves without stopping my chore to withdraw an old loved book and, turning to a familiar page, letting the beautiful words run by my literal vision and through my mental vision. They are like musical notes tuning my day to the proper pitch...

JACKSON -- An organizational meeting for traditional American folk dance will take place at 7 p.m. March 29 at the Riverside Regional Library in Jackson. "Traditional American folk dance includes square, waltz and line dancing," said organizer Judy Bradley. "We are looking for dancers, musicians and callers."...

Candidates for the Cape Girardeau Board of Education have been invited to participate in a public forum to be held at 7 p.m. March 29 in the Central Junior High School cafeteria. The forum will be sponsored and conducted by the League of Women Voters of Cape Girardeau County. Sandy Bonner, the league's voters service director, will moderate the forum, which will be conducted under established LWV procedures...