JUly 29, 2011 VOl. 3 ISSUE 35 - SEMO TIMES
JUly 29, 2011 VOl. 3 ISSUE 35 - SEMO TIMES
JUly 29, 2011 VOl. 3 ISSUE 35 - SEMO TIMES
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Vol. 3 Issue <strong>35</strong><br />
July <strong>29</strong>, <strong>2011</strong>
page 2<br />
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI’S NEWS-MAGAZINE OF POLITICS AND CULTURE<br />
www.semotImes.com
www.semotimes.com current events Section<br />
semo Inside this The Week in Review<br />
tImes edition<br />
complete, and apparently long overdue. Glad<br />
7.<strong>29</strong>.11<br />
The Week in Review - 3<br />
It was a good week for the the kids are off of the traffic congested North<br />
Volume 3 Issue <strong>35</strong><br />
American taxpayer. So far Con- Main Street.<br />
2725 N. Westwood<br />
gress hasn’t been able to raise the<br />
The Social Network - 3<br />
Suite 17<br />
debt ceiling. Republicans may have<br />
It was a good week for the Pop-<br />
actually found the only way to cut govern-<br />
Poplar Bluff, MO<br />
lar Bluff Police Department, bust-<br />
Paranomral - 4 ment: amazing.<br />
ing a suspect allegedly involved in<br />
573-785-2200<br />
a drive-by shooting. We have drive-<br />
Scott R. Faughn,<br />
It was a bad week for former bys in Poplar Bluff?<br />
publisher<br />
News Briefs - 5<br />
Carter County Sheriff Tommy<br />
Adams. So far it hasn’t been a ban-<br />
scottfaughn@<br />
It was a good week for Rachel<br />
Expert: Relentless - 6<br />
ner year for the sheriff, but things Joy Woolard, who made a major<br />
semotimes.com<br />
got worse last week when prosecutors piled comeback with her online blog,<br />
on cocaine charge. Tough year.<br />
“From Beauty Queen to Baby<br />
Tim Krakowiak, <strong>SEMO</strong> Review Team - 6<br />
Mama,” offering first-hand advice<br />
managing editor<br />
It was a bad week for deer hunt- to all the single parents out there. Be sure to<br />
tim@semotimes.com Alex Riffle Band - 10<br />
ers—morespecifi- Liz Ellis, Reporter<br />
cally deer hunters<br />
who run dogs while<br />
lizellis@semotimes. Kindergarten Center - 11 hunting. Last year, Judge<br />
com<br />
Robert Smith struck down<br />
Rachel Woolard<br />
Marketing Director<br />
rachel@semotimes.<br />
Social Calendar - 11<br />
Hooked on Science - 12<br />
laws outlawing the use of dogs<br />
in deer hunting. This week an<br />
appeals court overturned his<br />
ruling.<br />
com<br />
Chris Lowry<br />
creative director<br />
chris@semotimes.com<br />
+bluffee Calendar - 15<br />
Take the Times with You - 16<br />
It was a good week<br />
for the Poplar Bluff<br />
School Board. The<br />
state-of-the-art Kindergarten<br />
Center is<br />
the social network<br />
# 1 Are you a skeptic or believer when it<br />
from our<br />
friends at:<br />
&<br />
comes to the paranormal?<br />
Ricky<br />
Allen<br />
Timbush<br />
how to join our<br />
social network:<br />
# 2 Have you ever seen local grassroots band,<br />
Alex Riffle & The Stiff Riffs, perform?<br />
Bridgett<br />
Barnhill<br />
1. Become a friend of <strong>SEMO</strong> Times on Facebook<br />
2. Reply to our questions for a chance to be<br />
featured with your profile pic in the newspaper<br />
Ashlee<br />
Bashaw<br />
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI’S NEWS-MAGAZINE OF POLITICS AND CULTURE<br />
www.semotImes.com page 3
www.semotimes.com News Section<br />
Century Old Railroad Hotel in Piedmont<br />
Entices Paranormal Investigators<br />
Submitted Photo<br />
The Southwest Ghost Finders of Springfield, Mo. captured this<br />
photo in the old railroad hotel in Piedmont that contains what<br />
they say may be an apparition of a law enforcement officer.<br />
page 4<br />
Tim Krakowiak<br />
Managing Editor<br />
PIEDMONT, Mo. – The turn of the<br />
20th century railroad hotel in Piedmont<br />
has attracted paranormal investigators,<br />
who claim they have captured some supernatural<br />
evidence.<br />
GoDark! Missouri Paranormal Research,<br />
a group of nine amateur ghost<br />
hunters mostly from Wayne County,<br />
investigated the hotel on Elm and<br />
2nd streets for the third time Saturday<br />
night, and produced an electronic voice<br />
phenomenon on a Sony recorder of a<br />
male supposedly asking, “Where’s the<br />
baby?”<br />
On separate visits to the hotel earlier<br />
this year, the group caught EVPs that<br />
could be heard<br />
on their website,www.godarkmpr.webs.<br />
com, which<br />
they believe<br />
to be a teenage<br />
female voice<br />
saying, “My<br />
Grandpa’s in<br />
there” and a<br />
middle aged<br />
man stating,<br />
“He knows the<br />
way.”<br />
“I would say<br />
there’s paranormalactivity<br />
going on<br />
there,” said<br />
Carin Les, who<br />
founded Go-<br />
Dark! in 2008.<br />
A writer, Carin<br />
Les is the<br />
pen name the<br />
Piedmont woman chooses to go by.<br />
She has a book exploring the theory<br />
that spirits are considered energy slated<br />
for a fall release through Tate Publishing,<br />
tentatively titled “Whispers in the<br />
Hallway,” inspired by her experiences<br />
on the second floor of the hotel.<br />
Les has been interested in the paranormal<br />
since before ghost hunting became<br />
popular on national television. In<br />
1992, Les said, she captured an audio<br />
recording, which she believes was her<br />
recently deceased aunt, and has had<br />
premonitions that have since come<br />
true.<br />
Other members of the group have<br />
also developed a curiosity toward the<br />
unexplained, based on personal experiences.<br />
Andrea Birch of Clubb suggested her<br />
childhood home in Brownville, Neb.,<br />
was haunted by a woman who had died<br />
in the house a year prior to them moving<br />
there. Birch said her family contacted<br />
a clairvoyant, who was allegedly<br />
able to postmortemly reunite the woman<br />
with her fiancé, who hanged himself<br />
the day before their wedding.<br />
“Nobody talked about this sort of<br />
thing when I was a little girl, but my<br />
mom did,” said Birch, who is a florist<br />
by day.<br />
A partial remodel of the old railroad<br />
hotel is what the group attributes to<br />
perhaps stirring up paranormal activity<br />
in recent years. Vicki and Jim Roberts,<br />
a retired couple from St. Louis, pur-<br />
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI’S NEWS-MAGAZINE OF POLITICS AND CULTURE<br />
chased the hotel in 2005 with plans to<br />
turn it into a bed and breakfast. They<br />
got as far as renovating the first floor,<br />
where they lived for the past few years,<br />
until they ran out of financing needed<br />
to complete the project.<br />
“As long as visitors are having fun,<br />
that makes us happy,” Vicki Roberts<br />
said. “I’ve never felt uncomfortable<br />
there.”<br />
Her husband had a freak occurrence<br />
happen in September of 2008, the day<br />
after remnants of Hurricane Ike reeked<br />
havoc in areas of Southeast Missouri.<br />
Early morning that Sunday, Jim Roberts<br />
went upstairs in the former hotel<br />
to check if any damage had been sus-<br />
www.semotImes.com
www.semotimes.com News Section<br />
Photo by Tim Krakowiak<br />
Paranormal investigators Carin Les<br />
(left) and Trina Dougherty use dowsing<br />
rods to try to commnicate with the<br />
other side Saturday at the old railroad<br />
hotel in Piedmont.<br />
tained. Everything appeared normal,<br />
he said, so he went downstairs to have<br />
some coffee. Fifteen minutes later he<br />
heard what sounded like an explosion,<br />
blowing out the windows and the doorframe<br />
of the very room he inspected,<br />
peeling back the roof.<br />
Since there was no destruction anywhere<br />
else in the neighborhood, Jim<br />
Roberts said a microburst, which is a<br />
concentrated downburst of wind, is the<br />
only logical way to describe it. “What<br />
are the odds of it happening in this particular<br />
building?” he said.<br />
Around 1900, the hotel was built to<br />
accommodate railroad workers on account<br />
of the terminal established in<br />
Piedmont in 1872. Linda Lunyou, president<br />
of the Wayne County Historical<br />
Society, said her mother Annie Warrick<br />
boarded at the hotel in 1927, while she<br />
worked at a restaurant on Main Street<br />
called Pollyanna that served the railroad<br />
workers.<br />
In 1939, Newman Richardson purchased<br />
the American Hotel from E.W.<br />
Fitz, and renamed it Hotel Richardson,<br />
where he and his family resided until<br />
they sold it in 1960. The railroad hotel<br />
was the birthplace of four of Newman<br />
and Isabelle Richardson’s five children.<br />
“It was a really wonderful place to<br />
be raised as a child, particularly with<br />
all the guests that came through during<br />
the 1940s and to a degree in the early<br />
‘50s,” recalled Dr. Rayman Richardson,<br />
professor emeritus of Fairmont<br />
State University in West Virginia, during<br />
a phone interview Tuesday. “Salesmen<br />
would use Piedmont as the center<br />
of their working area, then as the roads<br />
got better, they could stay in Poplar<br />
Bluff and work a bigger area.”<br />
The hotel reportedly later served as<br />
an indigent boarding house, and eventually<br />
became home to a tavern known<br />
as the Railroad Lounge, owned by Ray<br />
McGee followed by Randy Zamzow,<br />
before the 7,000 square foot building<br />
sat vacated for several years, becoming<br />
subject to vandalism.<br />
According to a website currently set<br />
up for paranormal investigators to book<br />
the hotel, www.hauntedrailroadhotel.<br />
webs.com, the crime rate increased<br />
during the era when Piedmont was a<br />
booming tourist town.<br />
The online biography reads: “Outlaws,<br />
gamblers, gunslingers and the<br />
notorious local troublemakers blazed<br />
a wide trail of mayhem and murder,<br />
leaving behind many victims in its<br />
wake.” It goes on to say, the Railroad<br />
Lounge “unwillingly hosted many barroom<br />
brawls.”<br />
Chief executive officer of J&J Sanitation<br />
in Piedmont, Tom Reich, said<br />
he could remember small businesses<br />
lining downtown, then Walmart and<br />
McDonalds came into the picture, and<br />
the mom and pop shops were forced to<br />
shut down.<br />
“There were bars up and down Main<br />
Street, and fights here and there, but<br />
not anything different than any other<br />
town,” said Reich, who has lived in<br />
Wayne County since the late 1960s.<br />
After graduating from Clearwater<br />
High School in 1972, he moved to the<br />
St. Louis area to work at a shipyard,<br />
only to return within a few years to<br />
start a family on the Black River.<br />
“Like many kids, I wanted to move<br />
to the big city and chase the big bucks,<br />
but decided to come back home where<br />
it’s nice and peaceful,” said Reich,<br />
adding jokingly: “where there’s no<br />
shootings and ghosts.”<br />
When asked about the reputation of<br />
the Railroad Lounge, Lunyou echoed<br />
Reich’s sentiment: “Any bar that I’ve<br />
ever known of has had its share of<br />
fights. I don’t know of anything that<br />
happened there out of the ordinary.”<br />
One incident that can be verified<br />
through the Officer Down Memorial<br />
Page at www.odmp.org, a nonprofit<br />
organization that honors fallen law<br />
enforcement, involves Piedmont Police<br />
Officer Jack Lee Daugherty, who<br />
suffered a deadly heart attack Oct. 27,<br />
1989, after placing suspects who were<br />
involved in a bar fight he broke up into<br />
his squad car.<br />
Earlier this month, the Southwest<br />
Ghost Finders of Springfield, Mo., investigated<br />
the old railroad hotel and<br />
supposedly captured a photograph of<br />
an apparition that appears to be a lawman,<br />
based on the apparent silhouette<br />
of a hat.<br />
Tim Krakowiak can be reached by<br />
emailing tim@semotimes.com.<br />
@ semotimes.com<br />
Stephenson Appointed to National<br />
Commission<br />
Three Rivers College President Dr.<br />
Devin Stephenson has been invited<br />
to serve as a commissioner with the<br />
American Association of Community<br />
Colleges.<br />
According to the invitation letter<br />
sent to Stephenson last month, AACC<br />
commissions advise the board of directors<br />
on issues that “reflect key aspects<br />
of the association’s work on behalf of<br />
its member colleges.” Stephenson has<br />
been asked to serve on the commission<br />
of communications and marketing.<br />
Stephenson’s term as an AACC advisor<br />
began on July 1, and will last<br />
for three years. The next commission<br />
meeting will be held Nov. 9-10in<br />
Washington, D.C.<br />
To read the full story,<br />
visit the .com.<br />
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI’S NEWS-MAGAZINE OF POLITICS AND CULTURE<br />
www.semotImes.com page 5
Business<br />
page 6<br />
Marketing Campaigns<br />
Liz Ellis<br />
Reporter<br />
Running a successful marketing<br />
campaign is tricky, and can walk a fine<br />
line between innovative and disastrous,<br />
between creative and annoying.<br />
Tabitha Thomas of Relentless Media<br />
Productions said that traditional thinking<br />
and time-tested techniques may not<br />
always be the best way to go.<br />
“Think outside of the box,” Thomas<br />
said. “When you’re thinking about<br />
marketing, don’t think of the business<br />
in your terms. Put yourself in your<br />
customer’s shoes, your client’s shoes.<br />
Don’t think about it the way you do,<br />
think about it the way they will.” That,<br />
she said, is the essential first part of<br />
successful marketing.<br />
The second step, she said, is knowing<br />
what the brand of your business is,<br />
and then fostering it to create the proper<br />
feel and technique for the marketing<br />
campaign.<br />
“Your brand is not your color scheme,<br />
it’s not your logo,” Thomas said. “Your<br />
brand is the spirit of your business.<br />
If someone were to say three words<br />
about your business, what would they<br />
be? Really understand your brand and<br />
business, because until you do, they<br />
[your customers] won’t.”<br />
To establish what the brand of a company<br />
should be, Thomas said that the<br />
first step is to ask a ton of questions.<br />
Figure out what you want others to<br />
see in your business, how you perform<br />
your business and<br />
what your character<br />
as a business<br />
is. The important<br />
thing is to just get<br />
to brain storming,<br />
and know what<br />
you want.<br />
“There is no<br />
such thing as a<br />
dumb idea, because<br />
dumb ideas<br />
spark good ones,”<br />
Thomas said.<br />
Another tip for<br />
the contemporary<br />
business owner<br />
is to use social<br />
media to market<br />
products.<br />
“It’s free and it’s the best thing you<br />
can do,” Thomas said. “It’s the best<br />
way to communicate with your clients<br />
on their terms.”<br />
Thomas has been doing marketing at<br />
Relentless Media for three years, and<br />
does a little bit of everything from account<br />
managing to script writing.<br />
“You come up with these ideas and<br />
Photo by Liz Ellis<br />
Tabitha Thomas is the chief financial officer for Relentless<br />
Media Productions in Poplar Bluff. She has been doing advertising<br />
at the company for three years.<br />
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI’S NEWS-MAGAZINE OF POLITICS AND CULTURE<br />
you pitch them to a client and they’re<br />
like, ‘I love it!’ and it’s the best high<br />
in the world,” Thomas said. “It’s really<br />
exciting when you think of these new<br />
ideas and they get it… writing commercials<br />
is my favorite.”<br />
And she writes a lot of them. Relentless<br />
Media specializes in video production,<br />
but they also offer a wide variety<br />
of marketing services including branding,<br />
websites, photography and graphic<br />
design. They are based in Poplar Bluff,<br />
but also have an office in Jackson.<br />
However, they aren’t limited to just<br />
Missouri. They travel all over.<br />
In Poplar Bluff, they have worked<br />
with Gamma HealthCare, Popular<br />
Bluff Credit Union, Black River Coliseum<br />
and Three Rivers College.<br />
“I do it because it’s fun,” Thomas<br />
said. “It’s different every single day<br />
and it’s challenging because somebody<br />
is placing their business in your hands<br />
to help you promote them. Everybody’s<br />
business is their baby and there’s a lot<br />
of trust there.”<br />
Liz Ellis can be reached by email at<br />
lizellis@semotimes.com<br />
www.semotImes.com
opinion & editorial<br />
Movie Review: Horrible Bosses<br />
Horrible Bosses is the tale of three<br />
men in the depths of despair in their<br />
careers. Each of the three pals suffers<br />
at the expense of their superior, and at<br />
the height of their suffering, they hatch<br />
a plan to dispose of the bosses who are<br />
the source of their distress. Of course,<br />
at this point, hilarity ensues.<br />
The three main characters, played<br />
by Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman and<br />
Charlie Day (of It’s Always Sunny in<br />
Philidelphia notoriety, which I love),<br />
no doubt are the heart of the movie, exhibiting<br />
an exceptional on film chemistry,<br />
but the supporting cast of the<br />
bosses and Jamie Foxx’s portrayal of<br />
a “murder consultant” are at the heart<br />
of some of the most funny moments<br />
in the film. Jennifer Aniston and Colin<br />
Ferrell demonstrate some range in the<br />
film indicating that they can do things<br />
other than just look pretty, and Kevin<br />
Spacey and Jamie Foxx deliver as always.<br />
My only critique of the performances<br />
was that Bateman and Spacey<br />
didn’t seem much different than what<br />
I’ve seen them in before. Additionally,<br />
Charlie Day’s character only seemed<br />
like a slightly less moronic version<br />
of the one he plays on TV (although<br />
I didn’t mind because he was just so<br />
funny). I really can’t remember the<br />
last time I laughed out loud so much in<br />
the theater. The film has its fair share<br />
of raunchiness, but it also manages to<br />
come off as kind of intelligent and out<br />
of box at the same time, which is sometimes<br />
rare in R-rated comedies.<br />
Now the way I’ve come to understand<br />
comedies over the last few years<br />
is that you are usually either a Hangover<br />
person or an I Love You Man person.<br />
I personally am the latter. It’s not<br />
that I don’t like The Hangover. It’s just<br />
that that particular film seemed like a<br />
list of antics thrown together to make a<br />
movie, while I Love You Man focused<br />
on the nature of the characters and their<br />
relationships in order to create humor.<br />
Bosses uses both approaches, which<br />
results in a constant flood of laughter<br />
throughout the movie. In fact, I think<br />
I’ll probably have to watch it again as a<br />
rental since my own laughing prevented<br />
me from catching all of the jokes.<br />
Definitely worth a trip to the theater<br />
to see. Just don’t go with your mom (or<br />
with your boss).<br />
Dr. Amber Richardson is a life-long<br />
resident of Poplar Bluff. She is a mother<br />
and teaches part-time for Central<br />
Methodist University. Amber does not<br />
claim to have any specific film expertise<br />
other than possessing a love of<br />
movies and a desire to convince others<br />
to see quality films.<br />
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI’S NEWS-MAGAZINE OF POLITICS AND CULTURE<br />
www.semotImes.com page 7
Peoples<br />
Community<br />
Bank<br />
Our Mission Statement: Peoples Community Bank is a family of dedicated individuals<br />
making a commitment to act as one. We are a family owned and community oriented bank,<br />
where customer service is not a department...it is our attitude. We treat every customer<br />
as if our world revolves around them, because it does.<br />
Greenville Hwy 67 & Sycamore St, (573) 224-3267<br />
Wappapello Hwy D & Hwy T. (573) 222-8505<br />
Piedmont 1401 N Main, (573) 223-4000<br />
Puxico 422 S HWY 51, (573) 222-3700<br />
Marble Hill Hwy 34 E Building 1001, (573) 238-0100<br />
I am the President of<br />
People’s Community Bank.<br />
We are locally owned and<br />
dedicated to helping families<br />
like yours acheive your goals.<br />
Give me a call and let’s talk<br />
about how the<br />
family at<br />
People’s can<br />
help your<br />
family.<br />
-Keith Willcut
Alex Riffle and The Stiff Riffs’ Future<br />
with Band Namesake Going to College<br />
Liz Ellis<br />
Reporter<br />
“There’s really not a better group of<br />
guys or musicians in the whole state,”<br />
said Alex Riffle of Alex Riffle and The<br />
Stiff Riffs. “I’ve been very fortunate.”<br />
Riffle began playing with the Stiff<br />
Riffs, a very fluid group of five or six<br />
bluegrass players, when he was 11 and<br />
hasn’t ever looked back. Now, at 19, he<br />
will soon be going off to study medicine<br />
at St. Louis University.<br />
But Riffle says his Stiff Riff gigs are<br />
far from over.<br />
“I think I’m not going to be able to<br />
come back as much as I wish I could,<br />
because hopefully I’ll be busy and be<br />
concentrating,” Riffle said. “But, I’ll<br />
certainly come back as much as possible,<br />
and I might even bring them up<br />
to St. Louis for gigs. We’re certainly<br />
not going to quit, because I’ve enjoyed<br />
playing with these guys so much.”<br />
“It would be a sad affair if he was going<br />
to one of the coasts, but fortunately<br />
he’s going close by to a great college<br />
and we’ll still play here from time to<br />
time,” said Steve Walsh, mandolin and<br />
fiddle player.<br />
Riffle’s last performances in Popular<br />
Bluff with the Stiff Riffs before college<br />
will be next weekend, starting with a<br />
performance 7 p.m. Aug. 5 at The Wine<br />
Rack. The band will later play at Ozark<br />
Border and the First Baptist Church.<br />
“We’ll have a large band, six guys<br />
hopefully,” Riffle said. “It’ll consist<br />
of what I think we all consider to be<br />
the elite pickers in the area—possibly<br />
in the southern half of Missouri. We’ll<br />
have a fiddle player, a great lead guitar<br />
player and then the four of us. So, it’ll<br />
be good music.”<br />
Submitted Photo<br />
Alex Riffle and The Stiff Riffs play at Rogers Theatre in 2008. Next weekend will<br />
be their final performances in Poplar Bluff before Alex goes to college this fall.<br />
ORIGIN<br />
The Stiff Riffs—commonly composed<br />
of Walsh, Doug Kennedy, Billy<br />
Watkins and a few other alternates—<br />
has been around for about three decades.<br />
“I played Bluegrass when I came<br />
here, and immediately began looking<br />
around for people to play with,” said<br />
Walsh, a Poplar Bluff attorney. “But it<br />
is always hard to find a banjo player.<br />
You have to go a county or two over to<br />
find one, and it was always tough because<br />
when you’re playing bluegrass,<br />
that’s kind of an integral part.”<br />
Of course, when Walsh and Riffle<br />
first met, Riffle was 10 and was still<br />
learning piano. The next year, he decided<br />
that he wanted to play banjo and<br />
has since added guitar, mandolin, bass<br />
and a touch of fiddle to his repertoire.<br />
“I told Dad [Matt Riffle] one day that<br />
I wanted to play the banjo, and he said,<br />
‘Well, yeah, we’ll see what happens,’”<br />
Riffle said with a smile. “I’m sure he<br />
was thinking it was just another phase.”<br />
However, it turned out to be far from<br />
that, and soon Riffle had borrowed<br />
an old banjo from Kennedy and purchased<br />
a book or two on how to play,<br />
and within a few months, was ready for<br />
jam sessions with the rest of the band.<br />
“He really reenergized me—and I<br />
think Doug and Billy too—by being<br />
there, because he’s very talented and<br />
very high energy,” Walsh said. “All<br />
of that helped us to get a new lease on<br />
bluegrass life when he came along.”<br />
Indeed, Alex Riffle and The Stiff<br />
Riffs play more than just traditional<br />
bluegrass hits and have recently begun<br />
to add bluegrass renditions of popular<br />
rock and country songs to their repertoire,<br />
including artists such as U2, The<br />
Beatles, Tom Petty and Rolling Stones.<br />
An unusual move for a bluegrass band,<br />
but one that has been well received by<br />
the community.<br />
“We’ve been really surprised at the<br />
number of people who have embraced<br />
bluegrass music,” Walsh said. “They<br />
come from all walks of life.”<br />
MEMORY LANE<br />
Since they began playing, Alex Riffle<br />
and The Stiff Riffs have had several<br />
memorable performances, including<br />
opening for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.<br />
They also played at The Landing in Van<br />
Buren, opening for Ralph Stanley, who<br />
sang on the soundtrack for the movie<br />
Oh Brother Where Art Thou?<br />
> Continued on pg 12
New Kindergarten Center<br />
Commended in Poplar Bluff<br />
Liz Ellis<br />
Reporter<br />
The Poplar Bluff R-I School District is having a<br />
ribbon-cutting ceremony and tours of their new $6<br />
million Kindergarten Center today. The new building<br />
is located on the edge of town behind Cripple<br />
Creek Plaza on Hwy PP.<br />
“I think it’s great,” Pam Dunivan, a kindergarten<br />
teacher at the new school said. “It’s so bright and<br />
airy, the kids are going to absolutely love it. It’s so<br />
much different from what we had. It’s like going<br />
from poverty to ‘Wow!’”<br />
The Kindergarten Center has been in the works for<br />
several years, and was proposed four times before<br />
the bond to build the new building finally passed. It<br />
has been under construction for about a year.<br />
“It’s been a big need for us to have more room,”<br />
Debbie Harper, intervention specialist at the school<br />
said. “It was just too small. Where we were before,<br />
it’s going to be fine for a much smaller school.”<br />
The old kindergarten center, the Mark Twain<br />
building, will be used for the early childhood programs<br />
at Poplar Bluff. They will be moving into the<br />
new addition to the building.<br />
“Right now, we don’t have anything in [the old<br />
portion of the building],” Rod Priest, assistant principal<br />
of finance said. “Cause, in order to utilize that,<br />
we’d probably need to look to totally renovating it.”<br />
The new building however, is state of the art. It<br />
features a full sized gym with hardwood floors,<br />
a large cafeteria, a full-service library center with<br />
a smart board and a tiered area for reading time, a<br />
state-of-the-art nurse’s office complete with a small<br />
Photo by Liz Ellis<br />
The new Kindergarten Center will open on Aug. 24 for classes. It has<br />
been under construction for a year, and was proposed four years ago.<br />
shower in the bathroom, and 24 classrooms, all of<br />
which have smart boards and a computer as well as<br />
individual restrooms.<br />
“In the old building, we spent precious instructional<br />
time lining kids up to go to the bathroom,” said<br />
Kindergarten Principal Tammy Crouse. “The girls’<br />
bathroom was on one side and boys’ was on the other.<br />
So you would have to have two classrooms go to<br />
the bathroom at the same time so two teachers could<br />
monitor. We had to schedule bathroom breaks.”<br />
The new building also features some additional<br />
security measures, like a state-of-the-art sprinkler<br />
system and security locks on the doors in the lobby,<br />
so office personnel can buzz people through the lobby<br />
doors during the day.<br />
After hours, the Kindergarten Center will be used<br />
for basketball practice for high school students, and<br />
the full-size stage in the gym may also be available<br />
to the other schools or the community.<br />
“At the high school, we’ve got one basketball<br />
court,” Priest said. “If you’ve got girls and boys,<br />
sometimes they have to wait or practice early or<br />
practice late. This gives us one more spot to give<br />
them so they can get their practices in and get home<br />
at a decent hour.”<br />
Crouse says she thinks the biggest improvement<br />
will be having everyone under one roof.<br />
“When we had three buildings, we had three different<br />
sections,” Crouse said. “Now we will be more<br />
together, plus the children are more together.” She<br />
also added that the old building layout was complicated<br />
and the traffic on Main Street was dangerous.<br />
The benefits of the new building seem to be endless,<br />
with a full-size playground and room for the<br />
building to grow as it needs to. All of the teachers<br />
and workers at the new building<br />
have perpetual smiles on their<br />
faces at the new prospects.<br />
“I am just looking forward to a<br />
very great year,” Cindy DeWitt,<br />
a kindergarten teacher said. “All<br />
the teachers are excited and maybe<br />
a little overwhelmed from all<br />
the unpacking and boxes.”<br />
“I think its state of the art,”<br />
Crouse said. “I’m excited and<br />
anxious to start the school year.<br />
It’s just wonderful.”<br />
Liz Ellis can be reached by<br />
email at lizellis@semotimes.com.<br />
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI’S NEWS-MAGAZINE OF POLITICS AND CULTURE<br />
www.semotImes.com page 11
RESULTS from 7 23<br />
CRATE LATE - FEATURE<br />
Finish<br />
1 69R Jamie Robards - Broseley<br />
2 3030 Tim Winchester - Gideon<br />
3 93 Mason Oberkramer - Broseley<br />
4 66 Robby Moore - Broseley , Mo<br />
5 18C Scott Bolden<br />
6 8 Juli Bell - Dexter , Mo<br />
OW MODIFIEDS - FEATURE<br />
Finish<br />
1 02 Robert Powers - Campbell<br />
2 1S Shawn Knuckles - PB<br />
3 97 Paul Reeder - Malden , Mo<br />
4 99R Justin Roberts<br />
5 D97 Daryl Hay - Doniphan , Mo<br />
6 67 Austin Matthews - Dexter , Mo<br />
7 45 Mike Jessup - Jackson , Mo<br />
8 5X Leonard Betsch Ii - Annapolis<br />
9 214 Kris Lloyd - Charelston , Mo<br />
E-MODS - FEATURE<br />
Finish<br />
1 94 Scott Tracer Rector , Ar<br />
page 12<br />
2 95 Josh Sissom Cape Girardeau<br />
3 44 Mike Stevenson Jonesboro , Ar<br />
4 21JR Lane Pennington Qulin , Mo<br />
5 75 Chuck Tilley Essex , Mo DNS<br />
6 75JR Chad Tilley Essex , Mo DNS<br />
SUPER STREET - FEATURE<br />
Finish<br />
1 31 Doug Moore - Dexter , Mo<br />
2 11 Matthew Brown - Broseley<br />
3 68 Greg Sparks - Bernie , Mo<br />
4 01 Cole Fowler - Portageville<br />
PURE STREET - FEATURE<br />
Finish<br />
1 <strong>29</strong>TOM Josh Tomlin - Hayti , Mo<br />
2 11 Matthew Brown - Broseley<br />
3 37 Christopher Webb Sedgwvl<br />
CYLINDERS - FEATURE<br />
Finish<br />
1 19 Terry James - Cape Girardeau<br />
2 36 Bradley Lewis - Poplar Bluff<br />
3 <strong>35</strong> Justin Redden - Clarkton , Mo<br />
4 39 Robert Owens - Bernie , Mo<br />
> From pg 10<br />
“We had one [performance], it was<br />
just a variety thing, and we killed the<br />
lights halfway through the show and<br />
put on these fake beards,” Walsh said.<br />
“And we came back on with funny hats<br />
and beards.”<br />
“People went crazy,” Riffle said with<br />
a chuckle. “We told ourselves we’d<br />
only do that one time, and we’ve never<br />
done it again.” Regardless, they said, it<br />
made for a memorable performance.<br />
Most of their other unforgettable<br />
performances were for charity events,<br />
such as the Ronald McDonald house in<br />
St. Louis, the Boys and Girls Club and<br />
playing at Silver Dollar City.<br />
“We’re always game for fundraisers,”<br />
Walsh said.<br />
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI’S NEWS-MAGAZINE OF POLITICS AND CULTURE<br />
While Riffle is away at college, the<br />
Stiff Riffs will continue to operate,<br />
adding him whenever they can.<br />
“We’re not going to let him go,”<br />
Walsh said. “We’ll still play dates after<br />
he goes to SLU, and insist he comes<br />
down here, even if we have to threaten<br />
his parents to make that happen.”<br />
“I plan on playing with these guys as<br />
much as I possibly can, even with the<br />
drive and everything,” Riffle said. “I<br />
would miss them too terribly to let go<br />
so quickly.”<br />
Liz Ellis can be reached by email at<br />
lizellis@semotimes.com or by calling<br />
573-785-2200.<br />
www.semotImes.com
Activity section www.semotimes.com<br />
~ Karaoke with Vern<br />
8 p.m. July <strong>29</strong><br />
Jake’s MDV Doniphan<br />
~ Shakespeare Picnic<br />
2 p.m. July 30<br />
Boster Castle Kingdom City<br />
~ Back to School Fair<br />
8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Aug. 4<br />
Black River Coliseum<br />
~ Whisky Down Grand Opening<br />
10 p.m. Aug. 6<br />
Formerly Scooters II<br />
~ Ozark Border Activities Meeting<br />
10 a.m. Aug. 6<br />
Bess Activity Center<br />
~ Rayni Day Miracles Fundraiser<br />
9 a.m.-6 p.m. Aug. 8<br />
Black River Coliseum<br />
~ As Is Band<br />
9 p.m. Aug. 6<br />
Jake’s MDV, Doniphan<br />
~ Nowhere Fast<br />
10:30 p.m.-1 a.m. Aug. 12<br />
Whisky Down<br />
~ Fundraiser Auction for Betty Badford<br />
4-11 p.m. Aug. 13<br />
Centerville Community Building<br />
~ Community Appreciation for Rescue Mission<br />
1-5 p.m. Aug. 14<br />
Mansion Mall Parking Lot<br />
To submit an event go to www.semotimes.com<br />
and click on the +Bluffee tab<br />
New Owners<br />
Ladies Night Wed. & Fri<br />
Going out with<br />
a Group<br />
text 5737187803 and<br />
well set everything up<br />
TUESDAY NIGHT: DART LEAGUES l WEDNESDAY NIGHT:<br />
KARAOKE lTHURSDAY NIGHT: POOL LEAGUES lFRIDAY<br />
NIGHT: KARAOKE l SATURDAY NIGHT: BANDS<br />
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI’S NEWS-MAGAZINE OF POLITICS AND CULTURE<br />
www.semotImes.com page 15
TAKE THE timesWITH<br />
YOU<br />
& $<br />
TAKE THIS COPY OF THE <strong>TIMES</strong> TO ANY OF THESE BUSINESSES<br />
KEEP THE <strong>TIMES</strong> IN YOUR HAND AND MORE MONEY IN YOUR POCKET