Stories from Sunday, June 27, 2004

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BELL CITY - Bell City clinching its second Class 1 state championship in three years didn't come as that great of a shock. But it was the way they did it and the exploits of ultra talented point guard Dominitrix Johnson that stood out. Bell City didn't just win a state championship. They dominated...

FARMINGTON - Fans had waited two years to see the Sikeston and North County baseball teams meet up again. The wait was well worth it. After being postponed for a day due to rain, the game was finally going to be played at Farmington's Wilson-Rozier Park...

DEXTER - Despite some powerful teams over the years, Dexter's boys basketball team hadn't produced a district championship since 1976. Year after year, following dominant regular season records, the Bearcats would come up short during playoff time...

SIKESTON - For 26 years Charlie Vickery paced the sidelines as the head football coach at Sikeston High School. After 156 wins, seven playoffs appearances and nine conference championships, Vickery stepped down from his position to retire. In a career that spanned four decades, Vickery had back-to-back losing seasons only once and he had a winning record against every team in southeast Missouri except for Cape Central, which leads 12-15...

SIKESTON - Everyone knew Sikeston High School star Blake DeWitt was going to be selected in the Major League Baseball draft. And most thought it would be pretty high. But skeptics still figured he would slip to the third to fifth rounds. They couldn't have been more wrong. Since last summer DeWitt had received an enormous amount of attention from college recruiters and major league scouts and it all came to a head earlier this month...

SIKESTON - Mr. and Mrs. Clay Mitchell and son, Jack, spent last weekend in St. Louis on business. While there, they visited with their son, Bob Mitchell, a student in the A.S.T.P. Army Air Corps Reserve, at Washington, D.C. --- SIKESTON - Mrs. Paul David Malone entertained a group of little tots and their mothers Wednesday on the lawn of Mrs. Charlie Moore's home in honor of the second birthday of her son, Pat Malone...

SIKESTON -- Mike Parker is all for moving forward. So last fall, when Parker took on the role as president of the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association at Southeast Missouri State University, he welcomed being thrust into the controversial issue of changing the University's mascot and name...

SIKESTON - Can exercise really be fun? The staff at Missouri Delta Medical Center's ReStart think so. "I think a lot of times kids have a negative view of working out," said Heather Vogler, athletic trainer for ReStart. "Maybe it's the word 'work.'"...

MINER - With only a week until the Fourth of July, fireworks tents are open and sales are officially in full swing. Despite the threat of terrorism and the nation being at war, fireworks retailers expect large crowds and expect sales will be normal or possibly higher since the holiday falls on the weekend...

1. Sikeston baseball (Class 3 third place) -------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Charleston boys basketball (Class 3, third place) -------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Bell City boys basketball (Class 1 state champs)...

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SIKESTON - Quincy and Juanita Nelson are the parents of their third child, second daughter, born at 7:09 p.m. May 13, 2004, at Missouri Delta Medical Center. Amaree Latisha Nelson weighed 7 pounds, 1 ounce and was 18-inches long. The daughter of Narvice Garmon and Willie Garmon, Mrs. Nelson is a hand packer for Good Humor-Breyers...

It was interesting to read this week the public discussion concerning a potential merger between Sikeston and Miner. Anyone who is a longtime resident of either community will remember that similar discussions have gone on for decades. On the one hand, the merger makes all the sense in the world. But emotions, power bases and community pride may override logic and common sense and the merger may be just more discussion with little if any action...

I would like to have the telephone number for the Red Hats Society in Sikeston. If anyone has this information, please call me at 471-6893. For the person who put in a poem or whatever you want to call it, making fun of George Bush, I am so sick of you Democratic people (or whatever you are) putting this man down. ...