SpeakOut 12/3

Call 471-6636

Charleston has the Dogwood-Azalea Festival (for the azaleas) and Sikeston has the Cotton Carnival (for the cotton). Well, Morehouse has a lot of pecans and I think Morehouse should begin a pecan festival. If anybody else is interested in this idea, please call SpeakOut.

The boys basketball team at East Prairie High School gets to practice in the gym 98 percent of the time, but the girls high school basketball team has to practice in the cafeteria where they eat lunch or at the junior high where the goals and courts are not as good as the one in the high school. Why the difference? The boys can practice in the gym every day, but the girls can't. Why can't they rotate the practices so the girls can use the gym, too?

All of us who have been subscribing to the Standard Democrat for 40 years, we all need to drop our subscription. This is just a frame-up mess, this $1,000 holiday shopping spree. I challenge all of us. Let's all just drop taking this paper. I'm thankful for the ones who get it, but it should have been something that would be fair for everyone. It's nothing but a gambling deal.

What in the heck are you talking about? Shopping spree dollars are randomly inserted into our newspaper. If a subscriber finds the winner, they come to our office as a weekly winner. The overall winner is selected from among those subscribers. That's about as simple as it gets. It's fair, it's fun and it could be rewarding to subscribers.

To the person who wrote in about Bush being in the military, he was the right age to serve in three wars - somehow, he didn't. He enrolled in the Air National Guard during one war and attended one monthly meeting. Photo ops of him looking like a pilot were made. He has no flight time, military or civilian.

Will you print the dates that the leaf removal truck will be in each area of town again?

The 2002-2003 Leaf Collection Schedule is as follows: * District 1 - Jan. 13-18: South of Malone Avenue and west of the Burlington-Northern Railroad tracks to the southern and western city limits. * District 2 - Jan. 20-24: East of the Burlington-Northern Railroad tracks, west of South Main and south of Malone to the southern city limits. District 3 - Dec. 2-7 and Jan. 27-Feb. 1: East of South Main, west of South Ingram and south of Malone to the southern city limits. * District 4 - Dec. 9-13 and Feb. 3-8: East of South Ingram, south of Malone to the southern and eastern city limits. * District 5 - Dec. 16-21 and Feb. 10-15: North of Malone and west of the Burlington-Northern Railroad tracks to northern and western city limits. * District 6 - Dec. 23-28 and Feb. 17-22: East of Burlington-Northern Railroad tracks, west of North Kingshighway, and north of Malone to northern city limits. * District 7 - Dec. 30-Jan. 3 and Feb. 24-March 1: East of North Kingshighway, west of Main and north of Malone. * District 8 - Jan. 6-11 and March 3-8: East of North Main, and north of Malone to the northern and eastern city limits. For more information on the leaf collection program, visit www.sikeston.org or call the Department of Public Works at 471-2174.