Stories from Sunday, March 25, 2012

NEW MADRID -- Billy Young, 69, died March 23, 2012, at his home. Arrangements are incomplete at the Richards Funeral Home in New Madrid.

CHARLESTON -- Albirdie Vines Ritch, 75, died March 24, 2012, at her home in rural Charleston. Born July 28, 1936, in the Deventer community of Mississippi County, to the late Walter Lee and Eliza Ann Nolen Vines, she had lived in Mississippi County her entire life...

SIKESTON -- Evelyn Sanders, 94, formerly of East Prairie, died at 7:20 p.m. March 21, 2012, in the East Prairie Nursing Center. Born Nov. 5, 1917, in Mississippi County to the late Charles and Maude Kidd Jackson, she lived most of her life in East Prairie where she worked at the Ben Franklin Dime Store for over 50 years...

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Rena Andrews, 82, of Cape Girardeau, formerly of New Madrid, died March 22, 2012, at the Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau. Born April 16, 1929, in Mount Levi, Ark., to the late George and Rhoda Lund Warren, she was a member of the New Madrid Church of Christ and the Order of the Eastern Star...

CHARLESTON -- Peggy Ann Alcorn Oliver, 71, died March 22, 2012, at the East Prairie Nursing Center. Born Oct. 27, 1940, in rural Sikeston, to the late Delmar H. and Helen Marie Wyman Alcorn Sr., she was a graduate of Charleston High School. She studied at William Woods College at Fulton and then later at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau. In 1980, she moved to Marion, Ark., where she was a member of the First Baptist Church. She returned to Charleston in 1998...

SIKESTON -- Marla Jo Husk Hyde, 51, died at 3:15 a.m. March 22, 2012, at Missouri Delta Medical Center. Born March 25, 1960, in Sikeston to the late Donald Richard and Martha Sue Childers Husk, she lived in Sikeston most of her life. On March 26, 1977, at the Miner Baptist Church she married Ronald Steven Hyde who survives of the home...

EUREKA -- John Cerny of Eureka died at home on March 21, 2012, at the age of 76. He was the husband of Patricia Letsinger Cerny for 56 years. He also was the father of Timothy M. Cerny (Jan Anderson Cerny) and Kimberly A. Cerny (Jay Divine); grandfather of Leslie Cerny, Albert Huebner, Jessica Huebner, Joshua Divine and Madeline Divine; brother of Betty Rose Scott (Thomas M. ...

Politics have been on my mind quite a bit lately. But then - given the national and state climate and the vast differences in this great nation - it's understandable that politics would be an important issue for all of us. You don't have to be a faithful reader of this column to know that I am a staunch conservative. ...