Stories from Wednesday, January 22, 2020

I wish local and regional media would stop showing pictures and live film videos of children recipients of charity gifts, clothes and other items at Christmas time. I know various people and organizations want to be credited with their charitable acts toward those less fortunate. But don’t you know you’re setting these children up to be teased and embarrassed? How important is it? Is it a matter of the children or adults involved? And by the way, charity is not going to really help people in the long run. Now some economic efforts might help, if they were carried out the right way. But please, please, stop featuring children with do-gooder adults taking them shopping, or fitting them with clothes or blah, blah, blah.

I grew up in the1980s and 1990s when newspapers were well respected and regarded as a community’s top news source. Well, at least that was the case in the TV shows I watched as a youngster. Natalie Green from “The Facts of Life” worked for the school paper and was always trying to get the scoop on something. Arnold Jackson from “Diff’rent Strokes” also worked on the school paper, even writing an expose on steroid use in the high school...

Free English as a Second Language (ESL) classes will soon be offered in the Missouri communities of Kennett and Sikeston to help improve literacy in the region. The classes will be offered by the Cape Girardeau-based Adult Education and Literacy Program, which serves Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Dunklin, North Stoddard, North Scott, Pemiscot and Perry counties...

Local veterans were honored Tuesday night during a recognition ceremony between the varsity and junior varsity basketball games between Sikeston and Farmington at the Sikeston Field House. Also, before the game, the Sikeston Bleacher Bums hosted a chili supper to recognize the veterans...

The Portageville Rural Fire Department responded to a shed fire behind a residence in Hayward, Missouri, on State Highway T at 11:07 a.m. Tuesday. According to a Facebook post, Engine 3 responded and upon arrival firefighters found a shed which had been burning for some time. The owners of the shed stated they were burning trash when the fire got out of control. No other structures were damaged in the fire...

PADUCAH, Ky. — The Sikeston area could see a wintery mix tonight into early Thursday. According to the National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky., a very light wintery mix is possible over parts of southern Illinois and southeast Missouri late Wednesday and early Thursday. A weather system will likely produce a light wintry mix over portions of southeast Missouri and southern Illinois tonight into Thursday morning...

WYATT, Mo. — Charlotte Sue Fitzgerald Knece, 62, died Jan. 20, 2020, at her home in Wyatt. Born Aug. 17, 1957, at Wyatt, daughter of the late Oris Douglas Fitzgerald and Mary Louise Lomax Fitzgerald, she had lived in Ohio many years before returning to Wyatt. She was employed with Casey’s General Store in Charleston and had attended the New Covenant Pentecostal Holiness Church in Wyatt...

CHAFFEE, Mo. — Elaine Schlegel, 71, died Jan. 17, 2020, at her home in Chaffee. Born July 2, 1948, in Cape Girardeau, daughter of the late William F. and Adella M. Glueck Schmitt, she retired from Thorngate Ltd. in Cape Girardeau after 41 years of employment and was a member of the St. Lawrence Catholic Church in New Hamburg. She graduated from Chaffee Senior High School in 1966...

SIKESTON — Mark Fraser, age 29, died Jan. 20, 2020, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was born July 6, 1990, in Memphis, the son of Julie Carlisle Fraser Young and the late Dennis Fraser.