Stories from Thursday, February 27, 2020

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. — Two Poplar Bluff residents face charges for sexual trafficking of a child. Brandon M. Hopper, 39, and Amber M. Longhibler, 28, of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, were arrested Thursday for sexual trafficking of a child and promotion and possession of child pornography, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Division of Drug and Crime Control. ...

SIKESTON — Jacquelyn Louise Schaffer Crews, born Dec. 26, 1935, in Lilbourn, New Madrid County, Missouri, to Clifford Schaffer and Jewel Catherine Daugherty Schaffer who later moved to Sikeston, Missouri. Jackie attended school in Sikeston, Missouri, where she met and later married her husband of 67 years, George W. ...

SIKESTON — Southeast Missouri Food Bank announced Wednesday it has received a $50,000 grant from Tyson Foods to fund 24 mobile food pantries in Stoddard, Scott and Dunklin Counties. The grant will allow the food bank to provide mobile food pantries in these counties from June 2020 through May 2021...

Officials continue to investigate the network disruption that occurred Tuesday afternoon at Three Rivers College. Classes are cancelled for the rest of the week except for nursing and allied health programs in Poplar Bluff and Sikeston, according to officials...

The State of Missouri had the fourth-highest gun-death rate in the nation in 2018, according to a new analysis conducted by the Violence Policy Center, a national educational organization working to stop gun death and injury. According to a news release from the organization, the VPC’s findings were obtained using recently-released Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (or WISQARS) data from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control for overall gun-death rates in 2018, the most recent year for which data is available.. ...

A quarter-billion dollar verdict in the landmark dicamba herbicide trial in Cape Girardeau earlier this month wasn’t the end of the story. In fact, it was barely the first chapter, according to attorneys who are handling additional dicamba cases. “Before the verdict, we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 farmers,” said St. ...

NEW MADRID, Mo. — Conservative estimates on revenues and the frugal use of tax dollars by county office holders put the 2019 New Madrid County budget into the black. As New Madrid County Clerk Clement Cravens presented his 2020 budget message, he noted the 2019 budget initially projected a deficit. Instead the General Revenue Fund began the 2019 fiscal year with a reserve balance of $2,375,494.43 and ended the year with a balance of $2,648,507.05...

Races are beginning to form for local county and state offices. Filing opened Tuesday for the Aug. 4 primary election with the winners moving on to the general election on Nov. 3. Filing will remain open until March 31. Scott County In Scott County, incumbent sheriff Wes Drury refiled for the position as did challenger Carl Rose. However, Wednesday, Rose issued a statement on his personal Facebook page that he was withdrawing from the race...

EAST PRAIRIE, Mo. — Ronnie Barber, 55, died Feb. 26, 2020, at his home. Born Aug. 21, 1964, in Charleston, son of James Barber Sr. of Fork, S.C., and Dorothy Jones Wilson, who preceded him in death on Dec. 3, 2007, he was employed as a river boat captain for Marquette Transportation in Paducah, Ky. ...