Stories from Saturday, February 27, 2016

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) has partnered with other conservation groups, agriculture organizations, and the Missouri Conservation Heritage Foundation (MCHF) to provide the state's feral hog strike team with more trapping equipment and increase feral hog communications to the public...

COLUMBIA, MO, February 12, 2016 -- USDA -- Rural Development Missouri State Director Janie Dunning has announced funding availability for the Farm Labor Housing Loan and Grant Programs. The Farm Labor Housing Loan and Grant Program provides affordable financing to develop housing for year-round and migrant or seasonal domestic farm laborers...

While Dexter gave the Class 4 No. 6 ranked Tigers a battle, the Bearcats could not keep pace in the fourth quarter as Cape Central turned a two-point lead into a double-digit victory.

SIKESTON -- Luella Duncan will celebrate her 25th birthday Monday, but in reality, the Sikeston woman will be 100 years old. That's because Duncan was born on a leap day, which is Feb. 29 and happens every four years. People born on leap day are known as "leaplings" because their birthday only comes around once every four years, according to "The Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies."...

MATTHEWS, Mo. -- Billy Leroy "Roy" Gardner, 72, of Matthews, died Feb. 25, 2016, at the Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. For the complete obituary, see the weekend edition of the Standard Democrat.

GIBSONTON, Fla. -- Edward Joseph Piper, 36, died Feb. 23, 2016. For the complete obituary, see the weekend edition of the Standard Democrat.

SIKESTON -- If it is up to the next generation, drones will fly over Sikeston -- but with limits. The Sikeston Optimist Club's Ron Creed Memorial Youth in Government Day gave students at Sikeston High School an opportunity to take over the roles of local leaders from mayor to director of public safety to concerned citizens. Working with their real-life counterparts they immersed themselves in their governmental roles Friday...

Here's how Jason Smith can help the Noranda workers. Bring up legislation to end the free trade bills. Defund the EPA. Will he do this? No. He's a bought and paid for politician. How is putting a bandaid on what his mentor Jo Ann Emerson voted for helping anybody? And for him to push the right-to-work agenda? All the right-to-work is is that you don't have to join a union. ...

It's never too late to right a wrong. And that is exactly what the University of Missouri Board of Curators belatedly did this week with the firing of Assistant Professor Melissa Click. Click, if you recall, is the red-headed radical professor who threatened student journalists covering a student protest on the Mizzou campus last fall. She had earlier been recorded cursing law enforcement officials during a similar protest at the university's Homecoming parade...