Stories from Wednesday, January 1, 2020

SIKESTON — The Standard Democrat offices will be closed Wednesday in observance of New Year’s Day. Regular office hours will resume Thursday. We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday.

LAWRENCE, Kan. — A University of Kansas School of Engineering professor and New Madrid, Mo., native has been appointed by the president of the United States to serve on a national science and technology advisory board. Dr. Shannon Blunt, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, has been named to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) by President Donald Trump, the White House announced...

Sikeston Kindergarten Center has named its pups of the month for December.

Sikeston Kindergarten and Early Childhood Education Center has named its preschool pups of the month for December.

The Sikeston Jaycees recently voted to endorse the upcoming Sikeston R-6 Schools’ bond request and made a $5,000 contribution to Better Schools for Better Communities. Better Schools for Better Communities supports and is working toward building a new Lee Hunter Elementary and C Building on the Sikeston Senior High School campus through a bond request put before Sikeston voters on April 7, 2020...

Talk is that the Jeffery Corbin, the losing British candidate today, was too intellectual and couldn’t relate, I guess to the uneducated, like Trump followers. The dumbs and proud of it. Well, I’ll tell you something. The intellectual class is much more likely to try and see that you in the dumb and proud of it class have a decent life than the landed, wealthy class every will. If you vote for Bernie Sanders and you get the tuition-free college education that should come with that, will if there’s not too much resistance from the already, super-wealthy, wealthy beyond belief class. You can all be intellectuals. How bout that? Or do you still want to stay dumb and be proud of it? Idiots.

DEXTER, Mo. — Edward Ollie Tucker Jr., 54, died Dec. 26, 2019, in Dexter.  Born Aug. 20, 1965, in St. Louis, he was the son of Louise Ella Hazel Tucker-Quinlan of New York and the late Edward Ollie Tucker. In addition to his mother, survivors include: three sons, Nicholas Tucker, Jacob Tucker and E.J.Tucker; two sisters, Tina Nelms of Orlando, Fla., and Angela Ehrhard-Tucker of House Springs; five half sisters, Theresa Tucker-Williams, Lisa Quinlan, Leona Quinlan, Peyne Quinlan of New York and Tonya Cain of Pevely; and a stepsister, April Schroeder-Cook of Cedar Hill.. ...

PORTAGEVILLE, Mo. — Billy Wes Ward, 79, died Dec. 30, 2019, at Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. Born July 14, 1940, in Portageville, son of the late Pauline Cook Ward and Norvil Ward, he attended the First United Methodist Church in Portageville...

SIKESTON — Mona Lee Taylor McReynolds transitioned from this world to eternal life on Dec. 30, 2019. Born Aug. 24, 1931, at Houston, Ark., she was the daughter of the late Floyd E. Taylor and Carrie Susan Spells Taylor. She graduated from Morehouse High School with the class of 1949...