SIKESTON - Charles Butler, Sikeston real estate dealer and civic leader, was elected president of the Sikeston Chamber of Commerce for 1946, at the annual meeting of that organization held Thursday night.
BERTRAND - A $125,000 water system was approved officially by the state health department yesterday. The water was turned on Jan. 10 to the first 56 customers connected. A total of 165 customers have signed up. The water has a test of 85 parts per million of hardness and is pure.
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NEW MADRID - The towboat Daniel Webster with 14 barges has been grounded in the horseshoe bend about five miles south of here in the Mississippi River. River traffic slowed to a crawling daylight-only operation as towboats fought their way through deceptive ice fields.
SIKESTON - "It was one of the largest February election turnouts we've ever had," Bob Kielhofner, Scott County clerk, said when discussing the Sikeston election conducted Tuesday. Sikeston voters decided against the one-half cent sales tax for transportation purposes, which would have provided funds for street repair and then freed funds in the general sales tax category to build the Sikeston Centre.
NEW MADRID - There was a 9 percent increase in juvenile crime in Missouri in 1995. Of this 9 percent, more than half were considered serious enough offenses to require incarceration. But judges responding to the public outcry for a more serious response to juvenile crime found there was no where to place these offenders, said Fred Copeland, Circuit Judge for the 34th Judicial District. Now funding is available for construction of a 30-bed residential facility for juvenile offenders ages 12 to 18 years old through the Division of Youth Services and the Missouri Department of Social Services.