Special Delivery

First grader Tyler Morgan (right) watches as his classmate, Mac Straton, places a valentine in his Spiderman-themed box Thursday during the Valentine’s Day party at Lee Hunter Elementary in Sikeston.

Leonna Heuring/Standard Democrat

SIKESTON — First grader Tyler Morgan (right) watches as his classmate, Mac Straton, places a valentine in his Spiderman-themed box Thursday during the Valentine’s Day party at Lee Hunter Elementary in Sikeston. A 15th-century Frenchman Duke of Orleans, is credited for committing the earliest surviving Valentine’s greeting to paper. While imprisoned in the Tower of London following the 1415 battle of Agincourt, the duke wrote to his wife: Je suis desja d’amour tanné, Ma tres doulce Valentinée. This translates roughly as, “I am already sick of love, my very gentle Valentine.”

A first grader in Dustin Chaney’s class at Lee Hunter Elementary checks out her valentine bag of goodies.

Leonna Heuring/Standard Democrat