Stories from Sunday, May 30, 2004

By Ralph Pokorny Nevada Herald After nearly 10 months of renovation the new Walton Park Family Aquatics Center is ready to open for swimming at 1 p.m. Monday. "I think it's awesome," Alicia Leimkuehler, a 2003 Nevada High School graduate, said Friday afternoon...

By Brian Johnson Nevada Herald Nineteen-year-old Scott Ross, one of the speakers at the Ozark Trails Council, BSA, Friends of Scouting luncheon, is one of a select few who have earned the rank of Eagle Scout. "You're in a category with guys like Ross Perot, Gerald Ford and Hank Aaron," Dean Ertel, Ozark Trails Council executive, said Friday afternoon at the Nevada County Club...

Hi neighbors. It's Memorial Day weekend and everyone is busy enjoying the first long holiday weekend of the summer. Families gather, grills get lugged out of storage and fired up, lawn chairs and loungers get hauled from the garage onto the patio or under the favorite big tree. Dad gets to practice his grilling skills...

Anyone who believes hatreds and violence aren't ineradicably ingrained in human nature, and are destined to lessen and disappear, or can be encouraged to do so simply by efforts of good will, needn't look far to be disillusioned. One need fare no farther than the former Yugoslavia, where group hatreds had so long been damped down by Communist tyranny it was imagined they'd disappeared. ...

Virginia "Jean" McKeithan, 82, Overland Park, Kan., died Thursday, May 27, 2004, at Overland Park Regional Medical Center following an illness of a few weeks. She was born June 12, 1921, in Kansas City, Kan., to Gus Hillix and Hildred Harriett Allingham Hillix. She married Bruce H. McKeithan on, Jan. 11, 1969, in Arlington, Va...

By Ralph Pokorny Nevada Herald Tyson Beshore pulled on his uniform, laced up his cleats, adjusted his red, sweat-stained Nevada Tigers cap and boarded the team bus for the Tigers district contest with the McDonald County Mustangs and his final game as the Nevada High School head baseball coach...

Special to the Herald Over 30 area youth have been practicing at the Sheldon Trap Club since May 6 in the shotgun division of the Vernon County 4-H Shooting Sports group. With the large number of shooters practice has been divided into two groups with one on Wednesday and the second on Thursday...

There is no better way to celebrate a victory than to finish it off with a good meal. The most significant I can recall is breaded pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy and apple sauce along with iced tea. A great victory it was. It was April 8 and I was living in Springfield at the time. ...

Fresh air, fishing and family picnics have always been part of my life. Our family encouraged outdoor activities and the Memorial Day weekend was time for the first of the year camping trip. Today camping is having a resurgence and is more popular than ever. People feel the need to escape from technology -- television, microwaves, computers and cellular phones. Rustic items used in camping remind us that we are really nature's creatures at heart...