Stories from Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Valerie Gean Wyatt, 51, of Nevada, passed away Sunday, Aug. 8, 2016, at her home following a period of illness. Valerie was born Feb. 10, 1965, in Los Angeles, Calif., the daughter Elbert Lee and Shirley Ellen (Fowler) Easley. She moved to the Nevada area where she worked as a Certified Medical Assistant. Valerie loved to be around family and her dogs. She enjoyed gardening, arts and crafts. She was loved by her family and will be greatly missed...

Fern Elizabeth (Walker) Taffner, of Nevada, Mo., formerly of Jasper, Mo., died Aug. 9, 2016, at the Cedar County Memorial Hospital, in El Dorado Spring, Mo. Fern was born Feb. 9, 1922. The funeral service will be Thursday at Konantz Warden Funeral Home, Lamar, Mo., at 1 p.m. There will be a visitation Wednesday, from 6 to 7 p.m. Burial will be at Waters Cemetery near Jasper...

During the Civil War, a "Union" outpost named Fort McKean was established 12 miles southeast of Fort Scott where the Military Road crossed Drywood Creek. This fort had three main functions which were to protect the ford which was used to cross the Drywood Creek, to be a point of assembly for the long supply trains traveling from Fort Scott to Fort Smith, Ark., and Fort Gibson, Indian Territory (present Oklahoma and to protect the ford where the Military Road crossed Drywood Creek. ...

Dear Editor: There is a new opportunity in Nevada you may not have heard about. Vernon County Robotics is a program for boys and girls to learn how to design, build, and program robots. I was part of the team to begin VCR because my son fell in love with programming robots at a summer camp. Because we did not have robotics for 9-year-olds in our community, a group of interested parents set about to make it happen...

gfranklin.nevadadailymail@gmail.com Dogs are man's best friend. That is what many of us learned growing up, however it is not always true. This is a story about a boy and his pet chicken, Lucky. "It's amazing how he and the chicken interact," said Jennifer Thomas, Dalton Thomas's mother...

Nevada Daily Mail Cottey College together with the city of Nevada and the Nevada/Vernon County Chamber of Commerce will host the 2016 Community Picnic and Partner Fair, Saturday, August 20, 6-8 p.m., at the Franklin P. Norman City/County Community Center. Local businesses and organizations are invited to register for the event, which is designed to showcase the community to incoming Cottey College students and their families...

Nevada Daily Mail "Because of the work I do at the courthouse, I know for a fact that every computer here is password protected," Paula Messner, Vernon County's geographic information system technician said during an Aug. 5, interview in her courthouse office...