Stories from Monday, June 28, 2004

Have you been there yet? There is a new and great facility in operation serving the older citizens of Vernon County, the Vernon County Senior Center. It is a great asset for the community and a great place to go. Several older people have not been there yet; however, more and more are going to the center. One out of five in Vernon County are 60 years of age or older -- a large portion of the population...

A bee comes in for a landing on a red clover blossom along the roadside near Marmaduke Park, a common summertime sight in Vernon County.

Tyler Brundridge, 10, traverses the lily pads and monkey bars at the Walton Park Pool on Friday. The pool staff was surprised at the number of patrons that came to swim despite cooler temperatures. Attendance is up at the pool this year, and parks and recreation employees are reporting several positive comments about new features at the pool, which was renovated recently...

n Supporters say gambling would revitalize struggling Ozarks town. By Marc Powers Nevada Herald JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Leading up to each of the three statewide votes related to riverboat casinos that Missourians decided in the 1990s, opponents focused their campaigns on the same basic argument: Gambling is immoral and must be defeated...

By Steve Moyer Nevada Daily Mail Vernon County Sheriff Ron Peckman said area computer users should watch out for e-mails claiming to come from eBay, a popular Internet auction site, asking for personal information. The e-mails are not from eBay, and if someone puts in their personal information they could find themselves the victim of identity theft...

By Steve Moyer Nevada Daily Mail Members of the West Central Missouri Emergency Support Organization met Thursday at the Nevada Fire Department for their regular monthly meeting. The group was started in September 2002, and the organizational structure was in place by January 2003...

Lights! Camera! Vote! Hi neighbors. Did you watch the big show last week where they picked the best songs from 100 years of movies? There were some surprises for me. Some songs, I'll admit I didn't know had been in movies. Some movies I didn't know had songs in them...

' . . . A thing as lovely as a tree . . .' There's a beautiful passage in Alice Walker's novel, "The Color Purple," in which the heroine tells the beleaguered Celie that God created everything in nature for man to admire. "I think it pisses God off,' for instance, "if you walk by a stately tree or the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." In Walker's Creation, every twig, every leaf, calls out for admiration...

A granddaughter's wish Dear editor, I've never really been one to brag, at least not more than the normal person. I know, from time to time we all get up on our high horse and words start flowing , but I most often try to leave that sort of thing to my family or just let it slide...

By Ralph Pokorny Nevada Herald The Nevada Griffons should have won last night's baseball game in the ninth inning, but someone forgot to tell that to the Elkhart Dusters before they scored five runs in the top of ninth tying the game at 6-6 and sending it into extra innings. The Griffons won it 7-6 in the 12th inning...