Your World Today - July 30, 2012

Jump to: SportsObituariesWeather

News

The Public Water Supply District #1 of Dent County would like to notify customers that they strongly encourage water conservation due to the extremely hot and dry weather conditions. Your co-operation would be greatly appreciated!

The annual back to school sales tax holiday will be start at 12:01 a.m. Friday, August 3rd and run through Sunday, August 5th. Certain back-to-school purchases, such as clothing, school supplies, computers, and other items as defined by the statute, are exempt from sales tax for this time period only. The sales tax exemption is limited to clothing as long as each article has a value of $100 or less, school supplies that don’t exceed $50 per purchase, computer software that is $350 for less, personal computers that don’t exceed $3,500, and computer peripheral devices that don’t exceed $3,500. The sales tax holiday applies to state and local sales taxes when a local jurisdiction chooses to participate in the holiday. However, local jurisdictions can choose to not participate. If one or all of your local taxing jurisdictions are not participating in the sales tax holiday, the state's portion of the tax rate (4.225%) will remain exempt for the sale of qualifying sales tax holiday items. The City of Salem as well as Dent and Crawford County will participate in the sales tax holiday while Phelps, Texas, Reynolds, and Pulaski Counties have opted to not participate.

An accident happened Wednesday night at 10:45 in Shannon County on Shannon County Road 281 about eight miles south of Bunker. According to the highway patrol report, a 1996 Chrysler Sirrus driven southbound by 22-year old Cody White of Valles Mines, failed to negotiate a curve and the Sirrus traveled off the right side of the roadway. The car then traveled through a fence, struck a tree and then an embankment before the Sirrus overturned onto it’s top where the vehicle came to rest. Suffering moderate injuries were passenger’s 16-year old Shelby Lancaster of Lesterville and 16-year old Christopher Quick of Black. Air Ambulance transported them to the St. Louis Children’s Hospital in St. Louis from the accident location. Another passenger, 16-year old John Vert of Lesterville, also suffered moderate injuries and was taken by the Reynolds County EMS to the Salem Memorial District Hospital before he was transported by Air Ambulance to the St. Louis Children’s Hospital. No one in the vehicle was wearing a seat restraint at the time of the accident. The Sirrus was totaled and was removed from the scene by Hills Body Shop of Ellington. 

In response to the drought, USDA has agreed to allow Missouri landowners to utilize up to 50 percent of the grass areas within their Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) easements for haying. WRP is a program administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) that purchases easements from landowners in exchange for their commitment to maintain areas as wetlands. Harold Deckerd, the NRCS assistant state conservationist for water resources, said Missouri has 994 wetlands easements covering 140,000 acres. Deckerd said that haying is temporarily authorized for portions of easements that were planned to be kept herbaceous. However, haying is not permitted in the portions of the easements which normally make up the permanent pools of water intended to benefit migratory birds. Wet meadows containing prairie cordgrass and stands of reeds canary grass could be targeted for hay because of their monoculture and noxious weed classifications. Deckerd emphasized that grazing is not permitted in the areas covered by WRP easements because of the damage that livestock access can cause to wetlands. He said those areas would be difficult to graze anyway because they typically are not fenced and they lack water sources for livestock. Cutting hay on WRP easements (on up to 50 percent of herbaceous areas) will be allowed until August 31, but all bales must be removed from those areas by September 15. He said that people interested in cutting hay in WRP easements must first contact their local NRCS offices and obtain Compatible Use Authorizations.

Sports [TOP]

Anthony Rizzo socked a two-run homer in the bottom of the 10th inning to lift the Chicago Cubs to a 4-2 win over the St. Louis Cardinals in the rubber match of a three-game set at Wrigley Field. Stymied by St. Louis pitching since the second inning, the Cubs clinched a series victory when Rizzo followed a leadoff single by Starlin Castro with an opposite-field blast to left off Trevor Rosenthal (0-1). Paul Maholm authored another solid outing, holding St. Louis to one run on four hits and four walks in 6 2/3 innings. The veteran left-hander hasn't allowed more than one run in each of his last six starts. Adam Wainwright gave up two Chicago runs on six hits over six frames. Tyler Green drove in a run with a sacrifice fly and Carlos Beltran hit his 23rd homer of the year to tie the game in the 8th inning. The Cards will be off until Tuesday when they will face the Rockies in Colorado.

The 2012 Kansas City Royals season that had so much promise found yet another low on Sunday. After Kansas City scored three runs to tie the game in the eighth inning, Royals pitcher Jose Mijares gave up the winning run on a throwing error to give the Mariners a 7-6 win and a four-game sweep. Will Smith tossed a quality start for Kansas City and was let off the hook for the loss. He gave up three runs on seven hits in six innings while fanning four and walking none, but the Royals' late blunder sent them to their seventh loss in eight games. Kansas City will be off until Tuesday when they host the Cleveland Indians.

In Olympic news, American Dana Vollmer won the women's 100-meter butterfly Sunday night with a new world record. Vollmer, who had set Olympic and American records in the heats Saturday, touched in 55.98 seconds -- beating the old world mark of 56.06 set by Swede Sarah Sjostrom in 2009. Ryan Lochte won the 400-meter individual medley on Saturday while Michael Phelps finished 4th in that race. Kimberly Rhode became the first American to win a medal at five straight Olympics, taking gold in the women's skeet shooting competition at the London Games Sunday.

The St. Louis Rams agreed to terms on a four-year contract extension with defensive end Chris Long. Terms of the contract were not released. Considered one of the best young talents at his position, Long had an off first half of the 2011 season, but came on strong late in the year.

Obituaries   [TOP]

Funeral services for Winfred C. Gibbs, age 85, of Salem will be today at 1:00 at the Dent County Memorial Chapel. Visitation will be from 11:00 until time of service. Interment will be in the Cedar Grove Cemetery.

Funeral services for Stanley Babb of Warrenton, formerly of Salem, age 85, will be held Tuesday at 1:00 at the Salem Chapel of James and Gahr Mortuary. Visitation will be from 11:00 AM until service time. Interment will be in the New Hope Cemetery in Salem.

Funeral services for Agnes Virginia Martin of Salem, age 83, will be Friday at 11:00 am at the Salem Lutheran Church. Visitation will be Thursday from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at the Wilson Mortuary Salem Chapel. Interment will be in the Cedar Grove Cemetery. Iieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Salem Public Library.

Funeral services for Olive Eileen Klass of St. Louis, age 88, will be Friday at 1:00 at the Wilson Mortuary Salem Chapel. Visitation will be Friday from 11:00 until the service time at 1:00 at the chapel. Interment will be in the Bunker Cemetery. Memorials may be given to the Jewish Children Services.

Funeral services for Peggy McDonald of Salem, age 52, will be held Wednesday morning at 11:00 at the Dent County Memorial Chapel in Salem. Visitation will be held Tuesday from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. Interment will be in the Jadwin Cemetery.

Funeral arrangements for Jackie Ham of St. James, age 63, are incomplete at this time but are under the direction of the James and Gahr Mortuary in Rolla.

Weather   [TOP]

Heat Advisory in effect until 7:00 tonight

Today..Partly cloudy with a 20% chance for thunderstorms this afternoon, high near 100.
Tonight..Partly cloudy with a 20% chance for evening thunderstorms this evening, low of 72.
Tuesday..Mostly sunny, high of 103.
Tuesday night..Partly cloudy, low of 76.