Stories from Sunday, July 14, 2013

NOREEN HYSLOP photo Completion of The Loft on Stoddard St. in downtown Dexter is nearing completion. Owner Brian Crawford lost nearly everything in a raging inferno that gutted his and a neighboring business and left another business, Trinkets and Treasures, with significant smoke damage in November 2012. The store is expected to reopen later this summer. Crawford rebuilt his business in the same location and has incorporated the lot just west of his store into his business as well...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Gov. Jay Nixon has vetoed legislation that would have changed the procedure for filling vacancies in the lieutenant governor's office. State law currently allows the governor to appoint a replacement if the secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, auditor or a U.S. senator leaves office. But there has been uncertainty about how the lieutenant governor would be replaced...

Dexter Missouri roads are safer, thanks to law enforcement cracking down on impaired drivers and working to make sure motorists think twice about traffic safety over the Fourth of July weekend. The Dexter Police Department participated in the Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over crackdown conducted July 3-7. During the enforcement effort, officers issued a total of seven traffic tickets and one arrests were made as a result of the crackdown...

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Route AF in Stoddard County will be reduced to one lane as Missouri Department of Transportation crews perform pavement repairs. This section of roadway is located from One Mile Road to Three Mile Road. Weather permitting, work will take place Monday, July 15 and Tuesday, July 16 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m...

By COREY NOLES Statesman Staff Writer BLOOMFIELD, Mo. -- Should city water and street employees work the same hours as City Hall employees? At least one Bloomfield alderman thinks so. Alderman Kim Johnson said during a recent meeting of the Board of Aldermen that she feels the staggered hours between the two departments makes it difficult for residents to have water turned on...

By MIKE MCCOY Statesman Staff Writer "I like that no two days are the same," says Stoddard County Public Administrator Pam Lape. "I am learning all the time." The office of the Public Administrator is located in the old courthouse in Bloomfield, in an office formerly assigned to the county recorder. She currently has 89 open cases. She works daily with people who are in need of assistance, both physically and with managing money...

By DAVID A. LIEB Associated Press JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Missouri schools will be encouraged to teach first-graders a gun safety course sponsored by the National Rifle Association as a result of legislation signed Friday by Gov. Jay Nixon. The new law stops short of requiring schools to teach the Eddie Eagle Gunsafe Program. ...

By Leonna Heuring SEMO News Service SIKESTON, Mo. - About 35 business and government leaders from throughout Missouri are learning about agriculture through a two-day stop in Southeast Missouri. Comprised of individuals who were nominated by their employers to participate in the 2013 Leadership Missouri class, the group on Thursday afternoon toured Hulshof Family Farm in Benton...