Stories from Wednesday, December 19, 2018

DEXTER -- A plan for a new training center may have to be dropped from an effort to renovate and update facilities districtwide at Dexter schools. Final estimates fall between $20 million and $21.9 million for a project list given to CTS Group, the company assisting with planning and design...

Butler County Publishing Publisher, Chris Pruett, has named Josh Ayers the new editor of the Dexter Statesman. The position had not been officially filled since the retirement of Noreen Hyslop earlier this year. Ayers, a lifelong resident of Dexter, is a 1995 graduate of Dexter High School and a 1998 graduate of Three Rivers College. He has been with The Dexter Statesman for 18 years...

"I don't see a great deal of traditional decorating anymore," says interior design consultant Patty Shell of Dexter. "Today's Christmas décor, particularly among young clients, tends to follow the ornate, color-coordinated trend." The bright array of contemporary holiday decorating is a colorful contrast to the simple efforts of early homesteaders, whose Colonial homes were festooned with nothing more than bouquets of holly or bay leaves...

First Midwest Bank of Dexter was awarded financing of the jail expansion by Stoddard County commissioners Monday following last week's opening of bids. "We had several bids and they were all good bids, but First Midwest Bank stood out," Presiding Commissioner Greg Mathis said. "We are very pleased it's staying with a county bank."...

"Traditions are so much a part of the holidays," says Susan Leggett Shea of Bloomfield, "but as our life situations change, traditions are altered or maybe disappear altogether. "Hopefully," she adds, "new traditions evolve and find a place among the changes."...