Forum Flashbacks: Oct. 22-Oct. 28

FORUM FILE PHOTO
Forum Flashbacks: 25 years ago – Randy and his daughter, Mataya, walk through a pen of emus at their home south of Maryville.

25 years ago

• In the agricultural community, many eyes are focused on the progress of the proposed Farm Bill through the legislative processes. But for one Maryville family, the success or failure of that bill will likely have a very direct impact on the success of their foray into the business of raising emus on their six-acre home south of the city.
  Randy Wooten has been involved in breeding and selling the curious-looking birds, which he is quick to explain are members of the ratite species of flightless birds, for about five years, starting with the equally-exotic rheas. While the number of emus in the pens behind his home number around 50, he also currently has three ostriches in his home.
  “Not that many people are aware just how useful these creatures can be,” Wooten said. “From the meat to the feathers and hide, emus are almost 95 percent marketable.”

15 years ago

‘Now I remember everything’

• Ghost story submitted by Kaitlyn Woods, 14, freshman at North Nodaway High School
  This is a real life story about my friend. One of my good friends has always lived with her father. Her mother had died when she was little and had no memory of her except a single picture she kept in her room.
  It was on her fourteenth birthday when it happened. A bunch of us girls were staying at her house for her birthday. We were staying out in her father’s camper that was parked in the back yard. All of us girls were talking and had just got done putting shaving cream on one of the girls’ faces that was the first one to fall asleep.
  We were talking and later were the only ones left awake. We got on the subject of her mother and she was saying how she wished that she could have some sort of memory but she didn’t.
  The camper door had opened so we decided to go outside and see what might have caused the door to open then just as we were about to step back in the camper my friend had made a noise that was almost like a scream but it wasn’t loud. She told me that she had felt something on her shoulder. She said it was like a cold chill but that it was a good feeling that had passed her.
  So we left the camper again to see what we could find. All of a sudden she just started walking. I asked where we were going but she didn’t answer so I just followed. She walked to this old wood shed. She walked around the side where there was an area that had looked like a garden. Yet there was nothing.
  She just sat down by it and didn’t say a word. I tried to get her attention but tears were running down her face and she said nothing. I didn’t know what to do so I decided to go inside and wake her dad.
  I took him to the wood shed where my friend was but now she was lying down in the grass. Her father gasped and said, “This is where…” My friend interrupted him and said, “This is my mother’s garden. She spent all the time she could out here. She loved flowers and now I remember. She always smelled like fresh strawberries and fresh tulips. I remember coming out here and helping her pick the weeds and I remember all the bugs that had been in the garden and she told me not to be afraid. I remember her now. I remember everything.”
  Her father nudged me to go back to the camper and I did. Her father talked to her and finally she came back in and told me all about her mother. She remembers her now and she always looks back on that moment as the moment that her mother had come back to her.

5 years ago

• Earlier this month, the Jefferson boys softball team won its second consecutive state championship — the squad’s sixth state trophy in eight seasons.
  But this year’s championship will apparently be the last.
  At the Jefferson C-123 October Board of Education meeting, members voted 7-0 to discontinue the program.
  “That’s a difficult pill to swallow, for me especially,” Jefferson Superintendent Tim Jermain said. “Boys softball has been a really great thing for our district. Our kids have worked hard to be successful. and they really enjoyed playing.
  “We’ve had kids continue to play after high school, but it was due to a dwindling number of teams. We’re hearing that four of the eight teams aren’t planning on playing next year. When it gets down to that far, it’s probably time to make that decision, but it was one done with a heavy heart.”
• “I can’t say it enough, we really, really averted a huge tragedy yesterday.”
  That was the assessment of Nodaway County Sheriff Darren White during a Tuesday press conference called to reveal details about a student-with-a-gun incident that took place at the North Nodaway R-VI School in Hopkins late Monday morning.
  White characterized the incident, which ended with a 15-year-old male high school student being taken into custody by juvenile authorities, as “the real thing,” and said the teen brought a loaded .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun to school with the intent of shooting classmates who may have bullied him.
  The boy’s name was not released. …
  White said the suspect stowed the weapon in his locker and, at some point, talked about his intention to commit a violent act to some classmates, who reported the comments to Principal Tim Conn. …
  The sheriff said no written list of intended victims was recovered during the subsequent investigation, but that deputies believe the suspect had “specific targets” in mind when he brought the gun to school. He added that he thought the teen was “prepared to do harm to whoever got in his way.”