Forum Flashbacks: Dec. 15-21
FORUM FILE PHOTO
25 YEARS AGO: Tournament Champions – The Jefferson Eagles celebrate after defeating the Fairfax Bulldogs 59-27 in Saturday night’s Nodaway County Basketball Tournament girls’s(sic) final. On the boys side of the bracket, the Maryville Spoofhounds defeated the Mound City Panthers 62-41 to take home the boys’s(sic) title.
5 years ago
The Ministry Center and community members were out in force Monday afternoon to dedicate a bench in honor of George and Juanita English’s many decades of service to others.
The couple has been with The Ministry Center since its beginning. They are the originating founders of the clothing room, even when it could be found all over town, before it found a home at The Ministry Center.
“They’re very devoted,” Ministry Center board member Rev. Jonathan Mitchell said. He thanked the couple Monday at the dedication ceremony.
“We have really inherited this ministry from you and hope to carry it on,” Mitchell said. “You’ve given it to us in such good and wonderful hands, we thank you for that.
“The amount of lives you have touched with your hard work and care and love here is unimaginable. It’s uncountable and we thank you for that gift.”
“A lot of other people have helped here,” said Juanita English, with tears in her eyes and a light wobble in her voice.
“A lot of them are in this room with you right now, but history is history. You helped me start the clothes department way back before we had it here,” Merlin Atkins said.
The bench will be placed in the front of The Ministry Center for those seeking to rest while they wait.
15 years ago
It only took seven days, 942 electric and tree experts, 13,250 meals, 374 new utility poles, more than a quarter of a million feet of wire and more than 83,000 man hours, but Aquila representatives said they have managed to restore power to nearly everyone in Maryville and St. Joseph following the devastating ice storm last week.
At a press conference at City Hall Tuesday, Ivan Vancas, operating vice president for Aquila in Missouri, said the company has restored power to 99.7 percent of their customer base in the Maryville and Mound City areas.
Vancas said it was the worst ice storm to hit the area in more than 40 years. At the peak of the storm, nearly 66,000 Aquila customers were without power between Maryville and St. Joseph, which was more than 92 percent of Aquila’s customer base in northwest Missouri.
In addition to city and county employees, the National Guard assisted during the storm, as well as the American Red Cross.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Vancas presented Red Cross representatives with a check for $10,000 for the group’s support and ice-storm relief efforts in northwest Missouri during the last week. …
In the last week the Red Cross has deployed 112 volunteers and six emergency response vehicles to the 13-county area the ice storm hit, and has served more than 19,000 meals. …
The ice storm knocked out power to more than one million people in a six-state area, including Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa and Illinois.
25 years ago
If a ministry group from southern Iowa has their way, they will be bringing a teen ranch for troubled youths to the Northwest Missouri area.
If a group of citizens in the Clyde and Conception area have their way, that teen ranch will be headed somewhere else.
Get-Real Ministries, based in Clarinda, Iowa, is hoping to buy eight acres of land near the Benedictine Convent of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde to place their youth ranch on.
Located on that parcel of land is a 40 foot by 75 foot steel building that they hope to turn into a dormitory for 28 young men aged 16 to 21.
If the land is bought by the group, it also plans to turn the house on the property into staff housing and make the ranch the national headquarters of their ministry. …
“People here don’t care to have a ranch for people to come down to when we don’t know what kinds of kids these are going to be,” Clyde Mayor Joe Stoll said. “We don’t know if their(sic) into drugs or what.”
The Rev. Van Mason came to Conception Monday night to answer questions at a town meeting, but he did not have all the answers to the residents’ questions.
“He couldn’t say where his money was coming from, or much of anything,” Stoll said of the meeting. “He left us kind of hanging up in the air.”
According to Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey, approximately 75 townspeople attended the meeting, with almost all against the teen ranch.
To try and ease their minds, Mason brought a letter describing the purpose of the teen ranch. …
Among the three areas of focus are a one-year contract which will “assist them in obtaining a concentrated study in the Word of God.” The ranch will also have certified teachers to get the teens their G.E.D. The ranch will also be teaching vocational skills.
In a phone interview, Mason said he and the board of directors of the ministry have decided not to discuss the details of the ranch over the phone, but they will answer questions through the mail.
Stoll said this kind of inability, or unwillingness, to answer questions about the specifics of the ranch is rankling residents. …
The ministry is still raising money for the purchase and construction of the youth ranch; and in their letter they say they need the funds raised by Dec. 31 of this year.
100 years ago
VISITORS SHOWN NEW DORMITORY AT THE COLLEGE
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That the new dormitory at the State Teachers College is “mighty nice,” and that the building has been put up in splendid shape was the unanimous opinion of about one hundred members of the Maryville Chamber of Commerce and their women-folk, who visited the dormitory last night.
President Uel W. Lamkin’s “personally conducted tour” of the new building extended from the cellar to the garrett(sic), and the visitors were shown everything from the model kitchens and cafeteria in the basement to the sleeping porches on the second and third floors.
The visitors were brought in at the west door of the building which opens into a hall and then into a great living room, with a big fireplace at the other end. There was a fire in the fireplace, although the building is being heated from the College power plant. …
A tangled mess of wires hanging from the wall of the matron’s office attracted a good deal of attention. President Lamkin explained that these wires were for the buzzer system which will extend to every room in the building.
From the main floor the visitors were taken to the third floor and shown a “type room.” Each room is designed for use by two girls and is equipped with beds, a chiffonier, two tables, straight chairs and rockers. Between each two rooms is a bathroom, finished with tile floors, and all modern bath accessories. …
The kitchens are in the basement and have the most modern equipment which can be bought. There are steam pressure cookers and kettles, and electrical equipment. A dishwashing machine seemed to attract the special attention of the women.
It is planned to serve breakfast and lunch cafeteria style, while dinner will be more or less formal. …
The dormitory will be ready for occupation January 8, and for that reason the Christmas holidays have been extended a week and school will not start again until that date.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The 100-year flashback is courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, viewable at shsmo.newspapers.com. The original article ran in the Dec. 19, 1922, edition of The Maryville Tribune, a predecessor of The Maryville Forum.
