Forum Flashbacks: May 30-June 5

MARYVILLE DAILY FORUM, JUNE 5, 2014
10 YEARS AGO: Spinning around – Siblings Leah and Creed Wonderly take advantage of new playground equipment at Sunrise Park on East Halsey Street in Maryville Wednesday afternoon.

10 years ago

Maryville Daily Forum, June 4, 2014

Developers and local officials officially broke ground Tuesday on a major project in Maryville that is projected both to create jobs and provide an assisted living environment for the community’s elderly.

ARCO Construction Co. crews have already started building the foundation of the Oak Pointe assisted living center. …

When completed, the $6 million center will provide living facilities for 50 residents along with a memory-care unit, industrial kitchen, private dining, a cafe, lounge areas, a rehabilitation room, a salon and a courtyard. …

Once open, Oak Pointe will provide a top-drawer residential location for retirees. But it will also bring significant economic benefits to the community at large.

Maryville City Manager Greg McDanel said the center will bring in about $10,000 a year in revenue for the city’s water/sewer fund in addition to creating an estimated 40 jobs.

“Oak Pointe is one of the monumental projects that are building our city and beautifying our community,” Maryville Mayor Renee Riedel said. “… The senior living center that we are blessing today impacts citizens in many ways. The facility is an employment generator for Maryville during a challenging time, offering security to some families and inviting new families to make Maryville their home.”

The parcel of land on which the center is being constructed is located on the east side of Country Club Road. It was annexed by the city, which has agreed to compensate Nodaway County Public Water Supply District No. 1 between $60,000 and $80,000 for potential lost customers.

Included in the annexation was a second, larger parcel slated for private development as an upscale single-family subdivision.

In addition to compensating the water district, Maryville is also paying roughly one-third of the cost of a new water main running north and south along County Club Road that will serve both the new subdivision and Oak Pointe.

50 years ago

Maryville Daily Forum, June 1, 1974

By Teresa Frueh
Forum Staff Writer

The penny shortage is a bunch of garbage, or so I thought, until the clerk in the store asked me if I had any pennies.

“Pennies,” I thought as I rummaged through the hopelessly disarranged contents of my purse — sifting through hairpins, half-sticks of gum and the 16 pens I carry even though I never can find one when I need it — and found no pennies.

I suddenly became a believer and, as I returned to my car, I began imagining a world without pennies. No pennies for bubble gum, piggy banks (or empty Budweiser cans), parking meters, matches or the bride’s shoe.

I decided to see what the local situation was. Were the other clerks requesting pennies from their customers, or were they following examples of stores in other cities which were giving penny gum as change instead of copper? Think what that might do for the dentists in town!

Reports have it that one store manager posted a sign informing customers that their change would be rounded off to the nearest nickel and the pennies started rolling in because the customers were afraid of losing the two-cent difference.

Stores will soon receive official Treasury Department permission to hand out paper scrip instead of pennies as change. In Maryville, one store manager considered issuing the paper pennies, redeemable only at his store, but the idea was scrubbed when it was discovered that it would have cost 2 ½ cents to make one paper penny.

Where have all the pennies gone? The Associated Press has several theories:

People collect pennies for the sake of collecting. (Some think it represents stability in our unstable world). …

And then, pennies are the victims of carelessness. People stuff them in pickle jars, throw them in drawers and, in general, ignore them.

Banks and the Treasury are concerned with this lack of reverence for the penny, so much that the Treasury has designated June as “Get-Out-The-Penny” month and will issue special certificates to persons turning in $25 or more in pennies to banks or other commercial outlets.

Certainly there will be skeptics who will not believe in the penny shortage, just as they scoffed at the gas shortage (as they sat, waiting in line for gasoline). I believe in it, and I have my own ideas about how the whole thing got started and how to solve the problem. To wit:

In Washington, the people who think up the shortages decided Americans would not put up with any more limited supplies of major products. So, since there seemed to be a shortage of shortages, they decided on the lowly, unloved penny. It’s about time Americans began appreciating the penny, they must have thought.

But we can lick the problem. All pennies can be turned in for nickels, thus creating a nickel shortage. Or, if you intend to have a nickel coke at the corner drug store, you will have to either work up a heavy thirst or take along a friend so you can spend your dime.

100 years ago

Maryville Tribune, June 4, 1924

MODERN SCHOOLS NEEDED FOR ALL

_______________

“Every boy and girl in the state of Missouri should be given an opportunity to attend a twentieth century school,” Charles A. Lee, state superintendent of public schools, told the student body of the State Teachers College this morning. Mr. Lee addressed the summer students of the College at the first regular weekly assembly this morning on the educational program for the coming year.

“We are living in the twentieth century and if our civilization functions properly we must have twentieth century schools,” said Mr. Lee to the teachers. “We must have a first class elementary school of nine months for eight years and a first class high school for four years in order to save the proper educational plant.

“What we are today depended on our education of twenty-five years ago, and what our education is today will make what we will be in twenty-five years,” continued Mr. Lee. …

Mr. Lee took a decided stand for health education in his speech to the College students this morning and declared that while he was not altogether against competitive athletics in the public schools, a health program should be given first attention. Mr. Lee said that a health program was needed in Missouri and should be placed in every school and then if money was available the schools might take part in competitive athletics. Mr. Lee’s stand on the health program drew much applause from the student teachers.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The 50-year and 100-year flashbacks are courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, accessible at shsmo.newspapers.com.