Forum Flashbacks: Feb. 25 – March 3

FORUM FILE PHOTO
25 YEARS AGO: District Champs – Jefferson’s senior forward Tim Meyer holds the school’s third-straight District 31 Championship trophy high above his head. Jefferson beat North Nodaway, 52-32, Friday night in Stanberry to capture the title. Jefferson will travel to Tarkio Monday to face Tarkio in the regional round of the Class 1A State Playoffs.

25 years ago

• Fourteen area citizens addressed the Maryville City Council last night regarding concerns about hunting being allowed at Mozingo Lake.
  David Easterla, wildlife specialist and co-author of “Birds of Missouri,” was the first to address the Council on the issue.
  “I am not against hunting,” Easterly said. “Hunting has its place, but not at Mozingo Lake.” …
  Easterla also mentioned the number of unique birds seen around Mozingo Lake this fall. He mentioned the sighting of such birds as the bald eagle and duck hawk, which previously have been placed on the endangered species list, and American white pelicans and wild swans.

15 years ago

• Michael Baumgartner, the St. Francis Hospital and Health Services president, received an unusual surprise on his 50th birthday.
  On Thursday the Maryville High School band showed up at the hospital. There they played “Happy Birthday” to Baumgartner.
  Currently the Maryville band is preparing for their upcoming performance in the Independence Day Parade to be held in Washington, D.C. St. Francis Hospital recently donated $330 to help fund that trip.
• KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Men and women dabbed their eyes. People hugged quietly and ducked into little private spaces to speak in hushed tones.
  The news hit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum like a bomb. What was supposed to be a grand celebration of the life of one of this town’s most beloved citizens now had the feel of a funeral.
  Seventeen people from the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues eras were voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, but not Buck O’Neil.
  Not Buck? Almost everyone in Kansas City thought the immensely popular 94-year-old would be a shoo-in when a 12-person committee considered a list of 39 candidates.

5 years ago

• With only 21 cells, including the “drunk tank,” and a frequent population of 30 to 40 prisoners, space is often at a premium at the Nodaway County Jail.
  But increasingly, when the jail, located at 404 N. Vine St., does experience overcrowding, one segment of the behind-bars population is affected more than any other — women.
  In step with an incarceration trend dating from the 1980s, when stricter drug laws took effect across much of the United States, Nodaway County is seeing an ever-growing number of women placed behind bars.
  Sheriff Darren White said Wednesday that when he was a Nodaway County deputy in 1985, the year the current jail opened, women prisoners were rare.
  Thirty years later, housing several female inmates at any given time has become routine. This can be problematic, since the portion of the jail set aside for women consists of two cells originally designed to accommodate one prisoner each.
  White said the cells now contain as many as four beds at once, and that additional women inmates are sometimes housed in what is supposed to be a day room.
• Everybody knows that Bobby Bearcat is alive and well and living at Northwest Missouri State University, but following a unanimous vote Friday by the Board of Regents, the mythical-animal mascot will soon be joined on campus by Fido, Buddy, and Mittens.
  A new student pet policy set to go into effect this fall will allows residents of Forest Village Apartments on the north end of campus to keep common household pets weighing less than 35 pounds and measuring 18 inches or less at the shoulder.
  The policy, which applies to both dogs and cats, limits the number of pets in an apartment unit to two “noncaged” animals and three “caged” animals while prohibiting farm animals, lab animals, spiders or other exotic animals, and aggressive breeds of dogs.
  Northwest Vice President of Student Affairs Matt Baker said the policy change is designed both to increase residence hall retention and support students’ well-being.
  Baker told the school’s governing board a recent survey indicated that nearly 50 percent of students moving from on-campus to off-campus housing indicated they did so, at least in part, because they wanted to have a pet.