Today's Feature

Public Works Highlights.

Street Commissioner Tom Shelley spoke about street sweepers at the Public Work committee meeting earlier this week. Shelley told the committee that the state approved bid and low bid was from Tymco. The amount of the bid was approximately $130,390, a price which included several options not needed by the City. Shelley explained that if the unneeded options could be removed and replaced with other options that the price might be lowered. With the trade in of the old sweeper the new machine would be under budget. Shelley told the committee that the company would bring a sweeper to town and demonstrate it for the department.

Also at the meeting Public Works Director Chad Wampler informed the committee of the choice made for a copy machine to be shared by the Public Works department and the Street Department. Wampler told the committee the best bid was the state bid for a Toshiba e-Studio 200L for $4,246 from Copy Products, Inc in Joplin. Wampler said that he hopes to reduce the department expenditure in some respect by using the machine to print permits in-house.

Letter to the Editor

Opinions expressed reflect those of the writer and not necessarily those of the Mornin’ Mail

The Emma Sanders Marrow Donor Drive will be held in the SMB Community Room 2417 S. Grand Ave. Saturday July 23, 2005 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Emma Sanders, 4 year old daughter of Becci and Marshal Sanders, is in need of a bone marrow transplant. Emma was diagnosed with a very rare blood disorder (Amegakaryoctic Thrombocytopenia) when she was 1 year old. Emma’s bone marrow is shutting down and she doesn’t produce enough platelets. Emma is at extreme risk of bleeding from injury. She bruises very easily and any injury could become fatal. The only possible cure for Emma is a marrow or blood stem cell transplant. Unfortunately none of Emma’s family members have a matching tissue type. Additionally all local and national registries have been exhausted with no compatible donor found. The growth of the registry gives increased hope to thousands of patients who are looking for a matched donor. But for Emma, there is still no match. Therefore we are turning to our local communities once again to ask for help. We have scheduled a volunteer donor recruitment drive and we ask anyone who is not currently on the registry to come out and be tested for Emma and others like her. Qualified candidates must be 18 to 60 years of age and in overall good health. After being educated on the donation process and signing a consent form, volunteers give a small sample of blood that will be tested for their marrow type and then listed on the national registry. The National Marrow Donor Program will access a $25 tissue typing charge. If you would like more information about the donor process or how to become a volunteer marrow donor, call Heart of America Donor Center at 800-366-6710 or Becci Sanders at 417-358-3992.

-Becci Sanders

It was a lot simpler when you had the choice of buyin’ a car when there were only three variations of the same model, two door or four door, with a radio or without, standard or automatic, six cylinder or v8. The car buyin’ experience was mainly a financial consideration. How much do ya wanna spend, not how many gadgets you can get onto the vehicle.

It appears that the cell phone is becomin’ as complicated and looks ta become even more so. Information overload, and that’s just pickin’ the perfect "plan," not to mention learnin’ how to operate the thing.

My dad used ta say a vehicle was just four wheels ta get ya from one place to another. Seems like anymore we just can’t seem to ever get there.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

Some nutritional tidbits:

• Statin medications frequently prescribed to lower cholesterol levels may disturb heart function due to a reduction in body levels of coenzyme Q10, but supplements of CoQ10 may help reverse these disturbances. (Am J Cardiol 2004, 94:1306-09)

• In a study of 818 cognitively healthy people ages 50-75 were given 800mcg of folic acid or a placebo for three years. According to Jane Durga of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, these people were given emmory tests in which those who had consumed the folic acid scored comparable results of those people 5.5 years younger. "That’s significant brain protection with a supplement that’s already well known to be safe," said Johns Hopkins University neuroscientist Marilyn Albert, who chairs the Alzheimer’s Association’s science advisory council.

•Oregano oil has antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral agents and is a powerful antiseptic. It has also been used in the distruction of parisitic organisms and antibiotic-resistant microbes."Oregano Oil by Candace Salima"

• Turns out that laughter is among the best medicines.

artCentral

artist approaches subject "with regards"

Donna Roberts was only six when she watched an older boy in school draw pictures of cowboys and Indians. Although his subject matter didn’t appeal to her, she knew right then that she wanted to be an artist.

Art was Donna’s favorite subject in school and she did take a class or two in college. However, it was after her children were grown when Donna focused her full attention on painting. She took her first watercolor class in 1982 with Annie Wu at Missouri Southern and has studied with local teachers and nationally known artists through workshops and classes. Over the years Donna’s medium has expanded into painting with acrylic and watermedia; and she is a frequent exhibitor in local and regional shows.

Donna’s interests and subject matter range from elegant still lifes and florals to landscapes and people she has observed while traveling abroad. She may work from photos taken on her travels or intuitively develop an image during the process of texturing, scraping, and layering paint on a board. "Sometimes I’ll see something and think Oh! I want to paint that!" says the artist. "Other times it’s the challenge to see if I really can painting and idea. And then there are instances when I am working in my studio, discover an image emerging and then develop it."

Donna’s show "With Regards" on display in artCentral’s Members Gallery, while "The Art of Richard Locarni" is being shown in the Main Gallery. Both exhibits continue through August 12.