After a “Close-Out Conference” with FEMA officials on Monday, it was determined that Phelps County is to receive a total of $170,933 in reimbursements from federal and state agencies for damages to roads and bridges after the March floods.

   “It’s open!”
   A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at the Little Beaver Creek Bridge on Tuesday as it officially opened to the acclaim of residents, government officials, MoDOT, the Phelps County road crew and representatives from the engineering firm that designed the bridge.

A motion by Ward 6 Councilwoman Donna Hawley to rescind the $18 million lease-purchase agreement for the acquisition of an electrical substation owned by AmerenUE failed for lack of a second during Monday night’s City Council meeting.

Tractor-trailer and bus drivers in the United States have suffered seizures, heart attacks or unconscious spells behind the wheel that led to deadly crashes on highways. Hundreds of thousands of drivers carry commercial licenses even though they also qualify for full federal disability payments, according to a new U.S. safety study obtained by The Associated Press.

Rolling in a tour bus though southern Missouri’s two-lane back roads, Republican gubernatorial candidate and Rolla resident Sarah Steelman is spreading her call for a repeal of the state’s ethanol mandate — and getting a double thumbs up from livestock farmers.

According to the latest official rankings posted Sunday on the North American Solar Challenge Web site, Missouri S&T began the final full day of racing in seventh place.

Residents of numerous Midwestern cities, to include such metropolitan areas as St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Evansville and Louisville, felt the earth move early in the morning on April 18.

The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) will chip seal Route Y, Phelps County, from its intersection with Route E to the end of state maintenance, beginning today.

Dorothy Mounce of St. James has been named Senior Companion of the Month for July, 2008. 
As a Senior Companion, Dorothy visits several area residents in their homes each week to help them with basic household tasks and with transportation to doctors’ appointments and errands.  She also serves each week at the Golden Living Center in St. James, where she visits residents and helps with activities.  

Greg Curtis, the deputy whose wife was involved in an accident involving  pedestrian Dawn Littrell on June 27 in the Rolla Wal-Mart parking lot is no longer employed with the Phelps County Sheriff’s Department.

Presbyterian Manor of Rolla has issued a call for entries in its 28th annual Art is Ageless juried exhibit to be held in August during Artists’ Appreciation Month.
Entries of artistic works will be accepted from any area artist who is 65 years of age or older to exhibit and/or compete for an opportunity to be featured in the 2009 Art is Ageless calendar.

Tessa Hartley, 6, of St. James tends to her lemonade stand Friday at 1421 Forum Drive, in front of Frieda’s Closet. Tessa, a first-grader this fall at Lucy Wortham James Elementary School, designed the T-shirt used in the annual Take-A-Stand fundraiser to aid victims of child abuse.

While cruising the entire stretch of U.S. Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles, an educator, who also is the president of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., stopped in Rolla on Wednesday to research mainstream Americans, to find how they define their country with respect to higher education.

Motorists calling the Rolla Daily News on Thursday to express their displeasure with the slickness presented by the sand on Rolla city streets will find some of those roads clear by the time this report hits their doorsteps.

Securities regulators from several U.S. states, investigating Wachovia Securities’ auction rate securities sales practices, went to the company’s St. Louis headquarters Thursday and requested its documents and records.