Stories from Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Tommy Swaffar, 74, of Neosho, formerly of Monett, died Sunday, Feb. 7, at Freeman Hospital in Neosho. Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, Feb. 12, at Bennett-Wormington Funeral Home in Monett. Visitation will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11, at the funeral home...

Roah Nell "Ronnie" Lechner, 85, of Verona, died at 3:10 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7, at Aurora Nursing Center. A funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Verona, with burial to follow at the Calvary Cemetery in Verona...

Elizabeth Jane "Betty" Nelson, 68, of Washburn, died at 11:45 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7. No services are scheduled at this time. Cremation arrangements are under direction of Fohn Funeral Home in Cassville.

Two major technology changes are coming for the Purdy School District. After a visit to Google headquarters, Superintendent Steven Chancellor announced he planned to move from a district centered around Microsoft technology to becoming a Google district. The big advantage, he noted, was in moving document storage to Google's Cloud...

Both the Barry and Lawrence County commissions took a cue from the January sales tax totals, predicting a year of slowed revenues with January sums generally down from 2015. Total sales tax to cities and counties fell by 5 percent, looking at comparable figures, while more than half of the cities received lower amounts, including the three biggest cities...

Three skits in "The Baseball Show" focused on three outrageous older ladies in the crowd: Nadine, Harriet and Doris, played by Amanda Gilmore, Neva Welters and Robin Braun, respectively, who got a little more involved in the game than most.

A Washburn man was injured Saturday in a wreck at 12:30 a.m. on Highway 76, one mile south of Cassville. According to a Missouri State Highway Patrol report, David Fletcher, 62, of Washburn, was driving a 2003 Chevrolet S10 northbound when his vehicle ran off the right side of the roadway, overcorrected, then went off the left side of the roadway and struck an embankment...

A Mt. Vernon woman was injured in a wreck Friday at 4:02 p.m on Old Highway 60 in Marionville. According to a Missouri State Highway Patrol report, Melissa Yates, 36, of Mt. Vernon, was riving a 2003 Hyundai Elantra eastbound when her vehicle left the roadway, struck a railroad track and embankment, then came to rest in a ditch...

The Monett Ministerial Association will again sponsor Lenten Services this year with a half-hour service starting at noon followed by a light lunch. The first session will be on Feb. 10 at Chapel of Grace, 1153 Farm Road 1060, with Bill Vincent, pastor at the First Presbyterian Church, speaking...

The chant was unmistakable. With 1:20 left in regulation in Monett's game against Mt. Vernon, nearly 50 Monett High School students stood and belted their version of the Naval Academy's "I believe that we will win" cheer. What fueled the vocal declaration was a 64-46 victory over the Mt. ...

Illness might have left the Monett wrestling team short-handed at the Oak Grove tournament on Saturday, but the Cubs still managed a fifth place showing in the 11-team event. Monett's undefeated sophomore Joel Barrientos was unable to attend due to illness, but senior Sean Jastal stepped up to claim the individual 126-pound championship...