Stories from Saturday, March 20, 2021

Donald Rex Springer, 65, of Mt. Vernon, died March 12, at Mercy Hospital in Joplin, following surgery. Memorial services will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, March 22, at Fossett-Mosher Funeral Home in Mt. Vernon. Burial with full military honors will be held at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 23, at the Springfield Veterans Cemetery, 5201 S. Southwood in Springfield...

Judy Jane Perch was born July 17, 1944, in Monett, Missouri, one of five children to Jay and Olive (Monroe) Cherry. She entered into rest on March 16, 2021, at her home, following a courageous battle with cancer at the age of 76. Judy moved to Neosho in 1972 from Butler, Missouri, and was a homemaker. ...

A total of 46 donors gave the gift of life at a recent American Red Cross blood drive at the Church of Christ in Monett. First time donors included Ronda Pachner and Debbie Washeck. Reaching the one-gallon milestone was Graiela Bancia, while Ronnie Veith ratcheted up to the 12-gallon achievement...

High school senior Katherine Anne Smith, of Monett High School, has received honorable mention for the 2021 Missouri Scholars 100, a statewide program that honors 100 of Missouri's top academic students in the graduating class of 2021. The announcement was made by Stephanie Heman, principal at Monett High School...

Missouri State University awarded 1,534 degrees to students in fall 2020. The commencement ceremonies took place Dec. 11, 2020, at JQH Arena. The following local students earned degrees: India Boughner of Exeter graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Education, Elementary Education...

With the global COVID-19 pandemic highlighting how agriculture impacts our everyday lives now more than ever, Missouri Farm Bureau and county Farm Bureaus across the state recently joined forces to celebrate the importance of agriculture during Celebrate Agriculture: Thank a Farmer Week, which was held Feb. 28 through March 6...

Back in January, the Purdy AmeriCorps Reading Coaches decided to sponsor a project in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Monett graduate Clayton Kaiser led the Drury men’s golf team on the scoresheet when the Panthers opened their spring season at the Music City Invitational hosted by Trevecca Nazarene at Hermitage Golf Course in Old Hickory, Tenn. As a team, Drury finished in a seventh-place tie in a 17-team field. Kaiser led Drury, tying for 10th place among 88 players by shooting an even-par, 144, in the 36-hole tournament...

The Pierce City baseball team is in the same boat as many ball clubs this spring, suffering from a lack of varsity experience after a 2020 season canceled by COVID. B.J. Curry, Eagles baseball coach, said his team graduated 7 seniors from the unplayed season, and they will be missed...

The boys tennis season for Monett kicks off on Tuesday with a dual at Aurora, and the Cubs are finessing the finer points of their game as the matches and tournaments approach. Jason Smith, Monett tennis coach, said this year’s team has more than doubled in size, going from nine last year before COVID canceled play to 20 boys hitting the courts this spring...

The Pierce City softball team is an inexperienced team coming off a season that didn’t happen and has a coach in his first year with the program, but the Lady Eagles’ confidence is not skewed. Bobby Stackhouse, Pierce City softball coach, has come to the Eagles’ nest after three years at Pittsburg, Kansas and six years as an assistant in Joplin, and he’s excited to see what his team can do this season...

Barry County Farm Road 2140 will be closed west of Route 37 beginning Tuesday, March 23. The road may remain closed for up to two weeks to allow crews to widen Route 37 and add a center turn lane. The work is part of a larger project to improvements along Route 37 between Monett and the Arkansas state line. When this work is completed, the contractor will move to Farm Road 2140 on the east side of the highway to do similar work...

Local historian and former Monett Times editor Murray Bishoff, middle, gave the Monett Kiwanis Club a history lesson at its monthly meeting at Big Baldy’s Tuesday.

Board members of the Barry-Lawrence County Ambulance District opted to upgrade the district’s computers from consumer grade to business grade, allowing for more secure processing and storage. The three Dell OptiPlex 7000 units have a price tag of $1,371.60 each, which brings the district total to $4,114,80, which includes an additional three-year warranty on each, totaling $226.56. ...

It’s time to celebrate all things spring, and area residents can begin that effort this month by marking their calendars for the annual Monett Young Professionals Network (MYPN) annual Easter Egg Hunt. MYPN will host the Monett Easter Egg Hunt starting at 10 a.m. on March 27 at Monett South Park’s soccer fields...

Monett honored one of its own this month, nominating and ultimately awarding the Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year award to Coast to Coast owner Leonard Witt. Long before Coast to Coast was named Coast to Coast, Witt began his career there at 16 years old, fixing bicycles...

A convoluted path has brought some iconic Monett treasures home. Ann Meuser, daughter of Ken Meuser and his wife, Mary, who were co-owners of The Monett Times from March 1943 to August 1972, was sorting through some of her late parents’ belongings and ran into several items of memorabilia she thought should go to the Monett Historical Museum...

I have been waiting to write this piece, afraid I might upset the karmic universe, but after about a month, I think it’s safe to say there’s a light at the end of the dark, year-long tunnel of COVID-19. It was a year ago on Tuesday that schools were shut down because of the virus, but it was not until months later that our area really began seeing the cases climb...