Stories from Wednesday, March 11, 2009

FEMA denies individual aid (03/11/09)
The State's request for the addition of Individual Assistance (IA) from FEMA in light of the late-January ice storm has been denied, according to Clay County OEM coordinator Travis Boyd. "I received a copy of the letter to Governor Beebe late Friday afternoon," he noted...

Mary Linam still busy at age 95 (03/11/09)
Mary Linam is known to many in the area for her abilities with a needle and thread, having owned and operated her own seamstress business, as well as doing upholstery work with her husband of 70 years, Hughey...

Rector native shares trip to Holy Land (03/11/09)
(Editor's Note: This special article for the Democrat was written by Rector native Paul Seay, who now serves as a United Methodist minister in Calico Rock. He and his wife visited Israel in January.) As a life-long Christian, I have always had the desire to go to the Holy Land to see the places where our Christian ancestors walked and lived. To see the places where Jesus lived, taught, died and was resurrected was a dream I thought would never be fulfilled...

Tending the lemonade fantasies (03/11/09)
Loving memories are rooted in the side yard of my grandmother's home where I grew up and lived until I was eight years old. After we moved to our own neighborhood in the same town, mother was certain to transplant the bulbs for those heritage-filled iris and daffodils...

Church group aides in clean-up (03/11/09)
Rector residents have received some assistance with brush removal from a special group of volunteers. Workers from the Great Adventure Team were hard at work in town last week gathering fallen limbs left behind from the recent ice storm...

Rector students to compete at engineering conference (03/11/09)
Natalie Sigsby, Nathan Haynes and Alex Roofe of Rector, all civil engineering majors at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, will be among ASU engineering students in the university's student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) participating Thursday through Saturday, March 26-28, in the 2009 Deep South Conference, hosted by ASU...

Cougars top rival Marmaduke to open season with victory (03/11/09)
The Cougars opened their baseball season with an impressive 5-2 win over host Marmaduke Friday. The Cougars struck first, breaking the scoreless game open with four runs in the third inning. ...

Smalltown downtowns wane over time (03/11/09)
Nostalgia is a mixed bag. As we grow older, it is natural to think back on the past and what was and what might have been. We recognize that memory is selective, fortunately, and we are more focused on the good than the bad as our minds wander back to earlier days...

Great Depression meals (03/11/09)
I've been reading about the Great Depression of the 1930's. That got me to thinking about the foods my grandmother cooked for her family and mine during that economic collapse. I was able to taste a lot of her cooking at family reunions in her small frame home in Southeast Missouri. She handed down some of those recipes and cooking tips to my mother, who passed them down to me...

Both sides now (03/11/09)
Judy Collins in the Sixties sang about her quest of finding out about clouds, love and life, concluding that, after having seen both sides now, it was only the illusion that made any lasting impression...