When one of our many successful Southern Missouri businesses expands its payrolls, it’s a great day in the community. There’s positive buzz about the news, and people get excited about the fact that their city is growing. It’s hard work to create those kinds of opportunities, but we all know it will pay dividends when a company is ready to expand.

Gerrymandering for illegal immigration

Columbus Day often passes quietly by at the beginning of October. We have a lot of other things going on – the St. Louis Cardinals in the playoffs, Missouri football and the impending arrival of harvest in Southern Missouri.

During the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth this year, Nov. 19 will mark the 146th anniversary of the most historic two minutes in Lincoln’s presidency, and perhaps the most significant two minutes of any presidency in our history.

Dear Editor,

On 10/29/09 an article ran regarding the daughters of the President receiving the H1N1 flu vaccine. It was an AP story, but it never ceases to amaze me how hard hearted and thick headed some people can be. Here this Texas man is, carrying on to Fox news, (a Stirctly Neutral News Outlet, as anyone who can read knows), incinuating there has been a Wrong Doing about these two particular girls being vaccinated before HIS children were. How terrible !! But, had his two children been standing in a line, immediately in front of Obama's children, do you for one second think we would have heard a 'peep' out of this guy? I think not.

Upon returning from 2 weeks vacation, my wife brought to my attention the column "readers speak out" published on Oct. 13th, 2009 Journal.

For anyone that did not get a chance to see The Wall when it was in Desloge, there is a Web site at VietnamVeteran MemorialFund (vvmf.org) that you can go to. You can leave rememberances, do rubbings of the names, etc. We have several local heros on the wall, but few of us have left anything. It's well worth your time to check it out. There is also a place for teachers and administrators that would like to teach about Vietnam. It is FREE. Please remember all of our heros both that are on the wall and those that survived to come home.

When Curtis and I first started talking about buying a house, I was really unsure.

There’s a reason I usually make Curtis drive to the vet.