JEFFERSON CITY - Flawless weather permitted hunters to shoot 7,004 turkeys on the opening day of Missouri’s three-week spring turkey season, setting the stage for another strong turkey harvest.

The opening-day harvest was 17 percent larger than last year, when a late freeze set back turkey mating and nesting behavior by weeks. Hunters checked just 6,010 birds on opening day of the 2007 spring turkey season.

Nevertheless, this year’s first-day harvest still was lower than in other recent years. Resource Scientist Tom Dailey, the Missouri Department of Conservation’s turkey expert, said this...

SULLIVAN - The City Council on Tuesday unanimously passed an ordinance that will effectively raise the residential electric rate by 18.25 percent. Commercial and industrial concerns will also see significant rate increases by 17.25 and 14.6 percent respectively. The ordinance basically cuts in half the electric rate increase being passed to the city by its supplier, Sho-Me Electric Cooperative.

The questions facing the Council include the manner in which Sho-Me's rate increase will be passed along to Sullivan Municipal Electric customers (gradually or all at once), how to fund an incremental increase, and the future of said increases. Representatives from at...

SULLIVAN - The South Outer Road near the Elmont overpass will be closed Tuesday to allow a massive crane to place steel girders across the structure. The project, subject to weather, will be a major milestone in the construction because the 100-ft.-plus girders are considered the frame of the overpass.

"The girders go across the highway and they're the basic foundation of the overpass," said Dale Heislen of Don Schnieders Excavating, the general contractor on the overpass project. On Monday, crews from Schnieders and Skyview Construction & Engineering, Inc. - the owner of the crane - prepared the site for Tuesday's big event.

The crane, a Grove GMK5275 built in Germany and only four weeks old, will be placed near or on the South Outer Road at the intersection of Elmont Road. Capable of reaching out more than...

SULLIVAN - A special meeting concerning the city's electric rate increase will be held Tuesday. The following was issued by the City of Sullivan:

Notice is hereby given that the City of Sullivan will conduct a special meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 in the Council Room at City Hall, 210 W. Washington, Sullivan, Missouri.

The tentative agenda of this special meeting includes:

1) Bill No. 3236, being an ordinance amending Title One (I) of the Municipal Code dealing with electric rates in the City of Sullivan, Missouri, by....