Tagged: Missouri

When Terry Walls of Springfield, Mo., decided to go back to college at age 52, he wanted to put to rest a family rumor. He had heard his mother was denied admission to Missouri State University, and he was pointed toward Meyer Library on the MSU campus for answers.

There, he discovered an eloquent letter typed on fragile, onion-skin paper and signed with his mother's maiden name: Mary Jean Price. It was dated Oct. 2, 1950, and it was addressed to the university registrar:

Graduation is supposed to in part be about celebrating the future, but last year in Joplin, Mo., shortly after the high school graduation ceremony, an EF-5 tornado — the highest-strength rating — destroyed one-third of the city and killed 161 people, including one teen who had received his diploma that day.

In addition to the homes, hospital and businesses that were destroyed, the high school itself was in ruins, along with several other school buildings. Even though cash and equipment donations have poured in, students and teachers have contended with displacement, lingering pain and having to adapt to some unusual workarounds.

Why did Missouri teen Maura Pozek make her prom dress out of cardboard and paper bags?

Because after fashioning the previous two years' outfits out of Doritos bags and soda can tabs, "I had to top myself somehow."

Seventeen-year-old Pozek, a high school senior from Reeds Spring (just northwest of Branson), told NPR's Melissa Block this afternoon that it took "lots of hot glue" and some late-night last-minute alterations to make the dress work. Her original idea to construct it all of corrugated cardboard wasn't going well. With just hours to go, she made the skirt from paper bags. The top remained cardboard. All of it was painted.

We're seeing headlines today about an entire college championship team moving from one school to another. And though the story's about two months old, it's still so unusual and has enough interesting angles to warrant passing along.

It seems, as The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported back in February, that Texas Tech chess coach Susan Polgar is taking her skills to Webster University in St. Louis — and is bringing along members from her national collegiate championship team.

A disease that has killed more than 5.5 million bats in the eastern United States and Canada is making its way west. White-nose syndrome has now been diagnosed in three Missouri bats — the first confirmed cases west of the Mississippi. And scientists say it won't stop there.

Since white-nose syndrome was first discovered in bats near Albany, N.Y., in early 2007, it has devastated bat populations in the eastern U.S. Tony Elliot, a scientist with the Missouri Department of Conservation, says he knew it was only a matter of time before the disease crossed the Mississippi River into Missouri.

"Unfortunately, there's not a lot we can do to stop it," he says.