12-Dec. pages 08.indd - Missouri Press Association
Transcription
12-Dec. pages 08.indd - Missouri Press Association
December 2008 National Newspaper Association has a new president. Northwest Missouri Press Association will meet Jan. 22-23 in St. Joseph. 4 Top photos taken by Missourians 10 Photographs taken by two Southeast Missouri photographers were among Editor & Pubisher’s Best of 2008. 5 Regular Features This issue contains a number of Sunshine Law stories from around Missouri. 2 12 On the Move 15 16 17 Jean Maneke 18 President NIE Report Scrapbook Obituaries www.mopress.com Get your ‘Know It. All.’ shirts here! 7 Missouri Press News, December 2008 Help association help newspapers T 2009 President Vicki Russell will bring many ideas to this page hanks for your support this year as I served as your President. And what a year it has been! Sarah and I visited St. Joseph, Kansas City, Branson (twice), Columbia (several times), Lake of the Ozarks, Shelbina, Cape Girardeau, St. Louis, Jefferson City and Boonville in Missouri and Washington, D.C., and St. Paul, Minn., outside the state. For a while there, we were traveling every other week. But it has been a truly wonderful experience. Northwest Missouri Press Association, will gather at the Holiday Inn Riverfront in St. Joseph on Jan. 22-23 for its annual meeting. A registration form is enclosed. Join Northwest Press President Dennis Ellsworth of the St. Joseph News-Press and the other officers for a day and a half of great sessions and fellowship. W e as an industry I can face increasing only hope challenges in coming years. Whether it be as- that I have I am still somewhat of an outsider, having saults on open records contrionly been in Missouri for 11½ years. But I laws, political bantering must tell you that I feel honored to have been back and forth in Jef- buted back asked to serve the Missouri Press Association ferson City, or the huge to some as its President. I can only hope that I have challenge of a morphing small contributed back to some small degree what industry facing competiI have taken out of the organization. tion for advertising dol- degree For those of you who do not regularly parlars from many sources, what I Jack Whitaker ticipate in MPA’s activities, I encourage you we find ourselves in the Hannibal Courier-Post have taken to get active. We have one of the best (if not most challenging times MPA President out of the THE best) staff organizations in the country. in our history. The caliber of work accomplished by nine I know that Vicki Rus- organistaff members and three consultants is amazing. They sell, your incoming President for are known around the country as a group who knows 2009, has many ideas about how we zation. what has to be done and how to get it done. can face these challenges together. ut every newspaper in this state should get to know Stay tuned to this page in coming months as she shares the Columbia office group better. You would find them with you. an organization that is dedicated to making our jobs And please rethink your position with the Missouri easier and our organizations more successful. That has Press Association at the same time. We have plenty of certainly been a fact in my case. jobs to be done and need input from many people with different perspectives. There will always be a place for you Newspapers in the northwest part of the state can to share your talents in one way or another. show their support in January. Their regional group, Again, thanks for a wonderful year. B VOL. 76, NO. 12 DECEMBER 2008 Official Publication of Missouri Press Association, Inc. PRESIDENT: Jack Whitaker, Hannibal Courier-Post FIRST VICE PRESIDENT: Vicki Russell, Columbia Daily Tribune SECOND VICE PRESIDENT: Sandy Nelson, Cass County Democrat-Missourian, Harrisonville SECRETARY: Brad Gentry, Houston Herald TREASURER: Kate Martin, Perry County Republic-Monitor EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Doug Crews ADVERTISING DIRECTOR: Greg Baker EDITOR: Kent M. Ford DIRECTORS: David Bradley, Jr., St. Joseph News-Press Kevin Jones, St. Louis American Dan Wehmer, Webster County Citizen, Seymour Mark Maassen, The Kansas City Star Joe May, Mexico Ledger Jon Rust, Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian Dennis Warden, Gasconade County Republican NNA REPRESENTATIVE: Jeff Schrag, Springfield Daily Events MISSOURI PRESS NEWS (ISSN 00266671) is published every month for $7.50 per year by the Missouri Press Association, Inc., 802 Locust St., Columbia, MO 65201-4888; phone (573) 449-4167; fax (573) 874-5894; e-mail [email protected]; website www.mopress.com. Periodicals postage paid at Columbia, MO 652014888. (USPS No. 355620). POSTMASTER: Please send changes of address to Missouri Press Association, 802 Locust St., Columbia, MO 65201-4888. Missouri Press News, December 2008 www.mopress.com Dispute about public’s right to know Crew of journalists reads 60,000 e-mail messages obtained from Gov. Blunt By Tony Messenger St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jefferson City Bureau (Nov. 20) fter an exhaustive three days huddled together in a fifth-floor newspaper conference room, 12 reporters and editors from the state’s three largest news �organizations breathed a collective sigh of relief and wondered aloud about �what they had found.�� Together, in a rare if not unprecedented collaboration, we had combed through 22 boxes of e-mails from the administration of Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. Page �by painful page, we read nearly every word of more than 60,000 of them from a three-month period in 2007 as the issue of e-mails and public records rose to �statewide attention. �� For the casual observer, this exercise may have seemed to be a search for a �man’s motivation. The governor, despite a huge war chest and an ongoing war of words with Attorney General Jay Nixon, in January of this year suddenly decided �against running for re-election. People wondered why, and they thought the �e-mails from that key period would hold the answer.�� Reporters, lawyers and state investigators had sought the e-mails for nearly a year, and the Blunt administration had stymied those attempts. Rumors, many of them personal, abounded. Why would they put up such a fight if there weren’t�the proverbial smoking gun to hide?�� n the end, the e-mails told us nothing of Blunt’s reluctance to run again, �short of the fact that some conservatives questioned his ability to win, even�back then. (The administration has declined to turn over about 1,400 A e-mails, �saying they are exempt from open records laws.)�� But this story had nothing to do with Blunt’s reason for skipping an election �cycle.�This story is about you. The citizen. The voter. The taxpayer. It’s about making sure that you have the ability to keep an eye on state government. It’s about that early sentence in the Sunshine Law that says, “It is the public �policy of this state that meetings, records, votes, actions, and deliberations of public governmental bodies be open to the public.”�� It’s about a citizen who sent me a copy of one of then-Blunt chief of staff Ed �Martin’s emails back in August 2007. The citizen was offended that Martin was using the governor’s office to rally anti-abortion forces while simultaneously trying to make political points against Blunt’s rival, Nixon. Back then, I did what many of you do on a daily basis while keeping an eye on �your government. I sent a Sunshine Law letter to Martin seeking records like �the one I had in my possession. He said no such records were retained. The �governor’s spokesman went further, saying no such records ever existed. �� Yet, I knew they did. And a controversy sprouted. �� One could argue the seeds to the controversy were planted a month earlier, when Kansas City Star reporter Tim Hoover — now at the Denver Post — sought similar �records. The governor’s office, the Star found out, was taking the Missouri �Highway Patrol to task for making public comments that weren’t seen as tough �enough on Nixon. �� It’s about making sure that you have the ability to keep an eye on state government. I 3 www.mopress.com Indeed, the controversy over records retention is even older than that. It predates Blunt’s tenure as governor. It’s older than Watergate. It’s older �than the Pentagon Papers. It’s as old as those Founding Fathers who decided so smartly that ours was a government of the people. �� Those Founding Fathers didn’t trust the very government they created, so they established rules that allow all of us to keep an eye on how our elected �officials operate. The records that memorialize those government operations are open, not just to�the press, but to any citizen who wants to view them. �� he e-mails we now have after a year of legal wrangling and more expense of public and private dollars show clearly that Martin was engaged in the sort of �activity on state time that is questionably relevant to state business.�� “We need to beat the living heck out of him,” Martin writes to one special interest group, referring to Nixon. �� “Please help gin up outrage,” he writes to another. �� Then, and now, the Blunt administration calls such work “coalition building.”� So be it. If that’s what it is, the records should have been open in 2007, as they are �now. �� The truth that is so apparent in a pile of 60,000 sheets of paper is that the �records sought in an Aug. 27 letter did exist. The government said they didn’t. And that, really, is all the smoke this gun needs. T Several Sunshine Law articles in this issue T his issue of Missouri Press News has a number of articles about Sunshine Law situations from around the state. The new legislative session will begin early in January. Anyone who would like to be involved in Missouri Press Association’s legislative activities in 2009 should call the MPA office in Columbia, (573) 449-4167. Missouri Press News, December 2008 Journalism students again will provide Capitol coverage T New NNA president John W. Stevenson, right, publisher of The Randolph Leader in Roanoke, Ala., became the president of the National Newspaper Association during NNA’s 122nd Annual Convention and Trade Show in September in St. Paul. Stevenson succeeds Steve Haynes, left, publisher of The Oberlin Herald in Kansas. Stevenson is a past president of the Alabama Press Association and has been publisher for 26 of his 30 years with the Leader, which was founded by his grandfather in 1892. 40 photographers gathered in St. James for 60th workshop F orty photographers from around the world were in St. James Sept. 20-27 for the Missouri School of Journalism’s 60th annual Missouri Photo Workshop. Joining the shooters were 11 faculty members and 17 university students. Among the photographers were professionals from across America and from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Romania, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Citizens got to see nearly 400 photographs of themselves and their neighbors, and meet the photographers during an exhibit at St. James Middle School. Information about each of the workshop participants, and some of the photos from their stories, can be seen at mophotoworkshop.com. Results of previous workshops also can be seen at the website. Missouri Press News, December 2008 he School of Journalism’s State Government Reporting Program, under the direction of Phill Brooks, will be providing statehouse coverage for MPA newspapers again this coming legislative session. Like last year, in addition to online stories (http://www.mdn.org), the program will produce a weekly summary of the major news events. MPA will email the summary to newspapers on Fridays. The program is asking MPA members for suggestions for a name for the program and a logo. Newspapers could run the weekly summary under the heading and use the logo as a graphic. You don’t need to design a logo, just provide suggestions. The web-based news headlines page of Missouri Digital News is called Brokers NewsBook. That could be the basis for a name and logo for the weekly summaries, or not. The weekly summaries will include links to more in-depth stories if they exist. Photos may be a possibility during the coming session. One of Brooks’ advanced reporting students is a photo major. Missouri Digital News probably will not have much going until late January. The legislative session begins Jan. 7, but the school semester does not start until Jan. 20, and it always takes a week or so to get students organized. If you have questions or suggestions, contact Brooks at (573) 882-3619 or [email protected]. Appraisers Consultants A tradition of service to community newspapers If you have been considering a transaction, and would like to achieve a strong market value, we look forward to an initial conversation with you. We represent a tradition of serving our clients’ best interests and the best interests of each community our clients serve. THOMAS C. BOLITHO P.O. BOX 849 ADA, OK 74821 (580) 421-9600 [email protected] EDWARD M. ANDERSON P.O. Box 2001 BRANSON, MO 65616 (417) 336-3457 [email protected] nationalmediasales.com EXPERIENCE www.mopress.com KNOWLEDGE INTEGRITY 4 Cape, Poplar Bluff photos among best, Editor & Publisher T These two photos, the top one taken by a Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian photographer and the bottom one by a photographer for the Poplar Bluff Daily American Republic, were among the Editor & Publisher Photos of the Year. Popular columnists, cartoonist gone in Star’s 4th job reduction T he Kansas City Star in November implemented its fourth round of layoffs this year. Among the 50 who lost their jobs were some of the most veteran and recognizable people on the news/editorial staff. • Hearne Christopher, Jr., who has written one of the most-read columns at the newspaper for several years. • Jeffrey Flanagan, who wrote a “Top of the Mornin’” column in the Sports Department since 1996 (and most re5 cently a blog). He spent 19 years at the paper, including as a beat reporter for the University of Missouri, Kansas City Royals and as national baseball reporter. • Laura Scott, assistant editorial page editor, who spent more than 30 years with the paper, including as an editorial columnist. • Lee Judge, who was nationally recognized as The Star’s political cartoonist. Judge was hired by The Star in 1981. www.mopress.com wo photos taken by photojournalists from Southeast Missouri are among Editor & Publisher magazine’s Ninth Annual Photos of the Year. Nearly 1,000 photographs were entered in the competition’s four categories. The photos from Missouri were taken by Aaron Eisenhauer of the Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian and Paul Davis of the Daily American Republic in Poplar Bluff. Both of the photos were E&P pictures of the month. Eisenhauer’s photo shows a FedEx truck driver rescuing an elPhotos by derly man from his flooded veAaron hicle in March. Eisenhauer The AP distributed the phoand Paul to, which was Davis were used around the world. E&P Time magazine included it in Pictures of its pictures of the Month. the week feature and CNN used it in its newscast. The day after the photo was released, the FedEx station in Cape Girardeau began receiving emails from around the world. Davis took his winning photo at the Budweiser Drag Boat Nationals at Wappapello Lake on May 19. It showed one powerboat flipping over another boat with the driver of the crashing boat appearing to be running across the water away from the mayhem. Newspapers and magazines around the world, from London to Australia to China, printed the photo. Eisenhauer’s photo won in E&P’s News category, less than 25,000 circulation. Davis’s picture won in the Sports, less than 25,000 category. Each photographer received $500 and a plaque. All of the winning entries can be seen in the 2008 Photos of the Year gallery at editorandpublisher.com. Missouri Press News, December 2008 3 Kansas City area weeklies being sold T hree newspapers in the Kansas City area are being sold. Lee’s Summit businessman John Ivey, the principal owner of the papers, said he was selling The Raytown Post, the Lee’s Summit Tribune and the Jackson County Advocate in Grandview to three separate buyers. Jason Whitaker, a web developer, and Ben Felder, editor of The Post, formed Nine Point Nine Media LLC to acquire The Post. Paper objects to closed meeting C ity Manager Greg Burris gave the Springfield City Council a closeddoor presentation of a proposed pension plan bailout in October, raising questions about whether that violated the Missouri Sunshine Law. Burris mentioned the meeting during a presentation to the Springfield News-Leader’s editorial board. The board questioned why that meeting was closed to the public. City Attorney Dan Wichmer said the meeting didn’t violate the Sunshine law because he was asked to provide legal advice both on the ballot language and Missouri Press News, December 2008 the city’s pending telecommunication lawsuit. Burris has recommended using $10 million from any settlement to help fund the pension plan. Attorney Jean Maneke, a Missouri Press Association counselor and a Sunshine Law expert, said a meeting can’t be closed to discuss a coming election or ballot language. Maneke questioned whether the entire meeting should have been closed if only part of it dealt with the lawsuit, an allowable exception to the open meeting requirement. www.mopress.com Ivey bought The Raytown Post in 2007 from Randy and Amy Battagler, who bought it from Lee Gray in 2002. Ivey already owned the other two papers. Felder, 24, grew up in Raytown and attended Raytown South High School. He joined The Post as a staff writer in the spring. He said he and Whitaker, 29, plan to restore the paper’s broadsheet format, increase the number of pages and launch a website. The Post was founded in 1975 by former employees of the Raytown Tribune. It reported circulation of about 3,400 paid and free in its recently published Postal Service statement of ownership and circulation. The Tribune reported total circulation of about 1,800, and the Jackson County Advocate reported 4,500. In August, News-Press & Gazette Co. of St. Joseph closed the Raytown Tribune, which competed with The Post. —from The Kansas City Star 6 Reason for closed meeting must be specific A judge ordered the Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District board to stop posting ambiguous notices of closed meetings that include subjects that may be discussed. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Carolyn C. Whittington ruled Nov. 9 that the board did not knowingly or purposely violate the Sunshine Law with its closed meetings. But she ordered the board to stop posting universal meeting notices, a practice that “perpetrates the appearance of improper conduct and results in no accountability to the residents and taxpayers.” The judge ordered district officials to set a specific date, time and place for the closed sessions and to include in the notices the statutory openness exemp- tion for the topics to be discussed at the meeting. Residents of the fire district had sued. —from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Board rescinds votes taken by phone poll T he Holts Summit Board of Aldermen rescinded several votes it had taken in October after the Jefferson City News Tribune challenged the votes as violations of the Sunshine Law. The newspaper challenged actions during a regular meeting that ratified votes taken earlier during separate telephone calls to individual aldermen. Votes can only be taken if notice has been posted before the vote, the newspaper contended. The board canceled the votes, based in part on affirmation from the Missouri Municipal League that the newspaper’s challenge was accurate. —from The Fulton Sun ‘Know It. All.’ T-shirts would be great gifts! J ust in time for Christmas shopping! Stuff stockings with T-shirts. To the right is an order form for “Know It. All. Read a Newspaper” Tshirts. They come in two colors, black and gray, and various sizes. Order shirts for your employees, your family, your readers, yourself! They cost only $12 for sizes through XL ($15 for XXL and XXXL). Copy the order form and pass it around to your employees. They’ll want some “Know It. All.” T-shirts too. Order now for Christmas giving! 7 www.mopress.com Missouri Press News, December 2008 Judge would like ‘rambling’ limited I n ruling that the Cape Girardeau County Commissioners did not knowingly or purposefully violate the Sunshine Law, a Southeast Missouri judge said, “While commissioners did discuss matters they should have aired in public, those actions were not enough to declare the whole meeting illegal. “However, it is also clear to the court that the discussions held in closed session wandered off of ‘potential litigation’ to a large degree … All public bodies should establish procedures and practices for closed session that would limit the rambling engaged in by this body … while in closed session,” wrote associated Circuit Judge Stephen Mitchell of Stoddard County. One member of the County Commission, Jay Purcell, had sued the other members over a closed meeting they held on April 17. Mitchell ruled that the meeting notice, the announced reasons for going into closed session before the vote and the matters discussed all comply with the Sunshine Law. While discussion during the closed meeting strayed from the topic, Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones sought to bring the discussion back to the lawsuit. Purcell’s attorney, J.P. Clubb, said the lawsuit was filed to create awareness of the Sunshine Law. “Hopefully it will spur other governments to follow the Sunshine Law.” Clubb said the judge went too far by ruling that no violation occurred because none of the commissioners knowingly or purposefully sought to avoid the rules. It was not a question of intent, he said. The suit sought a ruling that a violation had occurred in order to prevent future violations. “I didn’t ask for penalties for a reason — we were not trying to prove intent and we didn’t want to prove intent,” Clubb said. Ordinance tries to stop closed information leaks T he Carl Junction city council passed an ordinance Oct. 21 stating that all records and information that has been closed must be treated as confidential by all employees and elected and appointed officials of the city. Personnel may not provide or discuss closed records or information discussed in any closed meeting. Anyone who violates that confidentiality will be sub- ject to disciplinary action, which could include removal from office. A month earlier, Mayor Mike Moss had addressed the city council regarding the confidentiality of closed meetings. He said it had been brought to his attention that details of closed discussions had been shared with the public. —from the Jasper County Citizen We couldn’t be your voice in Washington without being your neighbor in Missouri. AARP Missouri — your one-stop resource for people age 50 and over and their families With 805,000 members in Missouri and over 39 million members nationally, AARP has the power to enhance the quality of life for everyone as they age. Through advocacy, service and information, we strive to create positive social change and deliver value to our members. ��������������������������������������������������� ��������������������������������������������������������������� ����������������������������������� �������������������������������������������������� ���������������������������������������� ������������������������ Missouri Press News, December 2008 www.mopress.com 8 Recent Foundation donors T hese individuals and businesses have made recent contributions to Missouri Press Foundation. Donations to the Foundation are tax deductible. Now is a great time to make a contribution in honor of or in memory of an associate or friend. All donations are greatly appreciated. Photojournalism Hall of Fame Washington Chamber of Commerce Mr. and Mrs. William L. Miller, Washington Newspaper In Education Programs Opie’s Transport Inc., Eldon; WalMart, Eldon For the Eldon Advertiser NIE Program The Missouri Valley Conference For the St. Louis-Post Dispatch NIE Program BOCO, Union For the Washington Missourian NIE Program U.S. Bank, Springfield For the Republic Monitor NIE Program In Honor of Jim Kirkpatrick Doris Kirkpatrick, Warrensburg Missouri Press Foundation Phil and Cecelia Leslie, Columbia $1,000 fines, $10,000 attorney fees for board’s ‘knowing’ violations J udge John Jackson ruled in August that the Marion County Health Department violated the Sunshine Law, but it was not guilty of any “purposeful” violations. Jackson ruled the department broke the law by not posting notice of two meetings in February 2006 and by holding a closed meeting. He also ruled that in all of the more than 50 allegations against the department, there was not a purposeful violation of the Sunshine Law. Because the violations were “knowing” violations, Jackson assessed civil penalties of $1,000 each for the three violations, plus $10,000 in attorney fees and court costs against the defendants. The meetings in question were conducted by an employee of the health department to review a draft of a confined 9 animal feeding operations ordinance and to obtain public feedback on the effects of such an ordinance. The judge ruled that the defendants’ removal of a citizen from a public meeting on Feb. 20 was a knowing violation because the department had planned to remove anyone from the meeting who had not been present at a Feb. 13 meeting. Resident Ken Disselhorst filed the suit. “I think it is never a good day when any government body is found guilty of violating the law,” Disselhorst told The Palmyra Spectator. “This has always been an issue of honesty and integrity and the process of how to deal with public issues and people. Removing members of the public from a meeting was one count we definitely felt was wrong.” www.mopress.com Letters Daughter appreciates recognition for father M issouri Press Association, Our family would like to express our appreciation to you and the nominating committee for honoring Townsend Godsey with his induction into the Photojournalism Hall of Fame. Naturally, we are all proud of his accomplishments in his chosen field of endeavor. It is nice to know that others have appreciated his work, too, especially those considered experts in the field. I thought, later, after I had accepted the plaque and said a few words, that I wished I had acknowledged my Mom, Helen Godsey, who was a true helpmate to Dad. She was his cheering squad, his proofreader, and many times had to make major adjustments to help Dad realize his goals. Daddy was not only a talent in his field but was also a caring, gentle person, always cognizant of others’ feelings, had a great sense of humor and a big curiosity about life in general. Again, our thanks. Katye Godsey Elsea Marshall, Mo. A bit of good news about a newspaper E ditor: I know you get a lot of complaints about how the newspaper world is doing. I just thought I’d pass along some good news from our part of the world. When I finished up my statement of ownership yesterday, we were up on our in-county subscriptions by 74. Everything was up too, just not as much. This brings our circulation up to right at 2,000. With the current economic times, you know as well as I do that our numbers easily could go the other way at any time. We feel very humbled and blessed that so many readers help support us each week. Kim Wehmer Howell County News Willow Springs Missouri Press News, December 2008 NW Press invites you to attend Jan. 22-23 meeting in St. Joseph T he Northwest Missouri Press Association is making final preparations for its 119th Annual Convention on Thursday and Friday, Jan. 22-23. The meeting will return to the Holiday Inn Riverfront, St. Joseph. Dennis Ellsworth, executive editor of the St. Joseph News-Press and 2008 president of Northwest Press, will be the host for this year’s convention. A registration form is on the facing page. Early registration is strongly encouraged. All convention fees are the same as last year. St. Joseph has a number of new attractions for visitors. These include the $4 million Remington Nature Center located near the casino. Also, East Hills Shopping Center has been renovated and expanded. The program will begin Thursday afternoon with a workshop and will include a social hour and the traditional president’s party that evening. The Fri- day schedule includes workshops in the morning and afternoon, a luncheon, social hour and awards banquet. Specifics of this year’s program will be announced shortly. Speakers, possibly including statewide officeholders, will be announced when confirmed. Northwest Press traditionally presents three awards at its closing banquet: • Craig Watkins Friend of Northwest Press Award, which honors someone who has been supportive of the group’s activities for many years. • Merrill Chilcote Award, which honors a Northwest Missouri newspaper person for service to the region and profession. • James C. Kirkpatrick Award, which honors service to the state. Hotel rooms are $68 plus tax, single or double occupancy. To make a reservation, call (816) 279-8000. You are encouraged to send in your registration as soon as you can. On the Move • New Haven — Buck Collier has been named editor of the New Haven Leader. He served briefly in that position in the 1990s. For the past seven years Collier has been a reporter and managing editor for the Suburban Journals in St. Louis. He succeeds Karen McGlenn at the Buck Collier Leader. Collier also has served as editor of the Franklin County Tribune in Union, the Union Missourian and The Daily Statesman in Dexter. Collier and his wife, Vicki, have a son. • Columbia — State government reporter and political blogger Jason Rosenbaum has left the Columbia Daily Tribune after 2-1/2 years. ��������������������������������������� More than ever, Missouri’s rural and suburban families use ��������to fuel their active lifestyles. For cooking, heating, hot water, drying clothes or fireplaces...nothing matches the ������������������ of propane! ��������is safe, clean-burning, affordable and dependable; it’s the perfect fuel for your readers and their busy families! Visit the Missouri Propane Education and Research Council at MissouriPropane.com or call (573) 893-8298. Missouri Press News, December 2008 www.mopress.com 10