Your Non-Stop Source for News in Nodaway County
Forum maryville Daily
Online at:
F
Online
maryvilledailyforum.com
Volume 104 • Number 8 • Monday, January 13, 2014 • PO Box 188 • 111 E. Jenkins • Maryville, MO
75¢
New administration at Jefferson C-123 By KEVIN BIRDSELL Staff Writer
Insufficient evidence
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
The Jefferson C-123 School District will have a new superintendent next fall for the first time in 16 years. Veteran schools chief Rob Dowis has announced that he will retire at the end of the current school year. The C-123 School Board has named current high school principal and boys basketball coach Tim Jermain as his successor. “I am excited to step into the superintendent’s role,” Jermain said. “Mr. Dowis has done a great job of leading our district for the past 16 years. My goal is to continue to lead Jefferson in our pursuit of getting better every day.”
Charley Burch Opting to promote from within, the board has also named high school teacher Charley Burch to take over as principal at the beginning of the 2014-’15 school year. “I am excited about the hiring of Mr. Burch as our
Tim Jermain secondary principal,” Jermain said. “Mr. Burch has been a valuable part of our current staff, and I am confident he will lead our staff as we strive to keep doing what is best for our the students of Jefferson C-123 schools.”
Nodaway County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Rice, above, said Friday he acted “aggressively” — and correctly — in filing felony sexual abuse charges in the Daisy Coleman Case. But Rice added he had no choice other than to drop those charges when he found they were supported by insufficient evidence.
Rice: “Coleman case ‘handled the right way’” By TONY BROWN News editor
On the day after associate Circuit Judge Glen Dietrich accepted a brokered deal in which Matt Barnett pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment in the Daisy Coleman case, Nodaway County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Rice said justice had been served. It was Rice who first filed, and later dropped, felony sexual abuse charges against Barnett after Coleman, then 14, claimed to have been raped during a house party that produced a dangerous cocktail mixing high school athletes, underage girls, alcohol and sex.
‘You have to make the final call based on the evidence you have.’ — Robert Rice
Last week, more than two years after the incident, which took place in January 2012, special prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said both she and the Coleman family supported the plea bargain in which Barnett admitted leaving a drunken, thinly-dressed Daisy Coleman outside her house in freezing temperatures just before dawn. The charge contained no allegations of sexual abuse and was identical to the one Rice filed several weeks after the party. On Friday, Rice, who was repeatedly accused in a widespread social me-
dia campaign of softening the original charges due to the Barnett family’s local prominence, stopped short of saying he felt vindicated. But he added that the outcome tallied with the evidence available during his original investigation. “More than anything, I think it’s just reassuring,” Rice said. “I think it’s reassuring to everybody that the case was handled the right way.” Rice added that Daisy Coleman’s testimony was crucial to moving forward with the sex charges, but that Coleman was unable or unwilling to establish at what point she became incapacitated by drink or unable to reject unwanted sexual advances. Baker, Rice said, encountered the same legal obstacle after being assigned to the case last October. “I worked by butt off on this case, and at the end of the day we did the right thing,” said Rice, who claimed he was “aggressive” in filing the original felony charges but acted correctly in dropping them as the investigation progressed. “Based on what I had at the time, I’d do it again,” Rice said. “But I still had an obligation to follow up on the initial investigation. You have to make the final call based on the evidence you have.” Rice said he ignored pressure to bring Barnett to trial for felony rape for the same reason Baker did — his attorney’s oath to follow where the evidence leads. “People were saying, ‘Well, why don’t you just go to trial and see what happens?’” Rice said. “But like the special prosecutor said, you take an oath not to do that. If the evidence is insufficient, it is your responsibility not to bring that case.” In other fallout from the Coleman case, which was covered by major news organizations worldwide, Maryville See RICE, Page 3
OFFICE NUMBER
660-562-2424
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Local Royalty
Two Maryville girls were among four contestants crowned in the Miss Northwest Pageants competition held Saturday in the Mary Linn Auditorium on the campus of Northwest Missouri State University. Hailee Beemer (far right) was crowned Miss Northwest Outstanding Teen and Jennifer Zweifel (second from right) was crowned Miss Northwest. Also pictured, left to right, are Miss Missouri Shelby Ringdahl of Columbia, Miss Northwest Counties Brooke Novinger of Kirksville and Miss Maryville Rebecca Helton of Macon. Beemer was also voted as top interview and top contestant in active/fitness wear. Zweifel also earned honors for top interview.
Literacy effort would write Rx for reading By TONY BROWN News editor
Pradnya Patet has a passion for helping children learn, and she believes opportunities for that learning should extend well beyond the classroom. Parents, neighbors, civic leaders, healthcare professionals, youth group volunteers — all have a responsibility, Patet said, to help the children in their community grow into the best and most accomplished people they can become. And the indispensable component of that growth is the ability to read. So Patet, who has a Ph.D. in child and family development and serves as the early childhood program coordinator for the
INSIDE
Record....................... 2 Opinion..................... 4 Business.................... 5
Department of Professional Education at Northwest Missouri State University, has put together a plan for getting more Nodaway County children hooked on reading as early in life as possible. “It takes a village to raise a child,” Patet said, quoting the African proverb made famous by the 1996 book in which former first lady Hillary Clinton set forth her views on raising children in America. Patet added that setting children on the path toward intellectual well being — and especially toward literacy — is nearly as important as ensuring their physical health. Which is why she is working to enlist local physicians in a community-based effort to put more age-appropriate books into the
Sports................ 7, 8, 9 Comics.................... 10 Classifieds............... 11
See LITERACY, Page 3
OUTSIDE
Today High: 44° Low: 27°