Forum Your Non-Stop Source for News in Nodaway County
maryville Daily
Online at:
F
Online
maryvilledailyforum.com
Volume 104 • Number 82 • Tuesday, April 29, 2014 • PO Box 188 • 111 E. Jenkins • Maryville, MO
75¢
Task force steps into liquor enforcement gap By TONY BROWN News editor
Five years ago when Missouri was wrestling with the worst revenue shortfall since the Great Depression of the 1930s, one of the casualties was the Division of Alcohol & Tobacco Control — the Department of Public Safety agency charged with enforcing liquor laws, including the sale of intoxicating beverages to minors. From a high of nearly 60 field agents 15 years ago, the division was already down to about half that number when the deep cuts began in 2009. After that, fewer than a halfdozen agents remained on the job, charged with the overwhelming task of enforcing liquor laws statewide. Field operations virtually ceased, and local law enforcement managers, including Sheriff Darren White in Nodaway County, complained that the state had thrown virtually the entire burden of enforcing Missouri’s complex maze of liquor statutes back onto local governments. For a while, according to White and other
officers, liquor enforcement simply became a luxury no one was able to afford. In recent years however, local agencies across northwest Missouri have been working together to get things back on track though a consortium known as the Midland Empire Alcohol Task Force. Coordinated by Sgt. Larry Stobbs of the St. Joseph Police Department, the task force is funded with a $26,000 grant from the Missouri Department of Transportation and has taken on the chore of keeping bar owners and package liquor retailers doing business inside the law. Which, of course, is what most of them want to do anyway, White said, noting that one of the task force’s most important jobs is providing information and training to both business owners and employees on everything from how to check IDs to compliance with obscure statutes governing the sale and consumption of alcohol. “The task force allows us to do compliance checks with establishments that sell liquor,” said White, “But along with that See ALCOHOL Page 6
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Midland Empire Alcohol Task Force
Nodaway County Sheriff Darren White, shown here in his County Administration Center office, said Monday the county’s participation in the Midland Empire Alcohol Task Force has helped his deputies stay on top of alcohol enforcement despite deep budget cuts at the state Division of Alcohol & Tobacco Control, which has virtually abandoned field enforcement operations.
U.S. grad rate is 80 percent, R-II at 94.4 STAFF & WIRE REPORT
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Welcome home
Nashville recording artist and 2009 Maryville High School graduate Mitch Gallagher (center) poses with, from left, Janet Scheffe, Emily Vandivert, Tammy Vandivert and Ashton Vandivert during the social hour at Saturday’s Celebrating the Arts benefit, sponsored by the Maryville R-II Educational Foundation.
Benefit event raises $6,000 for Maryville R-II Schools By STEVE HARTMAN Staff writer
The Maryville R-II Educational Foundation held its Celebrating the Arts fundraiser Saturday at the Maryville Country Club. The event brought in about $6,000 for local public schools. The day featured a twoperson scramble golf tournament, a social hour, silent auction and catered barbeque dinner plus a
concert featuring Nashville recording artist and 2009 Maryville High School graduate Mitch Gallagher. Foundation board member Kelley Baldwin said the event was a success thanks to the high level of community support. “I don’t have the final numbers yet, but it looks like we raised about $6,000,” Baldwin said. “That will fund our entire Classroom Grants Program for the 2014-2015 academic
year. Maryville is a very special community, filled with people with kind and generous hearts.” The Classroom Grants Program helps teachers purchase a variety of learning tools. Past grants have paid for musical instruments, reading and math materials, and graphics calculators. Gallagher and fellow musician Addison Johnson visited with friends, family members and guests during the social hour, then took
OFFICE NUMBER
660-562-2424
the stage to play a collection of original songs and covers to a sold-out audience. “The two singers have been close friends for years, and it showed in their onstage rapport,” Baldwin said. “They were gracious, talented and very kind.” The Celebrating the Arts benefit honored dozens of Maryville R-II alumni who work in the areas of advertising, movie production, music/art education and the fine and performing arts.
INSIDE
Record....................... 2 News...................... 3, 6 Opinion..................... 4
WASHINGTON — U.S. public high schools have reached a milestone, an 80 percent graduation rate. Yet that still means 1 of every 5 students walks away without a diploma. Citing the progress, researchers are projecting a 90 percent national graduation rate by 2020. Their report, based on Education Department statistics from 2012, was presented Monday at the Building a GradNation Summit. The growth has been spurred by such factors as a greater awareness of the dropout problem and efforts by districts, states and the federal government to include graduation rates in accountability measures. Among the initiatives are closing “dropout factory” schools. In addition, schools are taking aggressive action, such as hiring intervention specialists who work with students one on one, to keep teenagers in class, researchers said. The Maryville R-II School District has outstripped the national average for years and consistently achieves a high school graduation rate of more than 90 percent. In 2013, the average was 96.4 percent, itself a significant improvement over the previous two years locally, when the rate was 92.2 percent in 2012 and 93.7 percent in 2011. As a state, Missouri also fared well in comparison with the rest of the nation with an average high school graduation rate of 86 percent. The rate is not uniform across lines of race, wealth and culture with students of Asian/ Pacific island heritage achieving a graduation rate high of 90 percent, followed by Caucasians (89 percent), Hispanics (80 percent) and African-Americans (73 percent). And family income matters. Missouri’s “Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for “non-low income” students is 91 percent. However the ACGR for low-income teens is only 79 percent. Nationally, according to the Associated Press, growth in rates among African-American and Hispanic students helped fuel the gains. Most of the growth has occurred since 2006 after decades of stagnation. “At a moment when everything seems so broken and seems so unfixable ... this story tells you something completely different,” said John Gomperts, president of America’s Promise Alliance, which was founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and helped produce the report. Graduation rates increased 15 percentage points for
Agriculture............... 5 Sports.................... 7, 8 Classifieds............... 10
See GRAD RATE Page 3
OUTSIDE
Today High: 51° Low: 38°