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The Poplar Bluff City Council was forced into making a decision at Tuesday night’s council meeting on the issue of rezoning the property at the corner of Northwood Drive and Westmoore Drive. Jared Beaird, owner of the property had requested the rezoning to allow him to use the building as a dental practice. It was zoned residential, and the request was to rezone it as O-1, which would have allowed professional use of the property. Some on the Council had hoped to table the issue, allowing time for more study and more dialogue with both the property owners of the neighborhood and Beaird. But John Scott, attorney for property owner Darlene Hutchison, related to the council members that the residents

Our community needs your help. Please send an email to the Public Service Commission (PSC), pscinfo@psc.mo.gov, to help save 900 family sustaining jobs in Southeast Missouri. The PSC will soon decide whether to grant an affordable electric rate needed to preserve jobs at Noranda’s New Madrid smelter. The loss of jobs at Noranda would have a devastating impact on the entire region’s economy. Noranda annually contributes $300 million in economic impact to our region. The PSC has the opportunity to not only save these jobs, but to keep rates lower for all Ameren customers. Rates will go up even higher if Noranda is no longer on Ameren’s system. Help persuade the PSC to support Noranda and all electric rate payers:

POPLAR BLUFF – Area dignitaries and excited shoppers gathered Wednesday for the grand opening of the new Harp’s grocery store in Poplar Bluff. Harps Foods of Springdale, Ark., purchased the five-acre lot in the Cripple Creek Development and constructed a new 30,000 square foot grocery store, located between Shelby Road and the Kindergarten Center. About 80 employees have been hired at the new store. The store chain currently has about 74 stores in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Other Harp’s stores in the Southeast Missouri area include Doniphan, Dexter, Malden, and Kennett, with more stores planned for the future. Michael Lack, manager of the new store, said he and his staff are looking forward to serving Poplar Bluff. “We are very

Pictured with Tamara Day [right], Donna Laseter—the mother of PBHS junior Isaac—was recently elected to succeed Dr. Larry Kimbrow as AAG president.   Applications will soon be sent out to Poplar Bluff High School faculty so they can submit mini-grant requests to the Academic Assistance Group (AAG), which will select what field trips, equipment and other projects to fund during its next board meeting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 21, in conference room 101 at Senior High. Established in 1990, according to school records, the AAG is the ‘booster club’ for all academic departments and functions at PBHS. Its mission is to supplement the instructional needs of teachers that may not have been included in applicable budgets, or educational opportunities

Allen Minor of MOREnet recently surveyed the school bus garage and maintenance shed in an effort to incorporate the departments into the district’s network to improve Internet reliability and speed.   The R-I Board of Education made a prescient investment in technology infrastructure that will position Poplar Bluff Schools to have a reliable Internet connection as students create more intensive multi-media projects under the Digital Transformation. During the monthly meeting on Thursday, Sept. 18, in the Administrative Building, the school board unanimously approved MOREnet’s SEMO Fiber Project to build a direct connection to the University of Missouri’s network backbone at a reduced price due to a partnership with the Internet supplier and the E-Rate program, which offers schools discounted telecommunications