support@semo.net
1573 686-9114​​​​

DEXTER – Jane Jacobs, in The Death and Life of American Cities, describes the need for a vital downtown because its life-force breathes into every other part of the city. Dexter's downtown is a perfect example of that life-force and Dexter is a great example of a great city. Downtown Dexter is bustling with retail business, from consignment clothing stores to upscale, eclectic variety shops. You need only go into a single shop to find out about all the downtown retailers and what you can get where. That’s one astounding attribute you find in downtown Dexter; they support each other very proudly. Talk with City Administrator Mark Stidham and you will quickly understand the winning strategy behind Dexter’s success. Dexter’s

On Sept. 23, a committee of seven city employees unanimously recommended that city council accept AON as their health insurance consultant over a local company’s less expensive bid. The council voted to approve the recommendation. The next day, our Rust-owned daily proclaimed “City shuns cheaper local bid” and misrepresented that it was the city manager who made the recommendation to take the non-local bid. The first eleven paragraphs of the article painted a city council and city manager who did all they could to take the city’s health insurance business “overseas.” Buried on page 2 in paragraph 12, the report finally mentioned the employee committee recommendation. The next day the paper featured a completely uninformed editorial claiming that Kaplan and

These days we not only need to protect our privacy from online hackers but from the federal government. The bulk data collection done by the National Security Agency unmasked earlier this year poses a threat to our civil liberties. National Cyber Security Awareness Month reminds us that the government needs to honor our constitutional right to privacy.  It also reminds us that there are bad actors in the online world, and we need to take necessary precautions to protect our privacy. I have worked to limit the amount of bulk data the federal government can collect on American citizens and to require the government to destroy any information that it collected unlawfully. In a report released last week, the National

I’ve already seen some deer forecasts for my home state of Missouri, and it’s a wonder we even bother buying tags according to a few journalists. With all the doomsday talk about our poor, diseased, malnourished, and minuscule deer herd, I thought a bit of logic and facts might keep a few guys from selling off their rifles! First of all, there is one other authority on our deer herd that you can safely take advice from, and that’s Mr. Jim Low, the head writer for the Missouri Department of Conservation. As of right now, the only two people I’d listen to in reference to deer numbers is Jim and myself, there may be other legitimate sources out there, I

We learned from the Court’s ruling last week that former Poplar Bluff City Manager Doug Bagby had been operating under an illegal contract for over 10 years. Those who actually took five minutes to read the contract along with the unambiguous city ordinance and,  equally plain, Missouri state statutes knew immediately that it was an illegal contract. Any lawyer who saw that city manager contract would tell their client they have no contract. But, Bagby's lawyer pushed ahead and threatened to sue the city for the money stipulated in the illegal contract. Council turned to the courts and asked, "How much do we owe on an illegal contract?" The judges' answer was, "Not a dime." And now, the local Rust-owned daily