March -- Newspaper switches to morning publication

March 2008 was a time of new beginnings in Vernon County as the city of Nevada looked over ideas for a new community center, construction began on Vernon County's new jail, and the Nevada Daily Mail/Weekend Herald-Tribune converted to a morning newspaper delivered via postal service.

The first weekend in March brought an end to Echos, a restaurant and bar on the edge of Nevada that burned to the ground over the weekend. Some residents expressed suspicion surrounding the incident and fire marshals investigated but could not determine the cause due to the extent of the devastation.

About a week later, The Missouri Division of Finance closed the Hume Bank, the second bank failure in the nation in 2008.

The city of Nevada's Parks and Recreation Board began to delve in earnest into evaluating options for a new communitity center and at the end of the month took steps to put a disc golf course in place in Marmaduke Park. City manager Bill McGuire backed down from a plan to use transportation sales tax money to buy a new street sweeper. The proposal, first made public in February, met with great resistance from the infrastructure committee. On March 4, McGuire called it a misunderstanding of the ballot language and related ordinances, saying he'd looked at a previous ordinance. An editorial in the Daily Mail noted the ordinances he references were nearly identical.

A number of water drainage issues caused delays in the progress of Vernon County's schedule for constructing a new jail.

"It is a drainage area for 40 to 50 acres around it," said Larry Goldberg Architect of the jail. "We had no idea that this is a drainage catch for 40 to 50 acres around us."

A plan was put into place mitigating the drainage issue and that addressed drainage to neighboring properties as well.

Despite the delays in construction, most officials are satisfied with the jails progress and optimistic about it's opening. The Vernon County Commissioners said they were happy to have found these problems now, prior to actual construction.

Throughout the month, delays occurred in airport projects as well.

An armed robber struck a local loan office.

Other, unrelated crimes also took place during the month.

On March 18, an armed robber locked a clerk in an storage area in a Deerfield area convenience store, and made off with an undisclosed amount of money.

A man also was fatally shot at a rural home on March 19.

There was good news in the law enforcement arena as well -- the Community Narcotics Enforcement Team, serving Vernon, St. Clair, Cherokee and Barton Counties is to be honored by the Missouri Narcotics Officer's Association as the state drug task force of the year.

On March 5 agents from CNET drug task force, Southwest Drug Task Force, Southeast Kansas Drug Task Force, Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the sheriff's offices of Barton, Bates, Barry, Newton, St. Clair, and Vernon counties, Missouri State Highway Patrol, and Missouri Counter Drug Air Division conducted a two-state operation in conjunction with a nationwide drug enforcement effort. The operation, resulted in six search warrants; seven meth lab seizures; 36 arrests; the seizure of 15 grams of meth, nine pounds of marijuana, eight handguns and 18 rifles; the take down of two marijuana growing operations; 28 marijuana plants and 22 boxes of pseudoephedrine,

Financial issues led to a change in provider for disabled van services from the Vernon County Ambulance District to MNOD Taxi.

Nevada R-5 superintendent Craig Noah announced his resignation, to be effective at the end of the school year, to take a job in the Marshall, Mo., school district.

Barton County Electric Cooperative hosted three meetings March 3-6 labeled as member appreciation dinners, giving area co-op members the opportunity to hear what was currently taking place within the company and ask questions regarding several topics. All three meetings began with current co-op board president Doug Haile announcing the adoption of three new policies: protection for whistle-blowers, a strict nepotism policy and a more open stand on information access for members.

But another concern dug into everyone's pocketbook -- cost of regular unleaded gasoline soared past $3 per gallon.