Stories from Friday, August 1, 2025

Tommy "Tom" Ray Mooney II, age 54, of Lamar, Missouri, passed away on July 27, 2025, at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, Missouri. Tom was born on August 20, 1970, in El Dorado Springs, Missouri, to Tommy Ray Mooney Sr. and Opal Marie (Warner) Mooney. He graduated from Walker High School with the Class of 1988 and went on to earn his bachelor's degree from Missouri Southern State University in 1993. On January 13, 1996, he married Lizabeth Ellen Hardman in Lamar, Missouri...

A framed sign hangs in the background of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Ralph V. Bobbett Post #2175 which reads, “For those who fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.” Post #2175 celebrated its 95th birthday last year, but the Veterans of Foreign Wars, as a national community of veterans bound together to help veterans, has been around quite a bit longer – more than 125 years...