April 2020

LAWSON – A 72-year-old Lawson woman is the first person confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus, COVID-19, in Ray County.

EXCELSIOR SPRINGS – Once upon a time, when a person referred to as “The Boss” wore an electric guitar rather than a suit and tie, and a young man did not use his single glove as an oven mitt, the world’s No. 1 musical artists gathered to shine light in the darkness.

Politics should play no role in combatting an acute respiratory syndrome, the virus that causes the deadly disease, COVID-19, but the lack of action in Missouri looks like politics, not leadership.

NEW YORK CITY – Because of the coronavirus pandemic, baseball fans in Ray County obviously cannot take in a Kansas City Royals game at Kauffman Stadium or a St. Louis Cardinals game at Busch Stadium.

EXCELSIOR SPRINGS – With the coronavirus taking the field, there is no certainty there will be a Tiger baseball season. Still, plans have been made.

RICHMOND – The Missouri State High School Activities Association has limited what local prep sports coaches and athletes, including in Excelsior Springs and Richmond, can do while the spring sports season hangs in limbo.

The April 7 municipal elections that will not happen should have been allowed to happen. “Public health” is the reason given for delaying elections. The excuse sounds praiseworthy, due to concern about the contagion that threatens to kill – based on information coming out of Washington – at least 100,000 Americans. Allowing people to congregate at a polling place, to ignore the rules of social distancing, to put voters and poll workers at risk, is unthinkable. Everyone can agree on that point; however, that is not the point here, which is that the elections should have been allowed to happen and could have been allowed to happen without endangering anyone.

Missourians are flooding into their local grocery stores to stockpile cleaning supplies food and, of course, toilet paper. They pile into these stores because they are worried. They pile in because they want to protect their families, and because they want to feel safe.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt – who chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies – joined a bipartisan, bicameral group of 121 members of Congress in sending a letter to the Trump administration calling for immediate assistance to rural hospitals and clinics.