MARYVILLE, Mo. – Northwest Missouri State University’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee will be hosting a bone marrow drive.

The drive is designed to assist people in the Maryville community, including the Wendle family. Preslee Wendle was diagnosed with AML leukemia at 15 months old. She has undergone six rounds of chemotherapy and radiation.

“Our hope is to make a difference in the lives of others,” Maddie Propst, a member of the Bearcat women’s golf team and a junior elementary education major from Lawson, Missouri, said. “It is very hard to be a match to donate marrow to someone in need, but if we can grow the registry, there is a greater chance of matches being made.”

People interested in joining the registry can expect a 10-minute process to complete paperwork and have their cheek swabbed. Registrants who match with patients will be notified at a later date.  

“Our main goal is to get several people to join the registry,” Propst said. “We also want to take this opportunity to educate people about donating bone marrow. It is not always a surgical procedure.”

The drive take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday, April 17, at the Robert and Virginia Foster Fitness Center.

Interested individuals must be between the ages of 18 and 44 to be considered eligible. The event is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Propst at s520514@mail.nwmissouri.edu.

A St. Joseph man accused of assaulting a pregnant woman is back behind bars. Officials say Christopher Rowles made contact with his victim, in violation of his bond requirements.

Rowles, 29, is charged with 2nd degree domestic assault, a class-d felony. In court documents, St. Joseph police accused Rowles of beating up the woman, “…grabbing her, choking her so she couldn’t breathe,” and said he “punched her on the left side of her face causing visible injury. The victim was five months pregnant according to a court affidavit.

The probable cause statement also said Rowles also “…threatened to kill anyone who got between him and his children.”

Officials say Rowles was seen with the victim, a violation of his bond, so a judge revoked the bond. Rowles is back in the Buchanan County Jail awaiting his next court appearance May 1.

An Independence, Missouri man remains behind bars in Buchanan County on charges of impersonating a police officer. Phillip Herrera, 35, is charged with the class-a misdemeanor offense of false impersonation of a law enforcement officer.

Investigators say Herrera had emergency police lights and a spotlight on his vehicle, wore police-department and homeland security patches, and carried a gun. He was arrested after an incident April 9 near at 1275 NW 26th Road near Rosecrans Airport.

According to court documents, the defendant told several people he was an officer, and “gave orders to witnesses while dressed as and verbally representing himself as a law enforcement officer.” Investigators say Herrera told people he was going to “run their information,” and used a spotlight to look over a parked vehicle that was not his.

During the suspect’s first appearance Friday via video conferencing, Associate Circuit Judge Keith Marquart entered a plea of not guilty on Herrera’s behalf and scheduled the case for the trial-setting docket April 26. Bail was set earlier at $500 cash plus a $4,500 surety bond. Herrera will apply for a public defender.

A Chicago man will remain in custody awaiting his next court apperance on charges stemming from a shots-fired incident in Midtown St. Joseph earlier this month.

Investigators say a dozen rounds were fired during a disturbance April 9 in the 900 block of South 15th Street outside the home of Martell Jenkins’ estranged spouse. Police say they recovered 12 shell casings from the scene. Jenkins was arrested early the following morning at a home on Francis Street, where they seized a semi-automatic pistol, according to court documents.

Witnesses told detectives Jenkins and another individual fired shots at two people in the street and at two houses. Prosecutors said there were minor injuries and some property damage involved.

During his first court appearance on Friday, Jenkins told Associate Circuit Judge Keith Marquart that he is the victim in the case, that he has “called the police over a hundred times” and spoke with the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office “…more than three times.” He said there have been more than 25 incidents involving the same people and that he is “basically the victim.”

Judge Marquart earlier had denied bail in the case. On Friday he noted that Jenkins is a flight risk and a danger to the community, and refused to set bail. In court documents, a detective said Jenkins has indicated he would return to the Chicago area.

The judge set the case for a preliminary hearing docket on April 28. Jenkins will apply for a public defender.

Sentencing is scheduled in June for a 31-year-old St. Joseph man who pleaded guilty this week to accusations he had sex with a 16-year-old girl.

Manuel Ramos-Velasquez pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of statutory rape.

Investigators said the defendant had sexual intercourse wth the victim at least twice in December of 2016.

Circuit Judge Daniel Kellogg ordered a pre-sentence investigation and scheduled sentencing June 1.  Ramos-Velasquez faces up to seven years in prison.

A Nebraska woman was seriously injured in a one vehicle crash on Interstate 29 in Holt County Thursday night.

According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, 79-year-old Patricia L. Starr of Wahoo, Nebraska, was driving north on I-29 near mile marker 92 less than a mile southeast of Craig at 8:50 p.m., when her vehicle traveled off the east side of the road. Starr overcorrected the vehicle, which went off the east side of the road again, overturned and came to rest on its top.

Starr was transported by Atchison-Holt Ambulance to Mosaic Life Care in St. Joseph for treatment of serious injuries.

A passenger in the vehicle, 59-year-old Gabriel M. Gonzales, also of Wahoo, was transported by ambulance to Mosaic Life Care with minor injuries.

According to the crash report, both were wearing seatbelts.

City officials and their counterparts at Missouri Western State University are touting the success of a new program of free bus rides.

Two years ago, the city and Missouri Western State University started discussing methods to make it easier for students to use transit to connect to the community.

These conversations eventually led to an open access program which allows anyone with a MWSU identification card to ride the bus free, with the cost of service being underwritten by the university. Now, the city announces results from that collaboration. Just over 10,000 rides were taken by MWSU students and employees during the 2016 fall semester. This result documents that four times more students are riding St. Joseph Transit than before the program began.

The development of the open access program traces its origins to the transit development plan completed in 2012. One of the recommendations of that plan was to explore collaborative opportunities with MWSU. With a student body of about 5,900 and another 500 full time employees, significant potential to increase transit ridership was identified.

After many discussions involving transit staff, university administration and students, a pilot program was initiated to determine if students would actually use transit. The trial period was very successful with student ridership far exceeding prior numbers, convincing the MWSU Student Government Association to budget funds to continue the program.

Open access programs between transit and universities are fairly common across the country. In an open access program, the university pays for anyone with a university ID to ride transit without having to pay a fare every time they ride the bus. Among other things, the university benefits from reduced traffic, improved safety on campus, and enhanced mobility for students. The community benefits from increased transit revenue and ridership (without additional expenses) and more interaction between students and community businesses.

St. Joseph Transit encourages other high volume customers to explore similar arrangements on behalf of their employees. Working together, St. Joseph Transit can help create and support a more mobile population in this community.