Sarah Steelman will join the Northwest Missouri Republicans club Friday morning.

She’s campaigning in St Joseph this week in the Republican Primary to challenge Senator Claire McCaskill in 2012.

Steelman will join the club at 9:00 a.m. Friday morning in the Kimberly Room of the Stoney Creek Inn for a continental breakfast.

Steelman is from Rolla.  She’s a graduate if the University of Missouri in Columbia.  She served as State Treasurer of Missouri from 2004 until 2008.

“People are just really worried about what’s going on in this country, and for good reason,” Steelman said.  “We need to put in place what I call pro-growth economic policies.”

Steelman holds a masters degree in economics.

“What they’re doing is not working,” she said. “I think we need to eliminate all of the loopholes and flatten the tax rate for people.”

Steelman will face U.S. Rep. Todd Akin of St Louis in the republican primary.  In May, Steelman called U.S. House republicans, including her opponent Akin, “toothless dragons.”

“A lot of people like to take different little shots in politics and maybe one of the things to do just to get to the bottom of it; you want to talk about different issues? Let’s just have a debate,” Akin responded to the comments while campaigning in St Joseph on May 19th.

Asked about the comments from Akin, Steelman agreed.

“We could do it right here in St Joe,” Steelman said.

Investigators are not yet sure of the cause of a mobile home fire south of Agency that happened overnight.

The fire was originally reported as an explosion, Buchanan County Sheriff Mike Strong confirmed that Wednesday but fire officials say otherwise.

A Sergeant with the Sheriff’s Department called to notify the Sheriff of the explosion overnight.  A fire inspector is said to be on the scene today, he said.

The north end of the structure was on fire when fire crews arrived, South Central Buchanan County Fire Chief Dennis Johnson said.

“Were talking about a double wide mobile home that had a gable roof on top of it of so you had literally two roofs and fire being in-between made it challenging to put out,” He said

It was reported just after 6:30 Tuesday evening at 6447 South East Tillery Road.

Some rumors circulated that it may be drug related.  The Drug Strike Task Force is aware of the explosion but knew no other details as of Wednesday afternoon, officials there said.

More than 60 speeding tickets were handed out over the Independence Day weekend in Northwest Missouri.

Troop H of the Highway Patrol in Northwest Missouri announced results of 20 Mile Trooper operations.

The 12 hour enforcement operations were held on Interstate 35 and US highways 36, 65 and 71 from July first through July fourth.  In all, 67 speeding tickets were issued, four seat-belt tickets, five improper child restraint tickets, one stop sign violation, 17 non-moving violations, nine motorist were caught without insurance, two arrest due to warrants and one misdemeanor arrest.

Troopers wrote 150 warnings over the weekend.

 

As the people of Holt County continue to fight flood waters near towns in the western side of the county, the county budget is taking a strain after four floods in the last five years.

They started this year with the lowest cash-balance County Clerk Kathy Kunkel has seen since she was elected.

“We are really behind the eight ball on this,” Kunkel said.

Listen to Thursday’s KFEQ Journal with Kathy Kunkel by clicking play below.
[audio:http://www.stjosephpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/KFEQ-Journal-with-Kathy-Kunkel.mp3|titles=KFEQ Journal with Kathy Kunkel]
Last years flooding was historic, as was 1993, but Kunkel fears this years flood is the worst.  Waters continue to soak Big Lake and creep up on several other communities.  Big Lake has more than eight feet of water in some places, maybe more, Kunkel said.

Many buildings and  homes will likely need to be bulldozed in and rebuilt.  That is, if the people decide to come back.

County officials are hoping for state and federal assistance to help fight the flood, and rebuild once the waters recede sometime this fall.

“It’s absoluty the only lifeline we have left,” Kunkel said.

The county has several blows to it’s economy from the flooding.  More than 160,000 acre’s of farmland are underwater, Big Lake State Park and the Big Lake Village are closed leaving a budget gap from tourism and the Interstate north of Holt County is closed.

“There is no summer traffic what so ever,” Kunkel said.  “So all of my sales tax is going away at the same time.”

Above all, there’s one thing Kunkel said Holt County needs now more than anything.

“Prayers,” she laughed.  “Send them our way.”

 

As part of a nation-wide effort, two local Wal-mart Stores are participating in a 90 day price cut for gasoline at Murphy USA stations.

The Maryville location and the Wal-Mart on the South Belt Highway in St. Joseph started Wednesday allowing customers to cut 10 cents a gallon if they pay with a pre-loaded Wal-Mart Gift card.

The campaign is to help consumers who are watching their spending in a down economy.

“Our customers have told us that high gas prices are a top budget concern,” Chief Marketing Officer Stephen Quinn said.

The discounts start imeaditly.  You’ll need to purchase a pre-loaded Wal-Mart gift card, Wal-Mart Money Cards or Wal-Mart credit cards and must buy the gas with the card.  The cards can be re-loaded as time goes on.

Going on a road-trip? You can find a complete list of stores nation-wide participating online at www.walmartstores.com/gasrollback.