The St. Joseph School District has severed ties with former HR Director Doug Flowers.

The Board of Education has agreed to pay Flowers a severance of $32,000 to decline his teaching contract for the 2015-2016 school year.

“Basically the district did this for several reasons,” said Dr. Robert Newhart, Interim Superintendent. “We have to move forward as a district and we thought it was in the best interest of the district and in all fairness to Mr. Flowers as well to severe ties.”

In February the school board voted to remove Flowers as the Director of Human Resources effective immediately and reassign him to other administrative duties ten days after State Audit findings of “poor” were released.

At that time the board also voted to non-renew Flower’s existing administrative contract.  However, pursuant to applicable Missouri statutes regarding teacher tenure the district would have been required to offer Flowers a teaching contract for the 2015-16 academic year.  Newhart said FLowers would have been assigned to a position with the Colgan Center if he had not accepted the severance deal

“We did not need to have that position.  We were going to pay a teacher as the document references with benefits, $77,885 when we could reach a severance agreement for $32,000 which is a $45,885 savings.  All while retaining as the documents references all rights associated with any investigation if charges and/or a conviction is made,” Newhart said.

Newhart is referring to ongoing FBI and U.S. Grant Jury investigations into the St. Joseph School District.  While he wouldn’t give an exact timeline he said he believes a conclusion to the FBI investigation could be within the next 30 to 60 days.

Click Here to see the settlement in full.

A northwest Missouri man has been arrested in connection with allegedly stealing a vehicle from a person being held behind bars.

49-year-old Curtis Scott Taylor of Hopkins was arrested by officers Wednesday at a residence in Hopkins.

The Nodaway County Sheriff’s Office said it received a call Wednesday afternoon around 4:30 from Maryville Public Safety about a 1996 Nissan Altima that had been stolen from a residence in the 100 block of N. Buchanan in Maryville. The actual owner of the vehicle is currently behind bars in the Nodaway County Jail.

Authorities located the vehicle abandoned in front of a business in Hopkins. The Investigation led officers from the Sheriff’s Office and Maryville Public Safety to a home in the 600 block of E. Warren in Hopkins where a male suspect was taken into custody.

The department said Taylor is being held in the Nodaway County Jail pending criminal charges.

Plans are in the works once again for a Civil War mural that was pulled from downtown St. Joseph earlier this year after controversy.

“They’ve just redesigned it an tweaked it a bit,”said Rhabecca Boerkircher, St. Joseph Downtown Partnership Executive Director. “They added a picture of President Lincoln on there and Fort Smith as opposed to the controversial picture of Jeff Thompson taking down the American Flag,”

The new Civil War depiction will be painted on the west wall of the Ballinger Building at 620 Edmond St.  The same location as the original mural had been planned for.

Two other murals are also planned for downtown.

A music themed mural will be painted on the east side of the building located at 615-619 Felix St.  A Native American Themed mural with be located on the east wall of the building at 518 Felix St.

“I think it’s going to be great for downtown,” Boerkircher said. “The ambiance, will clean up those buildings and make them look nicer and that’s what we always strive for to make downtown a better place to live, visit and work.”

All the murals have been privately funded and will be painted by mural artist, Sam Welty.

Boerkircher said she expects work on the murals to start in August after the mural will go before the Downtown Review Board at the August 5th meeting.  Work on the Civil War mural is anticipated to begin first since the wall has already been prepped for artwork prior to being pulled the first time.

A Gallatin man is charged with more than 30 counts for allegedly possessing hundreds of photos and videos of child porn and showing a Juveniles images of nude minors.

32-year-old Cameron Curtis Wilson was charged Tuesday with a misdemeanor for Furnish Pornographic Material Or Attempt To Furnish To A Minor, a Felony for first degree Promote Child Pornography To A Minor and 30 felonies for Possession Of Child Pornography.

According to the Probable Cause Statement Wilson allegedly invited a 12-year-old Juvenile into his apartment in the 100 block of East Elm Street in March to look at a knife collection.

“While in the apartment, Wilson showed the Juvenile numerous adult pornographic magazines.  Wilson then showed Juvenile images of nude minors, ranging from the age range of 6 to 12 years of age, via his cellular telephone,” said David Vaughn, a law enforcement officer with the Gallatin Missouri Police Department.

After searching Wilson’s residence in Gallatin officers found numerous media storage devices which were seized.  The Heart of America Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory examined the devices and allegedly found 1483 images.  197 of those images were identified as minors, 12 years of age and younger engaged in sexually explicit conducts and an undetermined number of minors 12-17 engaged in sexual acts.  There were also 48 child erotica images of females ranging in age from 5 to 10.

The investigation found 123 videos identified as minors ranging in age of infants to 12 years of age engaged in sexually explicit acts.

“Also contained on the electronic storage/media devices is images/videos of Wilson in representations of a pornographic nature of himself, sexual role playing communication which includes promotion of child pornographic materials via electronic correspondence and social media,” Vaughn said.

Wilson is being held in Daviess County on $200,000 cash bond.

A St. Joseph native is one of the Navy divers assisting in the salvage of a civil war era ironclad ship from waters in Georgia.

“Right now we are down in Savannah, Ga. conducting salvage operations to recover the CSS Georgia from the bottom of the Savannah River,” said Spencer Puett, Navy Diver 1st Class.  “It’s considered a captured enemy vessel, property of the US Navy and we are also recovering it to assist with the Savannah Harbor Expansion project.”

The Navy said the CSS Georgia was built in 1862 in Savannah. The ship was scuttled on Dec. 20, 1864, as Gen. William T. Sherman’s Union troops seized the city she was built to protect.

“On the bottom of the river in the wreck site there’s pieces of un-exploded ordinance that are littered everywhere.  We have recovered around a 120 pieces,” Puett said. “We’ve moved into the cannon recovery phase.”

He said it’s hard to see when preforming the operations.

“On the bottom of the river it’s completely black, you can’t really see anything at all.  Even with our high-powered LED lights that we put on our dive helmets you can only see about a foot in front of you,” Puett said. “On the bottom there’s not a whole lot to see the beauty of those things.  Once it breaks the surface that’s when you really see it.”

Puett helps to prepare fellow sailors to dive into the river for the salvage.

“Before we put divers in the water we always do a brief.  It covers everything that should be expected for that dive,” Puett said. “It’s my job overall to ensure number one the safety of the divers and secondly that the job gets done.”

Puett went to school in St. Joseph.  He attended Bessie Ellison Elementary, Bode Middle School and graduated from Central High School in 2003.  In 2005 he enlisted with the Navy.  He is now stationed in Virginia.

“Not many people get to do the kind of things that my team and I am out here doing,” Puett said.

But with family in St. Joseph he said he always looks forward to coming back home to visit.

Gaining their High School Equivalency degree is giving two adult students an opportunity and now they’re speaking out.

Joyce Simpson and John Davidson graduated this year with their HSE through the St. Joseph School District’s Adult Education and Literacy program.  The district uploaded video interviews with the two last week on its YouTube account.

“I came back for me,” said Simpson. “I grew up and I had to do this.  This was something personal that I wanted to accomplish for me.”

“I couldn’t find the diploma and so I had no other choice but to obtain it again,” Davidson said.   He said he went to school many years ago on the West Coast and then somehow lost his diploma somewhere along the way.

Adult Education and Literacy Volunteer coordinator Trish Heath said around 500 people graduate from the program with their HSE each year.

“We have the classes here for free.  Our next registration will be August 18th,” Heath said. “They just need to bring themselves and be motivated and let us help them get through the process.”

“I was determined,” Simpson said. “I had to take the test the first time and then I flunked math.  I passed everything else.  I was kind of really discouraged at that point.  I didn’t think I could do it but I kept going.”

Simpson said support from her teacher, family and church helped her keep going and she took it again and passed.

Davidson said he was nervous because it had been a long time since he opened up a textbook.

“I like the fact that it seemed more of a one-on-one basis… I can remember being in class with 20 or 30 other people.  You just didn’t get the attention that was given here,” Davidson said. “There’s several opportunities out there now.  Now that I have that piece of paper in my possession once again.”

Registration is coming up for HSE classes August 18th.  Four days of orientation will be held from either 9 a.m. to noon or from 5 to 8 p.m. Classes start the following week at various times options.  Heath said students are asked to take classes for six weeks before trying to take the test.

For more information on the HSE (which replaced the GED test several years ago) contact Webster Learning Center at (816) 671-4020.