A local librarian recently received an award that is the first of its kind in the state.

Jennifer Sanders-Tutt is the Local History Librarian with the St. Joseph Public Library. She was chosen as the first recipient of the Excellence in Genealogy and Local History Award and was presented with the award at the Missouri Library Association conference.

“It’s amazing… my co-worker said, ‘I’m going to nominate you,’ and I kind of put it in the back of my mind. I didn’t think I’d be the one to win it, especially in its first year,” Sanders-Tutt said. “I’m really excited about it. (It’s) very nice for our library and our community to be able to say that we’re the first ones to win this award in the whole state of Missouri.”

The Missouri Library Association’s Genealogy and Local History Committee of Interest sponsors the award. Sanders-Tutt said one of the things that stood out to the committee during the application process was her involvement with Founder’s Day and how she worked with the City of St. Joseph to recognize the date of July 26, 1843, as the official founding day of St. Joseph.

Sanders-Tutt said her position as local history librarian focuses on cultivating local history and helping the public with any local history research. She also has developed several programs and events including the monthly History Speaks program, genealogy programming and one of her favorites, the Oral History Project.

“That’s really rewarding to get to sit down with people from our community, especially some of our older community members that have a lot of history to share and listen to what their lives were like and what St. Joseph’s history was like,” Sanders-Tutt said. “One of my favorites, to this day, is my very first (interview) that I did and that was with a gentleman who was a World War II veteran. I think he was 97 at the time that I interviewed him and he had lived here all his life, he had gone to war, come back, raised a family and he was a fascinating individual.”

Sanders-Tutt said she hopes to continue expanding the Oral History Project to get more community involvement and possibly put together field kits for people to check out to record their own family histories.

For more information about local history and genealogy resources, contact the Downtown Library Reference Department at (816) 232-8151 or visit the St. Joseph Public Library’s website.

A prescription drug take back event held in St. Joseph on Saturday collected over a thousand pounds of unused or expired pills.

According to the St. Joseph Youth Alliance, that marks a new record for the take back event, which has been held in the spring and fall for about seven years in St. Joseph.

This year, 466 cars went through the drop off location in the East Hills Mall parking lot. Collected were 1,073 pounds of prescription pills, 115 pounds of needles, 68.5 pounds of prescription bottles and 23.5 pounds of inhalers.

The event, which gives residents the opportunity to safely dispose of unused or expired medications, is sponsored by the St. Joseph Youth Alliance, the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department, the St. Joseph Police Department and American Water.

The St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce will host two of Missouri’s top officials of education and economic development at an upcoming Economic Summit Luncheon.

The keynote speakers will be Commissioner of Higher Education Zora Mulligan and Director of the Missouri Department of Economic Development Rob Dixon. 

Kristi Bailey with the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce said the two will be speaking on what they have been working on to change the state’s economic development and what’s going on in workforce development.

“Here at the Chamber, we work with our businesses everyday, trying to help them with their needs to stay in business and to grow, and one of the issues we talk about all the time is a lack of skilled workers,” Bailey said. “That, on the statewide level, we have the commissioner of higher ed and the director of economic development working together to help solve these issues is really important to the vitality of our local economy.”

The event will be at 11:30 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 15, at the Fulkerson Center at Missouri Western State University.

The cost to attend is $25 per person for Chamber members and $35 for the general public. The reservation deadline is Nov. 8. Register online at saintjoseph.com or by calling (816) 232-4461.

A program coming to Chillicothe next week aims to reduce new driver crashes by increasing parental awareness and enforcement of Missouri’s GDL law.

Deana Dothage is Health Educator for the University of Missouri School of Medicine’s Dept. of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the director of First Impact.

Dothage said First Impact is a parent education program for parents of teen drivers who are at the pre-permit, permit, new or independent driver level.

“What we are teaching parents is about Missouri’s Graduated Drivers License (GDL) law and that comes with some rules and restrictions at three different levels of driving,” Dothage said. “We also talk to parents about strategies that they can work with their teens to overcome the risks that teen drivers face. As an example – drowsy driving, speeding, impaired driving, distracted driving – we go into some  detail about each of those risks and how parents can monitor and enforce those rules with their teen drivers.”

Dothage said teens ages 15 to 19 have the highest crash risk of any age group on the road.

“Teens are three times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash. Risk is highest in the first 30 to 90 days of independent driving, so we believe by educating parents about this law, research shows it reduces teen fatalities 20 to 40 percent and that is definitely our goal is to reduce fatalities and injuries with teen-involved crashes.”

The First Impact program coming to Chillicothe next week will be a 90-minute program featuring a short video and Dothage, along with Chief Deputy Michael Claypole with the Livingston County Sheriff’s Department, will be speaking.

Dothage said teen drivers are welcome to attend the program with their parents or guardians.

“We love the teen drivers to come, because what we find is when they’re hearing this information from just their parents, they may not absorb it as well as when they’re hearing it from two other professional safety speakers,” Dothage said.

The First Impact program will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 30, at Chillicothe High School in the Performing Arts Center.

For more information, or to register for the free program, go to firstimpact.missouri.edu.

This week, several activities will be going on at schools in the area to bring a drug prevention message.

Angela Reynolds is the Substance Abuse Prevention Coordinator at St. Joseph Youth Alliance for the Drug Free Communities Program. Reynolds said Red Ribbon Week is a national campaign that is used to bring awareness to drug and alcohol use.

“It’s kind of a prevention message that many of the schools and community coalitions use to talk to kids about not using drugs and alcohol,” Reynolds said. “Just kind of a way to raise awareness about drugs and alcohol and the dangers of using those. People wear red ribbons to kind of symbolize their commitment to raise the awareness.”  

There are activities and projects going on throughout the week as part of Red Ribbon Week, including a chalk project at local schools.

“The kids can actually use red and white chalk to make prevention messages and positive messages about not using drugs and alcohol at their schools. We’re (also) going to be helping distribute banners that kids can put up in their schools,” Reynolds said. “We’re going to be placing a banner over Frederick Avenue down toward the Noyes area that promotes Red Ribbon Week.”

According to the Red Ribbon Campaign website, the National Family Partnership NFP provides drug awareness by sponsoring the annual National Red Ribbon Campaign. In response to the murder of DEA Agent Enrique Camarena, parents and youth in communities across the country began wearing Red Ribbons as a symbol of their commitment to raise awareness of the killing and destruction caused by drugs in America.

For more information about Red Ribbon Week, visit redribbon.org.

With the November election just a few weeks away, an upcoming forum in Maryville will give voters the opportunity to learn more about candidates and various issues on the ballot.

According to Maryville Chamber of Commerce Director Lily White, they allow candidates running for any local, state or federal office to come and speak at the forum.

“We also have the incomparable Dr. David McLaughlin, who is a retired political science professor from Northwest Missouri State, he helps us so much,” White said. “Our forum is a educational forum, so we do not say, ‘This is which way you should vote,’ or ‘This is which way we feel you should vote.’ We say, ‘This is what the proposition or the question on the ballot says,’ and make sure everyone understands the language and understands what that question is really getting at and then we let them draw their own conclusions. Dr. McLaughlin helps explain all those things.”

Candidates will give opening statements and the audience will then have the opportunity to ask questions.

The candidate forum begins at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the County Courthouse in Maryville. For more information, click here.

A cup of coffee on Friday can help support area breast cancer patients.

The Coffee for a Cure event at The Human Bean in St. Joseph is a fundraiser to benefit the Breast Cancer Patient Assistance Fund.

“A Caramel Mocha is probably my favorite,” said Amy Wiedmaier, Mosaic Life Care Director of Ambassador, Auxiliary and Guest Services. “They have great coffee, great service… they’ll have some great volunteers, it’ll be super fun.”

There will be guest baristas throughout the day Friday along with visits from Rally from the St. Joseph Mustangs and KC Wolf from the Kansas City Chiefs. Wiedmaier said all the sales and tips that The Human Bean receives Friday will be donated to the Mosaic Life Care Auxiliary Breast Cancer Patient Assistance Fund.

“The Auxiliary actually matches that fund, so last year it was $7,000, the Auxiliary gave $7,000, which totaled $14,000, which is earmarked specifically for breast cancer patients,” Wiedmaier said. “The fund is to help breast cancer patients whether it’s to provide mammograms, education, financial assistance and any type of post-diagnostic support.”

Coffee for a Cure runs from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Human Bean located at 4414 Commons Drive in St. Joseph.

One person is in custody in relation to a homicide investigation.

As previously reported, 28-year-old Clifford York was found dead in the area of North 13th and Powell Street when officers responded to a report of shots fired at 12:35 p.m. Wednesday.

Capt. Jeff Wilson with the St. Joseph Police Department said an autopsy revealed York died of a single gunshot wound and his death is being considered a homicide.

On Monday, Wilson said one person is in custody in relation to the investigation but no charges have been filed yet in reference to the shooting.