(AP )   Investigators say they suspect arson in a fire and explosion that destroyed a southwest Missouri home.

The fire broke out around 12:30 a.m. Monday in the Christian County town of Nixa, about 10 miles south of Springfield.

Assistant Fire Chief Whitney Weaver says multiple callers reported hearing a loud explosion. Whitney says the explosion was likely caused by gasoline fumes.

No injuries were reported, and no other homes were damaged.

(AP) – Wages will rise for Missouri’s low-income workers and taxes will fall for some corporations when the new year arrives.

Missouri’s minimum wage will increase for about 100,000 workers from $7.35 an hour to $7.50. The increase is a result of an annual inflationary adjustment included in a law passed by voters in 2006.

The state’s corporate franchise tax rate also will ratchet down in 2014. That’s the result of a 2011 law passed by legislators that gradually phases out the franchise tax by 2016.

Other new laws taking effect Wednesday are the result of bills passed in 2013. Those include additional health screenings for newborns and new benefit entitlements for workers’ compensation claims stemming from serious illnesses.

(AP) — Fayette High School continues to hold prayer sessions despite a legal complaint that claims the sessions are unconstitutional.

Fayette Superintendent Tamara Kimball says district administrators haven’t considering ending the Friday morning sessions since the American Humanist Association filed a complaint in November. She says the district doesn’t believe it has done anything wrong by allowing the Fellowship of Christian Students to conduct the sessions.

The humanist association filed the complaint, along with a student and a parent of a former student. They allege the sessions violate the constitutional prohibition against the government establishing an official religion.

The complaint also alleges the sessions occur during school but district officials say they are held before classes begin.

 

(AP) — Joplin leaders share their stories about the 2011 tornado and the recovery efforts that followed in a newly published book.

The book, titled “Joplin Pays It Forward,” can be downloaded for free from the city’s website. It’s also available in an e-book format from Amazon.

It includes first-hand accounts from city and school leaders, officials from health care centers and public utility companies, leaders in the business and media communities, representatives of churches and nonprofit organizations, and individuals with federal, state and local disaster relief groups and agencies.

Former Citizens Advisory Recovery Team chairwoman Jane Cage compiled and edited the book. She wrote in the introduction that the book is intended as a resource to those who might someday go through a similar experience.

 (AP) — The University of Missouri-Columbia has raised half of the $3 million it needs to build a teaching winery.

The university now is seeking matching money from the state for the facility. Plans calls for a research building and wine and food education facility to be added in later phases.

Wine and Grape Research Committee chairman Tony Kooyumjian says the proposed teaching winery would be a commercial winery. It would replace a much smaller, experimental winery. The goal is for students to make and bottle more than 2,000 cases of wine yearly; the current facility produces 100 cases at most a year.

Kooyumjian says he hopes to break ground in spring 2015 with completion that fall.

 

MINDEN, Neb. (AP) — An anonymous donor has offered to match up to $1 million in unrestricted donations to Pioneer Village in Minden.

Two donations announced last week totaled $126,000. Pioneer Village foundation board member Larry Wilcox called them “a good start to our campaign.”

The donations follow on the heels of good financial news that came from the Nebraska Supreme Court earlier this month. The court reversed a 2011 decision by the Nebraska Tax Equalization and Review Commission said Pioneer Village’s motel and campgrounds should not get the same property tax exemptions as the museum.

Pioneer Village museum says it has the world’s largest private collection of Americana, with about 50,000 exhibits in 28 buildings on 20 acres of land in the south-central Nebraska community.

 

It’s an interesting time of year. As the New Year begins, we reflect. For the past week, we’ve seen all sorts of topics to consider. Google revealed its “most searched for” line up, like Nelson Mandela, and the Oxford Dictionary shared with us words added to the dictionary in 2013, like selfie, srsly and digital detox (my computer’s Word program is having issues with those first two). Billboard released its top 100 songs on which “Thrift Shop” was first, and People magazine has released its “Most Intriguing” list of, well, people like Jennifer Lawrence.

Now, we’ll all begin making New Year’s resolutions, some based on those reflections. For me, these usually involve improving myself in one way or another, or helping others with needs of which we may not be aware in our daily lives. I suspect that sounds familiar to many, and we all start off with good intentions. We’ll be focused in the beginning, intent on the goal, but as the year wears on and distractions creep in, things might get muddled.

At Missouri Farm Bureau (MFB), the focus of the list is pretty simple and remains clear: Keep improving the lives of farmers, rural Missourians and all Missourians.

In 2013, we focused on national issues like the Farm Bill and the Water Resources Development Act, which, by extension, affect all of us, not just farmers and ranchers. We’ll continue to emphasize the importance of these pieces of legislation as they progress toward passage in Congress and are implemented.

In Missouri, several issues that began in 2013 will continue to be priorities for MFB in 2014. One of those major priorities is the passage of Constitutional Amendment 1, which will be on the ballot in Missouri next fall. It’s an important issue for Farm Bureau as it will give constitutional protection to lawful farming and ranching practices in the state of Missouri.

As MFB focuses on these issues and more, we invite you to join us in educating ourselves on those things with which we may not be familiar as we work to strengthen Missouri agriculture. It’s a brand new year. Let’s see what we can accomplish, together.

Rebecca French Smith, of Columbia, Mo., is a multimedia specialist for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.

An editorial column from the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation, Cut to the Chase may be used as an op-ed piece or letter to the editor.
– See more at: http://www.mofb.org/NewsMedia/CuttotheChase.aspx#sthash.AebNagnK.dpuf

(AP) — In days gone by, a knock on the door by a teacher or school official used to mean a child was in trouble. Not anymore, at least for parents and students at Clay Elementary School.

The urban public school is one of more than 30 in the St. Louis area that sends teachers on home visits several times a year. Unlike home visit programs that focus on truants and troublemakers, or efforts aimed exclusively at early childhood, the newer wave seeks to narrow the teacher-parent divide while providing glimpses at the factors that shape student learning before and after the school bells ring.

“I wish they had this when I had children in school,” said Elmira Warren, a teacher’s aide at Clay who has made home visits to her students and their parents. “I was fearful of what the teachers thought, and of not knowing enough.”

The nonprofit HOME WORKS! program is modeled after one in Sacramento, Calif., that over the past decade has since spread to more than 300 schools in 13 states, with active programs in Washington, Denver, Seattle and St. Paul, Minn. Program leaders say participation leads to better attendance, higher test scores, greater parental involvement and fewer suspensions and expulsions, citing preliminary research of the newer program by the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a series of external reviews in Sacramento over the past decade. Participation is voluntary, and teachers are paid for their extra time.

“We’ve figured out a way for people to sit down outside the regular school and have the most important conversation that needs to happen,” said Carrie Rose, executive director of the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project in the California capital.

The K-12 program began in 1999 as a faith-based community effort but quickly found support not only in the Sacramento school district but also with local teachers unions. The National Education Association has also endorsed teacher home visits, citing a “critical mass of research evidence” connecting high student achievement with involved parents.

No longer do parents only hear from teachers when there’s a problem, or during brief school conferences that leave little time to go beyond the surface.

“She knows how much the teachers care when she sees them at her home,” said Mark Brown, whose 6-year-old daughter Unafay attends Clay Elementary in north St. Louis.

A decade ago, Clay principal Donna Owens could barely attract 25 parents to meet their children’s teachers even once at a school with more than 320 students, with one notable exception: the Halloween candy giveaway. A recent HOME WORKS! event at the 191-student school drew close to double that number of parents.

“Our parents feel much more comfortable coming to the school, and being a part of it,” Owens said.

The Missouri program, which began in St. Louis but now includes several schools 120 miles away in the college town of Columbia, follows a template common to the other efforts. Participating schools must agree to involve at least half of their teachers, and the educators work in pairs to ensure safety.

Program costs are often covered by foundation grants or borne by nonprofit supporters such as the Flamboyan Foundation, which paid for the program in the District of Columbia. Rose estimated the program cost at $10,000 annually for elementary schools, and $15,000 to $20,000 for high schools.

In Missouri, the first teacher visit comes in late summer, with the second session in the fall. While the follow-up session focuses on academics, the initial meeting is all about building a rapport, said Karen Kalish, a St. Louis philanthropist who founded HOME WORKS! in 2006.

“They go in as listeners and learners the first time,” she said. “Just to get (parents) to start talking, to build their relationship.”

Each session is followed by an invitation to continue the conversation at school over a communal meal. Busy parents who can’t find the time or energy for such visits are told the school will also provide childcare and transportation, if needed. Teachers must spend at least 30 minutes on the first visit and 45 minutes the second time, though often those minimums are exceeded.

“We want to do whatever we can to get them to come to school,” Kalish said. “Something happens when parents see their kids’ school for the first time.”

Selling overworked teachers on the benefits isn’t always easy. At Flynn Park Elementary in the St. Louis suburb of University City, teacher participation is actually down in the program’s second year, said kindergarten teacher Debbie Kuster.

Some are simply too busy outside of school with their own families, she said. Others work second or even third jobs. And some teachers — Kuster included — prefer to keep their professional distance, she said.

“I’m uncomfortable going to the house,” she said. “For certain people, they’re more comfortable in their own territory.”

Those who do connect with their students’ families away from school describe a more collaborative approach to learning, an environment of mutual respect and appreciation rather than top-down communication.

“A lot of parents were willing to share with us,” Warren said. “They saw we were parents ourselves. They let down their guard.”

Fourth-grade teacher Cynthia Williams said her Clay Elementary Students learned to view her as more than just a two-dimensional authority figure.

“For some students, school and home are two different worlds,” she said. “When you create that bridge, it becomes cohesive.”

Kalish said the program also fosters parental accountability rather than a reliance on schools to essentially serve as surrogate parents for six or seven hours each day.

While the Missouri program and affiliated efforts nationwide remain relatively small, she hopes to build enough momentum to take the effort statewide, and envisions a broader effort that would elevate teacher home visits alongside such programs as Teach for America or Parents as Teachers, which focuses on increasing child-rearing skills through home visits for newborns and toddlers.

“We’ve got the secret sauce,” Kalish said. “We know what works.”