A Virginia woman has donated 157 acres of woodlands north of Springfield to Missouri State University.

The university says the land was donated by Betty Jeanne Wood Turoff, of Arlington, Va. Turoff did not graduate from the university but has family in Springfield. She gave the land to the MSU Foundation, which turned it over to the university last Wednesday.

The donation requires that the land be used for education and it cannot be sold for 50 years. It also requires the university to maintain a mature Ozarks forest on the land and that any proceeds from harvested trees should be used for education and related purposes.

The land will be maintained by the university’s School of Agriculture.

 (AP) – A Sonic restaurant in a Kansas City suburb apologized and quickly removed a sign urging the Kansas City Chiefs to “scalp the Redskins.”

The Chiefs played the Washington Redskins Sunday afternoon.

The sign outside the Sonic in Belton on Sunday also said the Chiefs should “feed them whiskey” and send them “2 the reservation.”

A manager at the restaurant, who was not named, said the sign was inexcusable and wrong. It was removed after being displayed only about 15 minutes but not before a picture was posted on Twitter.

(AP) — A Texas educator has been chosen to lead Southeast Community College in Nebraska.

The college says Dr. Paul Illich is vice president for research, planning and information technology at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas. Illich was selected on Friday by the Southeast Community College Board of Governors. The board’s decision is tentative, pending a background check, negotiation of a contract and final approval of the contract by the board.

Illich would begin his new work on July 1, 2014, replacing President Jack Huck, who is retiring at the end of June 2014.

The district serves 15 counties in southeast Nebraska and has campuses in Beatrice, Lincoln and Milford.

 (AP) — Officials say at least five house fires in the Kansas City metro area over the weekend were caused by problems with fireplaces.

No one was injured in any of the fires.

A fire at a Shawnee, Kan., home Sunday started in a fireplace and caused $130,000 in damage.

Kansas City, Kan., firefighters responded to two fires Saturday night that started in chimney flues or around fireplaces. On Friday night, a fire in an unattended fireplace damaged a Kansas City, Kan., home that was being remodeled.

Also Friday night, Lee’s Summit, Mo., firefighters fought a house fire that started in a chimney flue.

Fire officials remind people to have their fireplaces inspected before using them and to make sure they have working smoke alarms.

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A Missouri man was among three people who died in traffic accidents over the weekend in Kansas. According to the Kansas Highway Patrol 35-year-old Justin Oldham of Carthage was traveling westbound on U166 Highway in Cherokee County when he lost control and went into eastbound lanes, colliding head on with another vehicle.

Ashley Martin of Carterville, Mo. and  two other passengers were transported a hospital in Joplin. Oldham died at the scene

On I-35 just east of Emporia Sunday morning, KHP reported  Brian Ingersoll of Southfield, Michigan lost control while passing another vehicle and jackknifed his vehicle and trailer in the east ditch. He died at the scene.

Early Saturday in Graham County, KHP reported the driver of a truck lost control of the vehicle and Dylan Herlevich, age 25 of Littleton, Colorado  was ejected. He died at the scene.

(AP) – A Columbia police detective is taking a fresh look at a journalist’s 2001 slaying after one of two men originally convicted of murder was freed after his case was overturned.

Police are reviewing the sizable case file in the death of former Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt, who was strangled and beaten to death in the newspaper’s parking lot.

Ryan Ferguson spent nearly a decade in prison but was released in November after an appeals court panel ruled that prosecutors wrongly withheld evidence from the defenses. Missouri’s attorney general opted to not retry Ferguson.

Chuck Erickson continues to serve a 25-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to killing Heitholt. Ferguson says his former high school classmate is innocen

 (AP) – A special legislative session to approve incentives for a Boeing airplane facility cost Missouri taxpayers a little less than $100,000.

The Legislature wrapped up a five-day special session last week after passing a bill authorizing up to $1.7 billion of tax breaks over two decades if Boeing chooses to assemble a new passenger plane in the St. Louis area.

The House clerk’s office said the special session cost about $75,000 for members’ travel and daily living allowances and extra operational costs such as printing.

The Senate administrator’s office said the special session cost that chamber about $17,500.

Senate costs are routinely lower than those in the House, because the House has almost five times as many members.

(AP) – The University of Missouri is teaming up with South African researchers to preserve historical records related to political prisoners at an infamous symbol of the apartheid era.

Missouri’s College of Education has signed a research agreement with the University of the Western Cape in Capetown and the Robben Island Museum. The island is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for most of his 27 years behind bars in the country he would later lead.

Missouri already works on several projects with the historically black university in South Africa, including a study-abroad program in the MU law school.

The new agreement will enlist archivists and research librarians from Missouri to help digitally preserve Robben Island documents for use by researchers worldwide.