Archive for 2020

A fatal accident occurred Friday afternoon at 1:30 in Dent County on Dent County Road 3300 about eight miles north of Salem. According to the highway patrol report, a 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan driven by 28-year old Kelsey Bush from Salem, was backing up and going eastbound when the Grand Caravan backed over 27- year old Valeria Hopwood of Salem who was squatting down beside the vehicle. Bush claimed she did not see the Hopwood when she starting backing up. Hopwood was transported to the Salem Memorial District Hospital by a private conveyance and was pronounced dead at 2:51 in the afternoon by Dr. Elizabeth Lambert.

A drowning incident occurred Sunday morning around 5:00 in Dent County on Route TT at Crooked Creek. According to the Missouri highway patrol report, a vehicle entered a flooded roadway and began to be swept away. The driver of the vehicle and a six–year old boy exited the vehicle and were both swept downstream. The driver was able to find safety, however the six-year old boy was swept further downstream and was found dead. The boy was found at approximately 8:27 and pronounced dead at the scene by Dent County Coroner Gina White at 9:30. The body was taken to the Dent County Coroner’s Office. The highway patrol was assisted at the scene by the Dent County Fire Protection District, Salem EMS and the Dent County Sheriff’s Department. This is the seventh drowning in Troop I in 2020.

The Salem R-80 Board of Education held their regular meeting Thursday evening at the district administrative offices. Maury Mertz, the Chairman of the Salem Public School Foundation, was in attendance to answer any questions the board may have about the foundation. The foundation provides support and funding to programs in the Salem School District. Superintendent Dr. Lynne Reed reported that Governor Mike Parson has extended the state of emergency for Missouri until March 31st, 2021. She said there is going to be a change in how contact tracing for exposures is done at the school. Instead of the Dent County Health Department doing the calling after being notified of the exposure, Clay Moody will find out the quarantine dates from the health department and then make the calls to the parents from the school. The school recently quarantined 66 students that were mostly comprised of football players and the boy’s basketball team. This exposure was from outside the classroom as High School Principal Marty Anderson said the hybrid alternative provides social distancing and has been working well. Reed said she had meetings with the leadership teams at all the schools except for the upper elementary school that was delayed due to her health issues. She said the overall feeling she is getting is that each building does not know what the other buildings are doing. Reed mentioned that in the near future, she and Board President Dustin Howard would invite a couple of team members from each building to have a round table discussion in the administrative board room to get updated on what is going on at each building. The principals from each school gave their report before Athletic Director Phillip Karr gave an update on the Athletic Advisory meeting held October 21st. He also the committee was hoping to get a new athletic training facility built with a weight room and lockers. They felt they would need some blueprints for the facility to help raise funds, with hope to split the cost of the construction with the school from the Fund 4 money which is it to be used for capital improvements. Superintendent Reed said right now with the current COVID situation, finances are an issue. She also said she hoped she didn’t mislead the committee on Fund 4 money as some or all of that may be used for the William Lynch School project even though most would be paid for by a bond issue. The board agreed to raise the nurses substitute pay to $100 per day, the same as substitute teachers are now getting. A long discussion was then held on how to keep the children in school with this ramping up of COVID. With the new regulation issued by Governor Mike Parson on students or workers wearing masks properly, if one person should have COVID, the other does not have to be quarantined. The board weighed back and forth on this issue and the difficulty of having young children wearing masks all day. The board approved to look into a mandatory mask policy at the December board meeting that would begin the first day of the second semester for all students and staff to cut back on the possibilities of large quarantines. This would be done provided the administration can develop a plan to implement this change at the December meeting. If this would be done, more students could come to school and the hybrid alternative would be eliminated. The board voted 6-1 to move forward on this. The board set the filing dates for the Municipal Election starting on December 15th from 8:00 in the morning and lasting until 4:00 in the afternoon on January 19th, 2021. The two seats are up for election will be the seats of Chris Heavin and Carrie Snyder. Those interested in signing up at the district administrative offices should check the dates the office will be open over the holidays. The board then went into closed session.