News – Tuesday, March 3rd 2026

Opening Day of the Missouri Trout Season occurred Sunday at Montauk State Park and as usual, a great crowd was on hand. According to Kyle Case, the Hatchery Manager at Montauk State Park, there were 1,920 adult trout tags and 336 children’s tags sold for a total of 2,256 tags for opening day. Jean and James Morton fired the starter pistol to start the trout season Sunday morning. The largest lunker caught on Sunday was a 4-pound, 13-ounce rainbow by Andy Gerringer of St. Charles, followed by a 3-pound, 12-ounce rainbow by Gabe Lenox of Rolla. The Missouri Department of Conservation staff spent the days leading up to March 1st stocking about 7,500 rainbow trout in the surrounding pools from Montauk Fish Hatchery. The catch-and-keep season will be in effect until October 31st.

The Dent County Commission met Monday morning at the courthouse. Tom Essex from Dent County Road 5130 was in to talk about cut phone lines that occurred twice in a three-week span last year when county employees installed or replaced culverts. District 1 Commissioner Keith Green told him he was aware of one of the incidents but not Commissioner Williams wanted to remind anyone interested in county surplus property that those sealed bids must be turned in to the county clerk’s office by 10:00 in the morning on Thursday, March 5th at 400 North Main Street in Salem. On the outside of the envelope of your sealed bid, please indicate which piece of equipment you are submitting a bid on. A person can submit bids on all the equipment or just one of the pieces of equipment. Persons interested in seeing the equipment before they bid are welcome to come to the road and bridge department shed on Highway 32-72 West. You may want to call 573-729-7770 to make sure someone is there before stopping by. The commission will have the right to accept or reject all bids. Courtney Wageman with LJ Hart & Company came in and went over the Lease Certificates of Participation Series 2027 and a financial analysis. She talked about two different options on how the county could afford a new handicapped accessible courtroom built next to the jail. In her discussion, she went over how much money the county has left in the jail account, which currently is about $2 million dollars, and sales tax inflation over a projected 2% per year annual increase. The first option is a one that does not require a vote of the people. The project would be about a $2.5 to $3.5 million dollar project which would be about a $1 million-dollar, 11-year payment period over the existing sales tax already in place. The second option would require an election by the people that would continue the half cent tax for a $6.5 to $7.5 million dollar project, and it would take over 20 years to pay off the debt. The commission does not want to do the second option but will explore options of going with option 1. Gary will make some phone calls to get some information from Shive-Hattery Engineering who was the engineer for the new jail. Major Lenny Pabin from the Sheriff’s Department was also present to discuss this subject. His concerns were that if it could be built, there would be limited funding in the jail trust fund for the upkeep, repairs, insurance of a new building. No decision was made by commission as they are exploring options. Jack Todd came in to discuss with Commissioner Green the installation of his new culvert. The next meeting of the Dent County Commissioners will be Thursday morning at the courthouse at 9:00 and the meeting is open to the public.