News – Wednesday, February 12th 2025

The City of Salem Board of Aldermen were unable to meet last night for their regular monthly meeting, citing poor weather conditions.

The Salem Police Department has recently released their report for the month of January. The department responded to 11 accidents during the month. Officers responded to four alarms sounding and addressed 37 animal calls, investigated three assaults or fights, two burglaries, performed nine well-being checks and five area checks in January. Police investigated five domestic disputes, four verbal disturbances and one physical disturbance, conducted 17 follow-up investigations and provided 27 escorts. They investigated four harassment reports, a fraud report, two parking complaint calls, an intoxicated pedestrian and one intoxicated driver report, and six property damage reports. The Salem Police wrote six stealing reports, responded to seven traffic complaints and assisted nine motorists. Officers responded to three reports of suicidal persons, eight suspicious circumstance calls, eight suspicious person calls, and two suspicious vehicle calls. The Salem Police in January investigated an overdose call, a sex offense call, and checked out two abandoned vehicles. Officers attempted to serve five warrants and conducted 75 traffic stops during the month. The police responded to a total of 417 incidents in January with the average response time to calls being two minutes and 48 seconds. The average time spent on the scene was 29 minutes and two seconds. If you have any information regarding an ongoing investigation, contact the Salem Police Department by calling their non-emergency phone number at (573) 729-6550 or speak with them in person at 500 N. Jackson Street in Salem. 

Raccoon season is here! Our ancestors utilized animal fur for making clothing, blankets, hats, and more. The Missouri Department of Conservation will be holding a clinic on historic and primitive skills on raccoon hides at the MDC Salem Maintenance Center on Highway 32 West from 9:00 in the morning until 2:30 in the afternoon on Saturday, February 22nd. Your instructor will be Dwight Warnke. For this clinic, you are encouraged to bring two raccoon hides to class to scrape and salt. They will have demonstration hides in various stages for you to learn from as well. By the end of the clinic, you’ll have enough knowledge and fur to finish tanning your hides and to make a hat or other small item. In this hands-on clinic, you will bring along one or two raccoon skins (preferably partially frozen) to scrape and salt. At the clinic, they will review how to skin a raccoon, then you will flesh your raccoon hide(s) and salt them to take home and process further. They will provide fleshing beams and knives to use during the class, but feel free to bring along your own. After your raccoons are scraped and salted, you will see and assist with the remaining steps of hide preparation and learn how to lay out a simple hat pattern to make from your hides once you finish processing them over the next few days (or whenever you have time, since hides are paused once they are well salted.) Wear old clothes, rubber or muck boots, and bring a rubber apron (if you have one); a heavy trash bag can be used in place of an apron. If you have a fleshing knife, bring it along. We will have fleshing knives and beams available for use during the program. You will take home plans to build a simple fleshing beam and frame. Please bring a sack lunch, drinks, and snacks. Dress in layers to adjust between indoor and outdoor portions. Participants 16 years of age and under must be registered and accompanied by an adult that is also registered. You can register for the clinic on the MDC.mo.gov/events, or by calling 1-888-283-0364, Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Months after a devastating flood, Montauk State Park will reopen to day-use guests February 24th, and overnight guests will be welcomed back starting February 25th. The monumental flood on November 4th, 2024, left the entire park with substantial damage, including loss of electrical service in Campground Loop 4. Therefore, campsites in the 400 loop will reopen only as basic campsites. The Division of State Parks will notify customers with reservations in February for loop 4 with reservation options. The park is working to fully resolve the problem and will restore electric service as soon as possible. If further reservations are affected, the division will notify customers. This change involves only Campground Loop 4. Campers should note that generators are only allowed to be used outside of designated quiet hours. While the park will reopen in time for opening day of catch-and-keep trout season, guests should note that the park will look somewhat different than before the flood. Layers of sand remain throughout the park, covering the grass and area woodlands. Team members will be reseeding areas of the campground and other day-use areas in an effort to re-establish the grass. Justin Adams, Ozarks regional director said that Missouri State Parks team members and volunteers have been working hard to get the park opened and cleaned up, but there is still work to do. More than 70 volunteers converged on Montauk State Park on Saturday, February 1st, to help Missouri State Park team members with cleanup efforts following a historic flood. Volunteers from as far as St. Louis came for the day to lend a hand in getting the park ready for opening day of trout season March 1st. Missouri State Parks Director Laura Hendrickson said that well over half of the volunteers drove more than two hours to help and it turned out to be a great day. For more information on state parks and historic sites, visit mostateparks.com. Missouri State Parks is a division of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.