Keep our (now former) reporter in your prayers

When you read this week’s paper, you’ll see we had to write a story about one of our own staff members. Our reporter, Angela Fodge, was allegedly assaulted by her husband on Friday and wound up in the hospital with multiple stab wounds.
Angie put in her final day for Three Rivers Publishing on Wednesday. She is moving back to the Sikeston area so she can be closer to another daughter she has there.
On early Friday morning, she was taking her husband to Voss Truck Port to drop him off at his tractor-trailer as he was headed out on the road again. (Please see the story for the full details.) On the drive, he allegedly attacked her and stabber her several times with a pocketknife. He then drove her to the hospital and turned himself in to police. As of this writing, he remains in the Crawford County Jail.
Angie sustained several stab wounds, but none were considered to be extremely serious. She was briefly in intensive care at the Sullivan hospital, but she was able to leave the facility on Saturday morning and has already traveled to Sikeston.
We hope that you will keep Angie in your prayers as she recovers from her injuries and as she returns to southeast Missouri to be with her family. She was a fine employee for the Cuba Free Press and Steelville Star-Crawford Mirror and we appreciate the time she spent with us. We wish her nothing but the best of luck.

I survived a train wreck

In an earlier blog, I mentioned that John Woods will be hosting a narrow-gauge railroading convention in September at his farm, which is located west of Steelville. If you want to know more about it, be sure to check out his website at www.arborwayrailroad.com.
John invited several of his personal friends, and me, out last week to take a ride on his train, which was being pulled by his new steam engine. I had heard a lot about John’s railroad over the past several years, but was more than overwhelmed by the setup he has.
John now has about six miles of 15-inch track laid around his farm. He has, or will soon have, nine locomotives, his own train station, a water tank to serve his steam engine, a roundhouse, a large barn for maintenance and I don’t know how many railroad cars. He even has his own personal steam engineer on staff.
On the trip we took, we had the steam engine out front, two water cars and then three open-air passenger cars. Behind that there was a cattle car, followed by a boxcar. All look just like the real thing, at about ¼ scale.
The trip around John’s farm was pretty amazing. We passed through two tunnels (one that had to be about 500-yards long) went through several cuts and passed over several fills. It is hard to believe just how much work John has put into his hobby.
John explained his whole operation before we took the train trip and even showed us one of his diesel locomotives. Everything he has done, he had done right. The track is complete with signs, crossing lights, signal lights and everything. It’s just like a real railroad, only smaller.
During our ride it was quite easy to see why John enjoys railroading so much. The sounds, the smell, the feel, it was all there. And riding around his farm, which borders the Meramec River, the scenery was also terrific.
Toward the end of our trip, however, we ran into a little trouble. At one of the many switches we cross, and just in site of the station we were returning to, we actually derailed the train. That’s right, we wrecked John’s new steam locomotive.
I say wreck, but it really wasn’t much of a wreck. The engine left the track and we traveled about 10 more feet and came to a stop. Nothing really got hurt except John’s pride. I would have loved to watch them get the train back on the track.
When John hosts his convention in September, his tracks will be really busy. He said many of those coming will bring their own trains to run around the farm while they are there. That should really be a site to see.
We hope to bring you full coverage of that event when it happens.
Until then, at least I can tell everyone that I’ve been in a train crash and lived to tell the tale!

What a busy weekend!

Wow, my first child is now a high school graduate. My older daughter graduated Steelville High School on Sunday. She’ll be headed to Mizzou in the fall.
My uncle asked me if it made me feel old to have my daughter graduating. I had to admit it did a little, until he pointed out that this was the second graduation he had attended for one of his grandkids. I guess I’m no that old after all.
It was quite a busy weekend for me, starting on Friday. Not only was I dealing with graduation, but I also had to help with a big church meeting, which was being hosted by Mound Ridge Camp and Retreat Center, which is located west of Steelville near Maramec Spring.
I spent two long days at Mound Ridge starting at 7 a.m. Friday morning when I went out there to cook breakfast for the other volunteers who had come out for the day to get ready for Saturday’s meeting of the Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery. I fixed bacon and eggs, biscuits and some good homemade gravy (yes, I can make my own gravy). I think everyone was well satisfied.
Then we worked all day getting ready for Saturday’s meeting, taking just a short break for lunch. Finally that evening, all of us went to Sybil’s in St. James for supper. It was my first time there and I have to say the food and service was spectacular. If you haven’t been there yet, be sure and give Sybil’s a try soon.
On Saturday, it was back to Mound Ridge to help parks cars, transport people around, give tours and the like. I also had to make a couple of brief presentations during the meeting. When that was over I went to a graduation party for one of my cousins. The food three was also great, as they had fried deer, turkey and pork tenderloin!
Of course, Sunday was graduation, but a lot of work had to be done beforehand to get ready for my daughter’s party, which we hosted along with one for my fiancé’s nephew back out at Mound Ridge. It was the only place big enough to hold us all as about 75 came for supper after the graduation ceremonies.
I think everybody had a real great time, but it was nice to finish things up at 6:30 p.m. Sunday night and get home for some well-deserved R&R.
This is also going to be a busy week as we have an early deadline due to the holiday and we’ll also be distributing out Steelville Area Tourism Guide on Thursday and Friday. It’s going to be nice to have three days off this weekend and have nothing officially planned to do. The smallmouth had better be on guard.
Enjoy your holiday. I know I will.

Visitor Guide headed to the printer

I’ve just finished up one of my favorite sections of the year—the Steelville Area Visitors Guide. It is slated to hit the street just before Memorial Day weekend.
I have to say I think this year’s Visitor Guide is the best one we’ve every put together. I also think it’s the biggest one we’ve every done.
You won’t be receiving the Visitor Guide in your weekly newspaper as it is designed to be strictly for tourists. A copy of the guide will be posted on our website in PDF format soon so you can check it out. The hard copies will be distributed to those businesses that advertised in the guide, with additional copies going to the Steelville and Cuba visitors centers.
This is always one of my favorite sections to put together each year. There are a lot of good stories, some great-looking ads and lots of color this year. It was, however, a lot of hard work.
I think the deadline for this year’s Visitors Guide was about two weeks ago, and I just got the whole think finalized and sent to the press this morning. After it gets printed in multiple sections, it will have to be collated and then taken to a print shop in Rolla where it will be stitched (stapled) and trimmed before getting distributed on May 24 and 25.
I hope you enjoy this year’s Steelville Area Visitors Guide. Be sure to watch for it coming to the website soon.

Trains a comin'

As the publisher of two weekly newspapers and soon-to-be president of the Cuba Chamber of Commerce, I tend to find out about a lot of things in the community well before the general public does. I got a juicy bit of information this week I thought might interest our readers.
On Monday, I received a call from John Woods, who owns a large farm west of Steelville and has recently installed a narrow-gauge railroad on the property for his family’s enjoyment. John had called the chamber office in Cuba in an attempt to get some information to link his website with the chamber’s.
As it turned out, John will be hosting a national narrow-gauge railroad convention on his farm in September and is working to get contact information about area motels, restaurants and campgrounds for the 250 or so couples who will be attending. He wanted to be able to link to the chamber’s website from his own website so those attending can have a list of area services.
Woods said there are a wide variety of folks coming in for the convention. He expects several to arrive in their own private train cars, but other will be camping while they are here. It sounds like it should be quite an interesting group. We plan to provide some coverage in the newspapers while they are here.
I had never spoken to John before Monday, but had heard a lot about the train track he had been building for the past several years. I hope to get a chance to see it soon, as he was nice enough to invite me and my son out for a ride.
If you would like to know more about John’s railroad, check out his website at www.arborwayrailroad.com.