Firefighters were still putting out the flames when I got to Latham Elementary School- if you could call it that. At 6 AM the only thing left standing after a fire that burned for more than three hours, was a staircase and some rubble. But, as I found out, this story was about more than a destroyed building, the building told a story of a community.
"I just looked down, and there was one of them devils right on my crotch."
It seemed like there wasn’t a city in the U.S. that could escape bed bugs this summer. And Columbia, or one of its residents, had his own story—and a unique way of telling it. Anyone who watched this story remembers David Dollens. You will too.
Columbia was having its inaugural Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure 5K. This was a big deal for the Mid-Missouri affiliate. Four thousand people registered to race. Excitement was high, and the people had shown up, but the rain was coming down. Pouring. I grabbed my camera, and a plastic bag (a.k.a. my "camera cover") and found out that not only was the race still on, the rain might have added a little magic.
Ed Kaiser calls his sleek new white Mercedes a “cop magnet”. He says a Wisconsin state trooper liked it so much that Kaiser ended up making a "donation" to the state. But it’s hard not to get caught up in techno music that’s always playing in the Kaiser’s car (he likes the beat). It was playing the day I followed them as they went door- to-door delivering meals to homebound seniors.
In Mid-Missouri, if you want to see the affects of the economy, just look inside the overcrowded animal shelters. When people are forced to downsize, many times that means getting rid of the family pet. But with most shelters over-capacity, often the pets are rejected. So owners dump them--sometimes on the side of the road. That's when Paul and Joyce Rhodes pick them up.
