Malden airport to receive $110K USDA grant

COLUMBIA, MO (KBIA) - Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack announced $14 million in new funding Wednesday to help stimulate rural job growth. Small businesses across the country will get money, including a tiny airport in southeast Missouri. 

Malden, Missouri, with just five thousand residents, wants to update its World War II era airport.

Airport manager Barbara Crayne. She says the $110,000 grant from the USDA for renovations will help attract more aircraft.

"We have an air-evac helicopter comes in. We have a lot of crop dusters because we are in an agricultural-based area," Crayne says.

But a she says a retrofitted hangar will attract corporate clients.

"The spinoff in the community is that they’re going in to the restaurants and to the shops, driving in possibly to get their aircraft, so they’re stopping at the gas stations," she says.

Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack says rural small businesses in particular often have trouble getting credit from commercial banks. These loans and grants are aimed at closing that gap.

"These small businesses will be prepared to have the credit they need to buy equipment that allows them to expand operations, which in turn allows them to hire workers," Vilsack says.

The agriculture department grants and loans will go to 69 recipients in 40 states.

Jacob Fenston, KBIA

Photo courtesy of the City of Malden.

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American now know less about health care reform than they did last year

COLUMBIA, MO (KBIA) - Americans now know less about the main provisions of Obama’s health care reform law than they did at the end of last year. That’s according to the latest monthly poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Here in Missouri, a majority continues to oppose the law. Only about 30 percent of Missourians support the Affordable Care Act.

Ryan Barker is Director of Health Policy at the Missouri Foundation for Health. A poll by that group found that despite broad opposition to health care reform, Missourians are supportive of individual components of the law.

"People don’t like the Affordable Care Act, but then when you dig a little deeper people don’t really know what’s in it and how it’s gonna impact them,” Barker says. “We asked questions specifically about, well, do you like tax credits for small businesses, do you like that insurance companies can’t deny care based on preexisting conditions, and those all poll favorable, in the high 70s or low 80s.”

Barker was in Columbia Monday to answer questions about the law’s impact. Eileen Todd was there, and says she doesn’t oppose or support health care reform.

"Right now I don’t have any opinion or knowledge of it. I guess my first concern is how it will affect me personally," Todd said.

Jim Kabler asked how the law would close the so-called “donut hole” – the gap in drug coverage under Medicare.

"I’m a small user of drugs, but I could have to increase it in the next year or two, and the donut hole might be more significant at that time," Kabler said.

Most of the major components of reform go into effect starting in January 2014. I’m Jacob Fenston in Columbia.

Jacob Fenston, KBIA

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NCAA questions new Mizzou basketball coach

COLUMBIA, MO (KBIA) - The University of Missouri’s new basketball coach is being questioned in an NCAA investigation. The questions are related to Frank Haith’s time as head coach at the University of Miami.

Missouri basketball coach Frank Haith has issued a statement, saying he is cooperating with an NCAA investigation. But he also says the statements made about him in a Yahoo Sports investigative report are not an accurate portrayal of his character.

A former University of Miami booster is serving 20 years in prison for his role in a 930 million dollar Ponzi scheme, and he is talking.

In the Yahoo sports story, Nevin Shapiro alleges he gave thousands of dollars to University of Miami athletes in violation of NCAA rules. And he’s naming names, implicating 72 athletes and 10 coaches. One of them is Frank Haith.

Shapiro says he paid Miami basketball recruit DeQuan Jones $10,000 and that Haith was aware of the payment.

Haith says the NCAA told him not to comment on the matter further at this time. The University of Missouri used that same line, and also pledged to cooperate with the investigation.

Haith was the head coach at Miami for 7 years before taking the Missouri job this April.

Ryan Famuliner, KBIA

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Nixon promises more funding for public education

COLUMBIA, MO (KBIA) - Governor Jay Nixon promised Missouri educators Tuesday he would devote his efforts toward developing quality public schooling. Speaking at a conference for public school teachers and administrators in Columbia, the Governor says he will “reign in tax credit programs” and put more funding into public education.

“If you continue on a 408 percent increase of credits and leave everything else flat and these tax credits get going even more, we’ll just have the same problem bigger in years to come. This is the time,” Nixon said.

Nixon says he wants to use additional funding to move Missouri into the top 10 states in the U.S. for public schooling. In particular, he stressed the need for the Missouri General Assembly to pass an education funding reform package in 2012.

Ryan Famuliner, KBIA

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U.S. Postal Service looks at closing 167 Missouri offices

The U.S. Postal Service released a list Tuesday of nearly 3,700 post offices across the nation that will be studied to determine whether they should be closed. 167 Missouri offices are on the chopping block. Most are offices in small towns.

Spokeswoman for the postal service's St. Louis District Valerie Welsch says the move aims to help the Postal Service grow and adapt to the changing times.

"The postal service wants to be everywhere so our customers can be anywhere," Welsch said. "With technology today customers have a variety of choices and the postal services wants to be there, be one of those choices, so we can continue to provide service to Americans."

Welsch says the study will, among other things, examine revenues and impact to communities. She says the communities that lose their post offices will likely have the option of getting a “village post office,” at a grocery store or other business, where stamps could be sold and mail could be dropped off.

In the meantime, postmasters at some of the local offices on the list, whose jobs may be at stake, directed all comments to Welsch.

Southeast Missouri post offices under examination are Blodgett, Brownwood, Daisy, Dutchtown, Gipsy, Old Appleton, Perkins, Sturdivant, Vanduser and Whitewater.

Ryan Famuliner, KBIA and Jacob McCleland, KRCU

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Rebuilding begins in Joplin

JOPLIN, MO (KBIA) - Amid the destruction caused by the tornado that hit Joplin, Mo., May 22nd, residents are beginning to pick up the pieces and think about rebuilding their city.

One man has already found a new home.

Surrounded by family, friends and volunteers, Joplin resident Dan Florry is sorting out his life, searching through a pile of rubble that once was his home. It’s been a tiring ordeal. Florry is helping volunteers pack up several items he missed last week: tools, a deep freezer and some food. He says he hasn’t stopped working since last week.

"It was kind of incredible to me," Florry said. "The tornado was Sunday night, and Tuesday at lunch time, my wife told me my face was dirty and I needed to wash it. And when I put the soap in, I realized that was the first time I had soap in my hand was Tuesday."

With the help of friends, Florry and his wife have signed a contract for a new home across town, in a less affected area. He says he still hopes to eventually restore this home – to help with what he sees as an inevitable housing shortage. But rebuilding his home – and Joplin – will be a much longer process.

Courtney Flatt, KBIA

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Death toll grows in Joplin

JOPLIN, MO (KBIA) - 116 are confirmed dead in Joplin.

Police and rescue forces spent Monday searching for survivors amongst the rubble. Seventee people were found alive.

Senator Claire McCaskill will visit Joplin today. President Barack Obama says he will tour Joplin on Sunday.

14,000 residents in Joplin remain without electricity.

Scott Kanowsky, KBIA

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Advancing Renewables in the Midwest conference held in Columbia

COLUMBIA, MO (KBIA) - Around 160 policy makers, business leaders and scholars came to Columbia for the sixth annual Advancing Renewables in the Midwest conference.

This annual one-day conference usually focuses on the use of wind, solar and biomass energy. But this year, conference leaders also sought out speakers who could describe the business side of renewable energy.

Frank Cunningham of Columbia’s Water and Light Department helped organize this year’s conference. He says they decided to focus on the economy after the topic resonated with participants last year.

“How can renewables help our economy? Because as everybody knows our economy has its problems, but in energy efficiency and renewables, there are jobs being developed, and there are new jobs out there in these markets, so we wanted to highlight some of those activities,” Cunningham said.

Speakers represented companies like Nordic WindPower, a wind turbine producer that is relocating to Kansas City, and Hubble Power Systems in Centralia, whose business making foundations for solar panels has created 60 jobs in the past year.

Doug Kirk, an engineer at Hubble, was part of a panel that discussed how companies are creating jobs in Missouri.

“Basically what we did was expand into a new market, expanded our customer base and just used the factory, the marketing and salespeople we already had and just chased a different customer base. And when we landed that business it was more than we could handle so we had to hire people,” Kirk said.

Other conference topics were how to attract renewable energy companies to Missouri, and measuring Missouri’s energy efficiency.

Lydia Mulvany, KBIA news

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