St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page C003

By Kavita Kumar ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH On a gubernatorial campaign stop Monday at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon unveiled a plan that would allow Missouri students who start out at a community college to get a four-year degree without having to pay tuition along the way. Citing a report that average college tuition in Missouri is higher than any other Big 12 state, Nixon said tuition had skyrocketed to rates. And, combined with rises in gas and food prices, a college education is becoming farther out of reach for many students, he said.

families in Missouri are being said Nixon, who is the Democratic candidate for governor. Missouri Promise plan calls for expanding the program to all high schools not just the half or so currently in the program. The program allows students who meet certain academic, community service and nancial need criteria to attend a state community college or technical school for free. Under proposal those students who complete an degree would then be able to transfer to a four-year public university and would also not have to pay tuition as they earn a four-year degree. To be eligible, students would have to maintain a 3.0 grade point average while in community college, complete 50 hours of community service and avoid disciplinary action.

The family income requirements would mean that students from families of four with one child in college could have an annual income of no more than about $80,000. Nixon estimates his plan, which he said could help 26,000 students, would cost the state $61 million. While saying he would not raise taxes for the proposal, Nixon did not provide details on how we would cover its costs. Scott Baker, a spokesman for Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep.

Kenny Hulshof, said Nixon had an record on higher Baker noted that Nixon was a leading opponent of Gov. Matt plan to raise $350 million for college buildings by selling some assets from the student loan authority. Nixon said that the loan authority was now in nancial trouble and was no longer making certain kinds of student loans. Baker added that Hulshof, who has championed education savings accounts on the federal level, would talk during the campaign about giving families the tools they need to save for college. A spokesman for state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, who is also seeking the Republican nomination, said her campaign did not want to comment until it had looked at plan in detail.

When the program was first started in 1993, it was aimed at improving high schools and increasing the college-going rate, said Jim Morris, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Initially, schools received state grants of up to $150,000 to make their curriculum more challenging and to get more students on the college track. Later, the program was expanded to include tuition assistance. This year, the state spent about $22 million on the program. Although the state grants dried up amid state budget issues several years ago, many high schools have still applied in recent years to be schools because students and families want the tuition Morris said.Just last week, the state approved 22 more schools to be schools, bringing the total to 253 out of the 513 public high schools.

314-340-8017 MISSOURI St. Louis County Fenton gives timeline for new bridge FENTON The city hopes a new two-lane bridge taking Old Gravois Road across the Meramec River will open in about two years, Mayor Dennis Hancock says. Fenton has assembled the $6.2 million in federal, St. Louis County and city money to pay for the new span and is awaiting moves by the county and Sunset Hills before construction would start, he said Friday. On the same day, County Executive Charlie A.

Dooley asked the County Council to approve spending up to $1 million in money and design services on the structure. He also requested that the council allow the county to give to Fenton its 51 percent share of the ownership. That city would maintain the new span. The city also needs an agreement with Sunset Hills, which owns a small portion of the bridge. The span connects Fenton and Sunset Hills.

Authorities last August closed the current bridge, which is more than 80 years old, to vehicle after inspections found the span was unsafe. Florissant to hold annexation meeting FLORISSANT Florissant Mayor Robert Lowery and other city cials today will hold a meeting for residents of the unincorporated area next to the city to discuss annexation. The session will start at 7 p.m. at St. Angela Merici Catholic Church, 3860 North Highway 67.

Lowery on Monday said cials have made no decisions about annexations. A city notice about the meeting said cials will make a presentation and answer questions. The notice said these issues may come up: Whether annexation would increase taxes. Whether the city would inspect all properties that would come into Florissant. How the city would maintain the streets of the annexation area.

What amenities would become available to annexation area residents. Elsewhere Charity claim will cost group $21,851 An organization claiming to be a tax-exempt charity helping military veterans will pay $21,851 in restitution, costs and penalties under a court order obtained Monday by Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. Nixon sued RCT Development Association of Independence, and its operators, Chris Ann McPherson, Russell Rose and Timothy Divers, who operated Helping Our Heroes and its website. Nixon won a permanent injunction in Jackson County Circuit Court that bars the operators from representing that they operate a charity; representing that 100 percent of donations go towards helping homeless veterans; or operating a website in violation of state consumer laws. Estimate given for emergency system HAZELWOOD A system to make sure that rst-responder agencies in St.

Louis County can communicate with one another would cost about $54 million but is needed both for public safety and to meet a coming federal mandate, the Emergency Communications Commission told city cials at a meeting of the Municipal League last week. The system would decrease radio congestion and signal loss but allow current dispatching arrangements to remain in place, said Doug Harms, the Des Peres city manager and a member of the commission. By 2013, the federal government will mandate improvements and could force changes if they are not made locally. Harms said the system could be funded with a bond issue or sales tax; there is currently no effort to place it on the ballot. wanted to make city cials aware and ask for their support when and if this comes to a public he said.

Also, University City Mayor Joe Adams was named the league president for 2008-09. Rockwood school buses will get music EUREKA The Rockwood School District will install a music service in its bus eet this summer to entertain students on their way to and from school next year. The service will be provided at no cost to the district by a vendor, BusRadio. BusRadio has three categories: elementary, middle school and high school. The programming includes some advertising and public service announcements but averages 50 minutes of music per hour.

The service provides eight hours of programming a day and is accessible to students via the Internet. cials expect the programming to improve bus discipline. The equipment includes a panic button that will locate the bus with a GPS system and call 911, and a public address system for the driver. The district also announced a 10-cent increase in lunch prices for 2008-09, with elementary lunches to cost $2.30 and secondary lunches to cost $2.45. Breakfast will go up 10 cents to $1.45.

ILLINOIS Aid request for ooding is denied The federal government has denied request for assistance for people and businesses in 15 Southern Illinois counties affected by severe ooding last month, state Emergency Management Agency Director Andrew Velasquez III said Monday. very disappointing that FEMA failed to recognize the devastating impact this ood had on so many lives in Southern he said. He said the state plans to do another assessment of the damage to see it if would support an appeal of decision. Gov. Rod Blagojevich had asked President George W.

Bush for a federal disaster declaration for Alexander, Franklin, Gallatin, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Marion, Massac, Perry, Pulaski, Randolph, Saline, Union, White and Williamson counties. A federal declaration would have enabled those affected to apply for grants and loans to help with ood-related losses. Metro digest NEWS FROM AROUND THE REGION Nixon offers free college plan 1 TUESDAY APRIL 29, 2008 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH STLTODAY.COM C3 DEB CLOSE UP COLUMN WILL RETURN MAY 6. Talk STLtoday.com/talk Are colleges pricing themselves out of the market? Will the Nixon plan help families? Give your thoughts in Talk of the Day.

By William C. Lhotka ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH CLAYTON Gregory Bowman, awaiting trial in three murders in Missouri and Illinois from the 1970s, has been ruled out of suspicion in an Indiana case of the same vintage, cials said Monday. Indiana State Police Detective Brian Smith said recent tests failed to link Bowman to a palm print believed to belong to the killer of Ann Louise Harmeier, an Indiana University student. In December, a St.

Louis County judge granted request for print. Bowman faces a possible death sentence if convicted of murdering Velda Joy Rumfelt, 16, of Brentwood, whose body was found in southwest St. Louis County in 1977. Bowman is awaiting retrials in St. Clair County in the murders of Elizabeth West, 14, a high school student, and Ruth Ann Jany, 21, a aide, who both disappeared in Belleville in 1978.

Smith was interested in Bowman because of similarities among the killings. Bowman had lived in Illinois near the Indiana border. Harmeier disappeared while driving to college. Like West and Jany, she was sexually assaulted, strangled and left in a remote area. The palm print was on her car hood.

Based on a DNA comparison, Bowman was arrested in the Rumfelt murder less than a week after questions about evidence in the Belleville cases got him released from prison after 28 years. 314-615-3283 By Valerie Schremp Hahn ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Four years ago, after Gregg Fox was treated for a brain tumor, he had to learn to speak and walk again. made remarkable progress, and now the Ladue Horton Watkins High School junior has the test score to prove it He earned a perfect 36 on the ACT college entrance exam. Fox, 17, is one of four Missouri students to earn a perfect score out of the almost 20,500 statewide who took the test in December.

made a full recovery, I says the humble Fox. Fox, a snowboarder and a member of his swim and water polo teams, like to ne himself by the brain tumor. He got his diagnosis on the third day of eighth grade in 2004. That morning, he tried to tell his parents he wanted Raisin Bran for breakfast, but all his parents heard were garbled words. It took nine hours of surgery to remove the tumor, which was on his brain stem.

He spent a month in the hospital recovering. Later that winter, the tumor grew back. Doctors treated it with radiation. Fox still goes to the neurosurgeon for occasional checkups, but his prognosis is excellent, he says. He decided where he wants to go to college but is interested in studying engineering.

mother, Kate, is a part-time French teacher at Ladue High, and his father, Ken, is a career counselor there. me, not about the success of a student who got a Ken Fox said, citing the support they received from the school district, St. Louis Hospital, their friends and family, and Salem in Ladue United Methodist Church. go through tough times in your life, but there can still be these great things he said. Gregg Fox agrees and currently relishing those things.

really want to plan ahead too much, because things can he said. enjoy what doing right 636-255-7211 By Joel Currier ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH COTTLEVILLE The stage is reset for nearly 200 dance students whose studio abruptly shut down this month. The Dance 4 Life studio closed April 18 without warning, leaving its students without a place to rehearse or perform their annual dance recital in June. Parents say they sank hundreds of dollars into classes, costumes and tickets for the recital.

However, Lindenwood University in St. Charles agreed to host the dance recital June 15 at the Hyland Performance Arena. back in said Steve Henry of Cottleville, whose 11-year-old daughter, Stephanie, took classes at the studio. really, really come together nicely, more than we ever could have After reports of the closure last week, more than a dozen area studios and at least one church offered rehearsal space to the students. A parent has agreed to print programs.

Rehearsals will be held at Corral Performing Arts Center, which is in the same shopping plaza as Dance 4 Life, and at the Center Stage Dance Academy in Weldon Spring. About 100 costumes of various styles and colors were collected in a costume drive at last National Dance Week celebration at Union Station in St. Louis, said Tina Lender of St. Charles County, whose two daughters, Madyson, 4, and Brianna, 10, took classes at Dance 4 Life. not experts or anything, but certainly going to do the best we can to pull this Lender said.

Pam Robinson, owner of Dance 4 Life, said she had no choice but to close her studio because she was bankrupt and owed two years of payroll taxes. 636-255-7210 Get more STLtoday.com/links Read earlier coverage of the dilemma. Nixon Gregg Fox Ladue High junior show will go on, thanks to benefactors Student beats brain tumor, conquers ACT Suspect in three 1970s killings is ruled out in Indiana case Kathie Hoyer, a sales associate with Bowood Farms Plants Possibilities on Olive Street in the Central West End, removes some plants and covers others on Monday, guarding against a low of 35 degrees expected early today. Assistant general manager Lizzy Rickard said, just a typical St. Louis All Missouri high schools would be leading to public universities.

BITE OF SPRING John L. White Post-Dispatch.