The Springfield News-Leader from Springfield, Missouri • Page 19

Ota INSIDE: A gold-medal afternoon Twenty-nine teams participated in the Missouri District Special Olympics Basketball Tournament held Saturday in Springfield. 2B News-Leader Sunday February 22, 2004 Wilarf district Juggles prop increase, cost voters' minds. completed by Springfield architectural firm Hood-Rich Inc. for the facility shows the project costing crepancy is simple: The higher-priced figure is a "dream model." "It was the (architects) from $17 million for a base building to a maximum of $23.3 million not including costs asso Officials try to keep levy of new school separate in By Jeff Arnold NEWS-LEADER Six weeks before Willard school officials seek a 42-cent tax levy increase from voters, they face the task of clearing up confusion over how the money will be used. Chief among the projects not funded by the measure: that high as What not be once hits Therein sion.

"Funding public school education isn't easy to understand," said Dr. Janelle Royal, Willard's assistant superintendent. "Funding comes from so many sources that sometimes, it's hard to keep track of what pays for what." Last year, voters here approved a bond measure to build a high school. However, the latest engineering report a new high school carries a price tag as $23.3 million. is covered: an operational budget that may as hefty this fall an expected shortfall Missouri school districts.

lies the confu job to give us the cost of all the alternatives," Bird said. But we've got Willard SprinyflNS a limited amount of money to spend on a new school and we're not going to spend more than we have." Royal said officials are now considering six dif ciated with digging or the required road improvements in front of the new building. School Board President Allen Bird said the dis- Driving on the ice is one man's dream Just what is it about the Zamboni? You can learn inn, I 4 rfV" Zmfr JL. iA i The Tapp family Julie (from left), Jeremy and mom Angela holds its new Chihuahua at the Humane Society. Puppy World dogs win lottery, get to go home Several Ozarks families are new pet owners, but more dogs are available.

Online Poll Question: Does Missouri need to address the issue of gay marriage with legislation? To vote yes or no, go online to Vote by 8 p.m. and see results in Monday's newspaper. SATURDAY RESULTS Do you plan on attending a showing of "The Passion of the Christ" when the movie opens in Springfield next week? YES: 47.5 percent NO: 52.5 percent TOTAL VOTES: 459 JASPER COUNTY Walnut Grove man dies in crash A Walnut Grove man was killed late Friday in a crash in Jasper County. Andrew Hawkins, 34, died around 11:30 p.m. when his 1993 Oldsmobile ran off Cimarron Road about one mile north of Sarcoxie, according to a report from the Missouri Highway Patrol.

The vehicle overturned, ejecting Hawkins, the report said. He was pronounced dead at the scene by Jasper County coroner J.D. Love. Springfield Evangel senior interns for Blunt Evangel University senior Jenna Persons is serving as an intern for U.S. Rep.

Roy Blunt in the Springfield Constituent Service Center this spring semester. Persons will graduate this May from Evangel with dual bachelor degrees in government and journalism. At Evangel she has maintained a 4.0 grade point average while serving the university as a top tennis player, student government leader, campus host and newspaper reporter. Persons plans to attend law school in the fall. Internships in Blunt's offices are available in the spring, summer and fall.

For more information about the congressional internship program, call 889-1800. REGIONAL A-negative blood donations needed Officials at Community Blood Center of the Ozarks have issued a code yellow alert again this week. Inventories of A-nega-tive blood are extremely low, blood officials said. Eligible donors must be at least 17 years old, weigh at least 110 pounds and have not donated in the last 56 days. For a list of CBCO and Red Cross blood drives, please see Page 3B.

ferent building options that give the school its price range. Among the extras included in the "dream" proposal: a second gymnasium, a second auditorium, more bleachers and more lighting. Officials said the new facility will be a combination of pre-stressed concrete and brick and ma-See Willard, Page 6B E0MEE RODRIGUEZ NEWS-LEADER But that timid dog eventually found a home as well, leaving with the Tapp family from Lebanon. "We definitely wanted a Chihuahua," said Angela Tapp, 37, who's had disabled dogs before. Three of the Puppy World dogs went unclaimed after the lottery ended.

John Derby, the shelter's executive director, predicted all the dogs would find adoptive homes. And if they didn't, he said, the shelter wouldn't euthanize the dogs who have generated so much public interest. Other Puppy World dogs may be up for adoption soon. Seventeen dogs and two cats were rescued Friday night from a Greene County house thought to be the residence of Machelle Martin, the owner of the now-closed South Ingram Mill Road pet store. Derby invited lottery participants to return next week to choose from the about 75 other dogs and cats the society has up for adoption.

The shelter houses about 300 dogs and cats. Not all applicants made it to the list, Derby said. Several were rejected, including one who Derby said already had too many dogs. Contact reporter Andrew Tangel at CHRISTINA DICKEN NEWS-LEADER CHRISTINA DICKEN NEWS-LEADER Scott Moore climbs aboard a Zamboni on Saturday afternoon at Jordan Valley Ice Park while learning to drive the ice-grooming machine. The park offers the only class of it's kind in the nation.

Jordan Valley offers class on how to drive ice-cleaning rig. Want to go? For information about the next session of the Zamboni Driving School, call the Jordan Valley Ice Park at 866-7444. Mr By Andrew Tangel NEWS-LEADER Shelley Jameson and David Norman came to the puppy lottery Saturday wanting a Pomeranian. They went home with a Chihuahua. The two were among about 40 people who showed up at Southwest Missouri Humane Society in hopes of winning custody of a pooch rescued in the Puppy World saga.

Many came to the West Norton Road animal shelter hoping to win the small longhaired Pomeranian one of 11 up for adoption Saturday. Others came with no specific breed in mind. The Pomeranian went fast after shelter workers began drawing numbers from a dog-food bowl. The numbers corresponded to a list of applicants signed up for the lottery. Those chosen had to be present to pick a dog.

"We started out wanting the Pomeranian, but couldn't resist the little Chihuahua," said Norman, 24. "We had to take one home. How could we not?" They would've felt guilty leaving without a homeless pet though they'd opted not to take the Chihuahua missing an eye. "I'd feel sad looking at it every day," said Jameson, 18. "I'd cry." mmm I I I IQ'lll b- Jl.

ving the popular hockey-intermission mode of transportation. Taught by Ice Park director of operations Kirk Ramsey, the three-hour class walks students through a crash course in exactly how the Zamboni works and the skill level required to make sitting behind the wheel a full-time job. Ramsey said as far as he knows, it's the only such class offered in the nation. On Saturday, Scott Moore took his turn. The 34-year-old Southwest Missouri State graduate normally flies helicopters for the U.S.

Army. But See Zamboni, Page 5B By Jeff Arnold NEWS-LEADER Derrick Geister admits he's not much of a hockey fan. But he has a fan's dream job. Geister fills his day maneuvering an fully loaded Zamboni over a solid sheet of ice at the Jordan Valley Ice Park. "It was something I had never driven before," said Geister, noting he had driven heavy equipment before being hired on at Jordan Valley.

"I've driven lots of pieces of equipment, so I figured this would be pretty easy. "It wasn't." Now, glass-pounding Springfield hockey fanatics and anyone else for that matter can gain a glimpse into the life of a driver of one of these mammoth ice-cleaning machines as part of Jordan Valley's Zamboni Driving School. The rink has been hosting the driving school for about 18 months. The $50 class is geared toward showing everyone the secret of dri- Marti Fewell wants to adopt her nephew just as fervently. She applied to be the baby's ioster mother in July 2003, when he was 10 months old.

She says she waited until then because the baby's biological mother told her she'd been working with DCS to get the baby back. "I stepped back because I didn't want to get in the way of that," says Fewell, a housing assistance officer with the city's Planning and Development Department. Bev Long, Children's Division Southern Missouri director, i0i w1 w-Jr 'Adult 0ver 30 Leagues says July the until baby and on to aunt, was Soccer While DCS deliberates, two families anguish over custody of child CHRISTINA DICKEN NEWS-LEADER Scott Moore drives a Zamboni during Zamboni school at Jordan Valley Ice Park. It has always been his dream to drive the machine. of Children's Services.

The great-aunt said she would foster the baby, yet says she was never contacted again. "They never did ask me," says his grandmother, Gloria Fewell, who has been a foster parent since 1972. "I'd still take him and try to take care of him." Instead, the baby is with the white family with whom he was placed at birth, and the DCS didn't know in 2003 whether Fewell was baby's aunt, because paternity tests had not been performed on Fewell's brother. Paternity tests weren't requested August. By that time, the was 11 months old.

When the Greene County Court terminated the father mother's parental rights Oct. 14, documents referred the baby's father, Tonish Fewell, as "the alleged biological father." Marti still wasn't considered the baby's "official" but nevertheless filed a petition to adopt the baby. She on a mission. See Overstreet, Page 6B i pn fD fi One Springfield family has felt torn apart waiting for a grandson, nephew and grandnephew to be returned to its fold. Another area family has been caring for the child for 17 months, and feels like its world will be devastated if the baby is taken from them.

How did this happen? The child of a black father and biracial mother hasn't lived with any of his biological family since his birth, even though several members said they would take him. Three couples in the baby's family are licensed as foster parents, and one, a great-aunt, was contacted by the Division -W Sarah 0VERSTREET that family desperately wants to adopt him. That family is not named, as its privacy is legally protected by the DCS. Marti Fewell assembles a baby bed for her nephew. Fewell has been fighting DCS for custody of the child, now in foster care.

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