Articles

While Columbia City Manager Ray Beck’s retirement won’t take effect until the end of the year, union leaders have high hopes for his successor.

Union representatives have little direct interaction with the city manager, but they do occasionally consult on important personnel issues. During budget preparations each year, union leaders meet with department heads and the assistant city manager for “meet and confer” sessions to negotiate issues such as salaries, insurance and other benefits. The tentative agreements that result from those meetings are forwarded to the city manager, who either approves them or asks for further negotiations.

JEFFERSON CITY — With Missouri facing a lawsuit challenging the state’s method of funding public schools, developments in Kansas could provide a glimpse of where this case is headed.

In both states, school officials challenged state spending, saying it did not provide fair and adequate funding for schools as the state constitutions require.

Hot dogs, frankfurters, wienies or redhots — no matter their name, they have become a part of the American culture.

When Americans celebrate their nation’s birthday, they eat more hot dogs than any other day of the year — 150 million, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. “Hot dogs have been historically associated as an all-American food,” said Ayoka Blandford, public relations manager for the council.

Past the pasture-turned parking lot, just inside the gated entrance, a crowd of 20 spectators mills near a concession stand that sells funnel cakes and beer in half-gallon plastic jugs.

Behind the wooden bleachers, three boys wrestle one another for a place in line for the portable toilet. In the pit, a bandana–clad driver with a long blond goatee hunches under the hood of his car, making last-minute adjustments to a vehicle that soon could be headed to the scrap heap.

LEASBURG — The members of the extended Hall family had traveled for hours to get to this moment. They were about to board an old yellow bus that would take them to the drop-off point for their family canoe trip on the Meramec River.

As part of his routine, the bus driver asked if they needed life jackets.

The unofficial tagline of the Mavericks’ 7-3 win against the Windy City Thunderbolts on Sunday night had the ring of a Hollywood B-movie.

“The Battle for the Basement” pitted the two worst teams in the Frontier League. Whoever lost would take sole possession of last place.

KANSAS CITY — Jarrod Washburn pitched five shutout innings, Garret Anderson scored twice and the streaking Los Angeles Angels completed a three-game sweep of the Kansas City Royals with a rain-shortened 5-0 victory Sunday night.

The game was called with none out in the top of the sixth after a rain delay of 1 hour, 46 minutes.

Spectators lined Sixth Street on Sunday morning as cyclists made the final lap of the category 4/5 criterium.

“Where’s Greg? Did he come through and start the final lap?” Brady Beckham asked as the race finished.

ST. LOUIS — Denied their first road series win of the year, the Colorado Rockies were still pleased with a split against the defending NL champions.

Abraham Nunez singled home the winning run in the ninth inning of the Cardinals’ 5-4 victory Sunday, giving them two wins in the four-game series against a team with the worst road record in more than two decades.

There are the ones with rings and the ones that look like geysers. Beyond that, a lot of us have trouble describing what a firework explosion looks like, much less knowing the differences between them. The Fire in the Sky show tonight at Memorial Stadium in Columbia will make use of 568 different types of fireworks.