Local News
Ozark County Wellness Committee member Karen Brantingham, second from right, recently accepted a $20,000 donation from the Ozark County Community Foundation (OCCF) for improvements to the walking trail project the committee started in 2020. The funds will go toward making the trail more accessible...
Gainesville High School ag teacher and FFA adviser Jon Wilson and wife April celebrated their 25th anniversary this year.
Gainesville High School agriculture teacher and FFA adviser Jon Wilson has a signature haircut (or lack thereof) and epic mustache that makes him one of the most recognizable teachers around - but what students really remember about him goes far beyond his appearance. His personable teaching style...
The Ozark County Times reported in its March 1, 1918, edition that about 200 friends and neighbors gathered Saturday, Feb. 23, at the home of “Uncle Carroll Beasley” near Romance to share a dinner in honor of four “boys” about to leave for Army training camp. The Times reported that the four...
These excerpts from soldiers’ letters (and a Navy press release) that were published in the Ozark County Times in decades past, often under the heading, “From our soldier boys,” remind us of the dedication and heroism of Ozark County’s military men and woman in uniform during wartime.
We are...
Puxico native Skip Payton was drafted into the Army in 1943 and trained at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. He served with the Fifth Army’s 88th Infantry Division as it fought its way up the length of Italy.
Editor’s note: This story about World War II veteran Emmit “Skip” Payton is reprinted from the Oct. 12, 2011, edition of the Times. Payton died June 17, 2017, at age 95. His widow, Margie, now 94, still lives in their house on Rainbow Ridge near Haskins Ford.
In 1943, Emmit “Skip” Payton shipped...
A Vietnam surprise from a fellow Ozark Countian Dick Mahan, left, an Army ammo-truck driver, showed up one day at the marine-repair facility in Dong Tam, Vietnam, to surprise his lifelong friend Dan Morgan, who was posted there with the Navy. The two men, both from Pontiac, had started the same day in the one-room school there, and both graduated from Gainesville High School in 1966. They posed for this photo in front of the four-foot wall of sandbags that protected the “hooch” where Morgan and his fellow sailors slept. Shortly after Morgan’s discharge, Mahan was back in Dong Tam and found that a rocket attack had demolished the sandbagged structure. See Dan Morgan's story, reprinted from the Nov. 10, 2010, edition of the Times, and other military salutes, beginning on page B1.
Editor’s note: This profile of Vietnam veteran Dan Morgan is reprinted, with minor editing, from the Nov. 10, 2010, edition of the Times. Morgan, who lived in Sycamore with his wife, Joyce, died in 2012 at age 63. The story tells of his surprise encounter in Vietnam with Dick Mahan, who had grown...
Rebecca Ruud. Ozark County Times 2017 file photo
The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled that a taped audio recording made by Theodosia resident Rebecca Ruud, who is charged with murdering her 16-year-old daughter Savannah Leckie in 2017 and disposing of the girl’s body, is admissible as evidence.
The decision was announced in a Nov. 9 press release...
Gainesville resident Mike Ellison killed this 5x6 bull elk Oct. 19 while hunting on public land in Shannon County.
Gainesville resident Mike Ellison made Missouri hunting history last month, earning the title as the only Ozark Countian and one of fewer than 10 Missouri residents to kill an elk in the state within the last century.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity,” Ellison told the Times, talking about the Oct...
Armor Equipment employees visited with Gainesville officials in September to demonstrate the company’s trailer-mounted “sewer jetter,” which the city agreed to purchase and is now awaiting delivery. “A sewer jetter will give our guys the ability to remove clogs, clean sewer lines and avoid sewer back-up issues,” said Gainesville water specialist Jessi Price.
In this final part of the Times’ three-part series about recent projects undertaken by the city of Gainesville, city water specialist Jessi Price describes updates that have been made to Gainesville’s sewer system and provides information on the city’s streets.
The city’s sewer system services...
Two weeks ago, 200 stadium-style, fixed-back seats were installed in the Gainesville High School gym, wrapping up the completion of the gym’s renovation that began earlier this summer. The stadium-style seats, paired with new traditional bench-style bleachers above them, provide seating for a total...