Archives of Community

meet along the way: Nora Speight

This story was first published as “Faces of Southeast Missouri: Nora Speight” in the July 2022 issue of “The Best Years.” Nora Speight’s love of flowers comes from her grandfather she calls “Paw Paw.” He lived on a farm in Marston, Mo., where Speight got paid $3 to pick 100 pounds of cotton as a […]
3 years ago

meet along the way: Rania Roumany

By Jasmine Jones This story was first published in the July 2022 issue of “The Best Years.” Recipes tell the stories of communities and the people who shape them. Each recipe is more than a list of ingredients and steps: It is a written legacy of the individual who created the dish, their family and […]
3 years ago

meet along the way: Marilee Roethemeyer

By Jasmine Jones This story was first published in the June 2022 issue of “The Best Years.” Church and civic group cookbooks tell the stories of their community and the people who shape them. Each recipe in these cookbooks is more than a list of ingredients and steps: It is a written legacy of the […]
3 years ago

meet along the way: Gail Lowrance

By Lizzy Stock This story was first published in the June 2022 issue of “The Best Years.” When Gail Lowrance retired from teaching special education in 2014, she spent a summer in a tiny town in California where everyone knew each other by name. On her third day there, a bookstore owner recognized her by […]
3 years ago

Taking a Step: All-female drumline leads band at Perryville High School

Drums are loud. They are visual. They are large and cumbersome, and they keep the band together. Historically, they are a male-dominated position within the band. But the Perryville High School Marching Buccaneers Drumline in Perryville, Mo., is changing that. During the 2021-22 school year, the drumline has been comprised of all female drummers, and […]
3 years ago

Pet Peeves: What ticks you off?

When we came across a list of pet peeves by Cher, it gave us great insight into who she is as a person, and it also gave us a beautiful realization: The things we don’t like tell us just as much about ourselves as the things we do.  So in these pages, we get to […]
3 years ago

meet along the way: Hannah March Sanders

This story was first published as “The Right to Free Speech: Vintage printing presses in Cape Girardeau tell history of written word” in the July 2021 issue of “The Best Years (TBY).” By Jasmine Jones Vandercook. Chandler & Price. Heidelberg. For most, these names mean nothing. For past editors, these printing press brand names meant […]
3 years ago

meet along the way: Georganne Syler

By Jasmine Jones  This story was first published in the May 2022 issue of “The Best Years.” Georganne Syler has attended the First Presbyterian Church in Cape Girardeau her entire life and currently serves as an elder. Decades ago, her mother, Dorothy Penzel, was one of the first female deacons and elders at the church.  […]
3 years ago

meet along the way: Mary Koeberl Rechenberg

By Mary Koeberl Rechenberg This story was first published in the January 2021 issue of “The Best Years (TBY).” Reading the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder at the age of nine gave me reason to believe my life was pretty special. After all, she wrote about many things I could relate to from my own […]
4 years ago