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REPUBLICAN-TIMES
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
TRENTON
Trenton, MO 64683
Established Sept. 4, 1864 - 156th Year - No. 35
TRENTON REPUBLICAN-TIMES
delay the work, which is scheduled for the summer of 2020. Werthen Gass and Emma Gilham were named the valedictorian and salutatorian of the Trenton High School Class of 2019 during ceremonies in May. A total of 77 seniors were graduated. Emma Baxter and Kendra Betz were the valedictorian and salutatorian of the Grundy R-5 Class of 2019. Diplomas were awarded to 14 seniors. North Central Missouri College graduated the largest class ever - 484 students who earned diplomas and certificates. Mike Thomson, vice president of the Missouri Coordinating Board of Higher Education, and Steve Schieber, CEO for the critical access region of the Saint Luke’s Health System, were the guest speakers. Trenton Municipal Utilities electric customers got a break on their rates when members of the city council voted to continue the winter rate charge into the summer months. Council members agreed to continue the rates due to a large cash reserve in the electric department fund. The council also authorized an electric rate study, with the preliminary report to be presented by Toth and Associates to the council’s utility committee in January. The Trenton R-9 Board of Education voted to keep its employee insurance coverage with Blue Cross/Blue Shield after
GRUNDY COUNTY’S ‘GO-TO’ GUY
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Ten Pages & 1 Insert
Briefs...
2019 Year-End Review
Highway 6 Resurfacing Among Top Area Stories During 2019 Highway 6 resurfacing, high school graduations and a movie featuring a Navy unit in which two Trenton natives served were among the top stories appearing in the Republican-Times during the months of May through August. May The Trenton Park Board approved an increase for the cost of a season pass as well as for holding a private party at the aquatic center. Also increased was the cost of swimming lessons. Daily admission prices were left the same. New officers were chosen for the Trenton R-9 and Grundy R-5 FFA chapters during annual banquets held at Trenton and Galt. The new president at Trenton is Mackenzie McAtee while the R-5 chapter president is Anna Milazzo. A number of individual awards were also presented. The Missouri Department of Transportation announced plans to resurface Highway 6 through Trenton in 2020, a project that has since been put on hold after the only bid received for the work was deemed to ohigh. As part of the project, the city of Trenton was to provide funds to rehabilitate approaches and sidewalks within the city limits. MoDOT is scheduled to rebid the project in March, however, the city council is writing a letter to the state agency, asking that bids be sought as soon as possible so as not to
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previously voting to use insurance provided by United Healthcare, which had submitted a lower bid. Blue Cross/Blue Shield offered to match the United Healthcare bid, which the board then decided to accept after consulting with the school district attorney as well as attorneys from the Missouri School Boards Association. The cost approved by the board was $601 per month/per employee. Downtown revitalization was the focus of a presentation made by the Main Street Missouri program to around 30 persons who attended a public meeting. Keith Winge, community development director, led the discussion, which outlined how the program could be used in Trenton. Trenton Middle School “Top Dawg” awards were presented during an assembly marking the end of the school year. Receiving the awards were fifth graders Ali Cox and Titus Kottwitz, sixth graders Shaylise Turner and Riley Gott, seventh graders Aubree Dalrymple and Jacob Gott and eighth graders Serenity Marsh and Tucker Otto. The students were chosen based on the demonstration of best overall academic success, citizenship and character education. Other end-of-the-year academic awards were presented at both the middle school and high school. See Year End, Page 5
First Day Hikes Crowder State Park will host “First Day Hike” activities on Wednesday, Jan. 1, with four hikes planned. A one-half mile and 3.2 mile hike will take place at 10 a.m., with participants meeting at the Shelter #3 parking lot to walk down all or a portion of the Tall Oaks Trail. At 1 p.m., hikers can meet at the equestrian parking lot for either a two-mile or 3.8 mile hike down the North Thompson Trail. Registration is encouraged, but not required, and can be done at the Crowder State Park website at mostateparks.com. Additional information is available by calling the park office, 359-6473.
‘New Year Blast’ Youth ages pre-kindergarten through 12th grade are invited to the “New Year Blast” event being held on Friday, Jan. 3 at the Grundy County-Jewett Norris Library. Several activities are planned during the event, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the children’s department, located in the basement area. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) activities with ozobots and cubelets, board games and movies will be offered throughout the day. There will also be pizza and snacks available. For more information, persons can contact the library at 359-3577.
Coffee With A Cop “Coffee With a Cop” will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 22 on the campus of North Central Missouri College. The event will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. in the TRiO Department (Room 203 in Geyer Hall) and is an opportunity for citizens of the community to meet and visit with members of the Trenton Police Department. Citizens are encouraged to attend, ask questions and support a local business. Any business or organization wishing to host a “Coffee With a Cop” event can contact the police department at 359-5557.
Emergency Management Director Keeps Area informed
Need To Know About The Weather? Ask Glen by Ronda Lickteig R-T News Writer Those who grew up in an area where they could watch Kansas City news channels probably remember the saying, “Dan Henry said it would be like this,” meaning that the KC meteorologist had predicted the weather correctly. As many are finding out, Grundy County has found its own “Dan Henry” in Trenton resident Glen Briggs. Glen, who grew up in Trenton and graduated from Trenton High School, is a sort of weather guru in this area, using his experience and computer models to pretty accurately predict what it’s going to do outside. His interest in weather is apparently innate. “I don’t really know when I got so interested in weather,” he explained. “But I do remember that it was about second grade when I started talking about weather a lot. Part of that was just the scientific side of it. I’ve always wanted to know why it did what it did.” In 2007 he bought his first weather station - a machine that tracks temperature, wind speed, precipitation, etc.- noting that Trenton did not have one at the time. Later, he purchased a professional weather station and that’s what he uses today to obtain data. He provides that information to the Republican-Times each day for use in the newspaper. He also lets Kansas City media outlets know what’s going on in Trenton, noting that there was a time when they didn’t seem to ever cover weather north of Highway 36. Glen’s real gift to the community is predicting the weather. He uses the models found on the website “Pivotal Weather” to help determine what’s about to happen. While anyone can view the site, he said it takes experience to understand what the models
are saying and to determine which of the models have been accurate in the past. The same thing is true for all of the weather “apps” that can be found on smartphones. “These are all just computer generated models - there is no human looking at it to see if it’s a bad computer model. For instance, Trenton sits in a bowl, so we’ll get freezing rain when it shows that the temperature will be 34. It takes a human to know Trenton is going to be a little bit colder than the area around us,” he explained. “The other side of that is that with today’s technology, everyone wants to know the hour-by-hour, minute-byminute forecast. They want to know what the exact temperature is going to be at 4 o’clock. More often than not, we can’t do that.” Glen, who has had his ham radio operator’s license since he was 16, has learned a lot looking at those models and studying Trenton’s historical weather data. He knows, for instance, that a storm that develops north of Maryville could spell trouble for Trenton. Four of this area’s five tornados came through that corridor, he said, the exception being one that developed southeast of Laredo and eventually struck the elementary school in Humphreys. “When I hear there’s a storm developing north of Maryville, it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck,” he said. “There’s a corridor that runs from north of Maryville through Bethany to Grundy County that brings bad weather. Every major storm we’ve had has come down through that corridor.” One of those storms was the March 2014 tornado that destroyed the home of Larry and Karen Bailey near Tindall. While radar showed a storm developing and heading toward Grundy County, he credits the use of good
old-fashioned storm spotters for providing the warning that it was actually producing a tornado. “If not for the storm spotters, we would not have known that it was actually producing a tornado,” he explained, noting that radar has its limitations when it comes to showing what is happening closer to the ground. He said that’s one reason he tries to offer storm spotter training each year as part of his duties as Grundy County Emergency Management Director. He was honored by the National Weather Service in 2010 with the NOAA Environmental Hero Award for his work as a storm spotter. While tornado season is undoubtedly exciting for someone fascinated with weather and predicting it, Glen’s most memorable weather events did not involve tornados. He recalls one time when he was shoveling a neighbor’s sidewalk and it was warm enough that the snow was starting to melt. But by the time he got to the end of the block, the wind had shifted and the temperature dropped to minus 2. “They had to close Hy-Vee that afternoon because their parking lot became a sheet of ice,” he recalled. Another of his most memorable weather events is the hail storm of May 2004. That storm left massive damage in its wake, including 18 broken windows at the Grundy County Courthouse. Briggs said he was in his apartment trying to direct storm spotters but had to hand that job off to Chillicothe because the hail was so loud on his roof that he couldn’t hear anyone. Social media has given Glen a way to share his interest and expertise in the weather. He posts on his Facebook page what the models are saying and what his thoughts are about what could happen. He puts a little warning
National Weather Service Skies will be mostly cloudy this week with highs in the upper 40s and lows in the low to mid 30s. The high temperature at Trenton on Thursday, Dec. 26 was 51, Friday’s high was 42 and Saturday’s high was 56 with .77 of an inch of rain recorded. The high on Sunday in Trenton was 52 and the overnight low was 30. There was no report from the Government Weather Station near Spickard.
Photo Courtesy of Madison Briggs
Trenton resident Glen Briggs keeps an eye on the radar during a storm that moved through north Missouri on Saturday, Dec. 28. Briggs has become this area’s “go-to guy” when it comes to being informed about the weather and has a large social media following - especially when storms are approaching.
out there if things could get dicey later in the day or gives everyone a thumbs up to plan a picnic for the weekend because everything looks okay in Trenton. He said a good storm always brings new Facebook “friend” requests. You can watch him
What’s Inside... Theß THS girls and boys basketball teams took on Smithville in a pair of games at the NCMC Holiday Hoops on Saturday. See page 2 of today’s Republican-Times for photos and a recap of the contests.
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hit the streets in his car on Facebook Live to see the current conditions. Occasionally, he decides even he should be watching the weather from home. See Weather Page 5
What’s Inside Sports.............................page 2 Local News ....................page 3 Across Missouri ............page 4 Community ...................page 5 Comics ...........................page 6 Dear Annie ....................page 7 Crosswords....................page 7 Classifieds ..............page 8 & 9