It will cost more to be thankful this year, and to the Love family’s eight-person Thanksgiving feast that means a smaller, healthier spread.
Instead of a whole bird, there will be turkey breast. Five side-dishes have been cut to the three requisites: stuffing, mashed potatoes and broccoli rice casserole. And dessert won’t be store-bought pies, but a pumpkin pie made from scratch by Marta Love.

Joyous regret filled Sharon Boyer Friday evening while at Foster’s. Minutes earlier her nearly 30-foot pine tree became the main holiday attraction in Downtown St. Joseph. “It’s so pretty out there,” said Ms. Boyer, of Hemple, Mo. “I’m kind of regretting donating (the tree).”

When her future in-laws brought canned foods over nearly two years ago so their then-6-year-old grandson would be in a household with food, Cheryl Ketchum swallowed her pride and applied for food stamps.
Then, three months ago, at age 27, pregnant and unable to stretch her long-time paycheck as a cashier, she gulped her pride when she walked into a food pantry for a cardboard box full of food rations. Her expenses are no longer manageable.
“It’s been a struggle for a while, but it’s just got to that point,” Ms. Ketchum said, seated Thursday afternoon in the receiving room at the InterServ’s Calvin Center. “Hopefully, by the beginning of next year, if we can keep prices from going up anymore ... we’ll be doing better.”

Whitney Newton swears she’s seen the silhouette of two men just past the railroad crossing. Her friends shine their flashlights. Nothing.

Local health inspectors say they lack direct enforcement over six restaurants outside St. Joseph city limits and that ties their hands when they wish to shut down an unsafe kitchen.

A smoking ban has played a part in the ending of a weekly bingo game at the Firefighter’s Local No. 77 union hall.
Two Downtown St. Joseph nonprofit organizations will stop sponsoring bingo next week, citing a sharp decline in charitable gambling revenues following the smoking ban. The AFL-CIO Community Services and Downtown Sertoma will end support for the once-profitable Thursday night bingo.
The trouble began in February, when the firefighters’ union made the controversial decision to make the hall smoke free.

A Christian-based program that seeks to steer women incarcerated at the Buchanan County Jail on the right path has launched. The newly formed outreach center also provides spiritual support to women separated from their families because of substance abuse, domestic violence and incarceration.

MGP Ingredients continues to ease out of the commodities market with the stop of some manufacturing operations in Illinois today.

Fifteen recently rescued birds were sold by the city of St. Joseph through sealed bidding Friday afternoon.

Danny Edwards stood in the cold for eight hours on Friday to honor a debt.
After an accident blinded him, Mr. Edwards, 64, said the Salvation Army helped with utilities and food, and it bought Christmas gifts for his kids.
“I’m just returning the favor,” Mr. Edwards said.