Category: kmiz-local-news

Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins on Friday threatened Daniel Boone Regional Library’s funding over an LGBTQ+-themed event that is set to take place this weekend.

The Columbia Public Library’s “Rainbow Story Time” event is scheduled for 10-10:45 a.m. Saturday in the Children’s Program Room.

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a statement on Thursday claiming “residents” had requested her office to make sure the event is “”conducted in a manner consistent with Missouri law.”

Library spokeswoman Mitzi St. John wrote in a Thursday email that the event includes readings of “Rainbowsaurus” and “Big Wig.” St. John wrote that neither book includes sexual content.

“Rainbow Story Time is part of our expanded story time events and is geared toward families. The letter from the AG office does not alter our plans,” St. John wrote in a follow-up statement on Friday.

Hoskins in his statement referred to a law Gov. Mike Kehoe signed earlier this month that requires age verification for pornographic websites.

“Yet this event mocks some of the very protections so many have fought for by exposing toddlers and preschoolers to adult material that is not only inappropriate, but far beyond their level of cognitive development,” Hoskins’ statement says.

Hoskins wrote that if the event does occur, DBRL’s funding will be affected.

“As you know, the State Library falls under the Office of the Secretary of State, and as such, I oversee the administration of significant library grant funding,” the statement says. “Please be advised if this inappropriate endeavor for children takes place, I will do everything in my power to block every dollar of state and federal funding I can from future events at the Daniel Boone Library System.”

St. John told ABC 17 News that the library did not have a comment on Hoskins’ statement.

Daniel Boone Regional Library Workers United, the union that represents DBRL employees, also is aware of Hanaway’s and Hoskins’ statements, saying the office’s influence has not changed their services.

“Our staff and our library are proud to serve an incredible, diverse community. We have always and will always seek ways to meet the needs of our entire community. In turn, our community has shown our library and staff an immense amount of support that we know they will continue,” DBRLWU President Patrick Johnston said in a statement. “Banning books and threatening libraries is not the sign of a healthy polity.”

“Rainbowsaurus” is about two dads and their three children following a rainbow to find the rainbowsaurus. Along the way, they meet animals of all different colors, according to Simon and Schuster’s website.

“Big Wig” is about youth dressing up in drag to compete in a costume competition, and finding confidence in dressing out of the norm, according to Simon and Schuster’s website.

ABC 17 News viewed both books at the library. DBRL also provided social media posts showing the books’ content. Both books can be viewed below.

Charles Hatfield — who is an attorney and former chief of staff for the AG during Jay Nixon’s tenure — tells ABC 17 News Missouri’s pornography laws are purposefully narrow.

“In other words, you can ban pornography, but it has to really be pornography. You can’t just ban books or materials that you don’t like,” Hatfield said.

Under Chapter 573 of the Missouri Constitution, for material to be “pornographic for minors” it must meet all three requirements: cater sexual content to minors or, “cater or appeal to a prurient interest of minors,” clearly show nudity or sexual acts and lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.”

“Just reading a book to a minor that might be about different lifestyles or cultures that maybe even all of us disagree with, that’s not pornographic material, that’s First Amendment expression,” Hatfield said.

Hatfield added officials currently cannot stop the reading from happening and can only take action after the fact, such as revoking state funds.

“If the secretary of state does something that the library thinks is inappropriate, the library could go to court and challenge that decision,” Hatfield said. “We’ll have to see what happens on Saturday, but again, given what I’ve read about it, it sounds like the library is not planning to violate the state law on pornographic material.”

ABC 17 News spoke with Columbia resident Rachel Wolpertl, who said she does not agree with the statements from Missouri officials about the contents of the book and said libraries are all-inclusive spaces and they should be kept that way.

“Those books are geared towards full inclusivity. You know, it’s not about sex, it’s about supporting everybody and being a kind, wonderful friend to all people in the world, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, their religious beliefs, everything,” Wolpertl said. “None of those books have any sex themes. So… there’s I don’t know why people would be against reading about being a friend and kind to everybody.”

Wolpertl said parents have the ability to choose what they expose their children too and that the library is providing books for children to learn about their world at their own pace.

“That’s what the library is able to do, is to provide age-appropriate books and resources to children so that they can be exposed to things on their own timeline,” Wolpertl said. “Of course, parents can limit as much as they want to or not expose their children to what they want to do in their own lives, and to what their beliefs are and what their value systems are.

ABC 17 News reached out to Columbia Mayor Barbara Buffaloe for comment. She declined to comment because she said she does not oversee the library.

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Madison Stuerman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Jefferson City woman has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of arson after a house fire earlier this month.

Sheila Kroeger is charged with first-degree and second-degree arson.

Court documents state that the home Kroeger was living in caught fire on July 9.

An officer with the Missouri State Fire Marshal’s office said the property owner reported ongoing issues, including Kroeger allegedly not paying her rent.

Investigators found two points of origin, one in the bedroom and another on the back porch. Fire patterns were consistent with the fire being intentionally set, according to court documents.

Officers said Kroeger was interviewed on July 15 and said she was home alone when the fire started.

Court documents state that she described electrical issues throughout the home, but investigators found no evidence of this.

The officer also said Kroeger denied involvement but said “it couldn’t be arson because an accelerant wasn’t used,” but that information was not provided.

No injuries were reported. A neighboring home was also damaged, along with a vehicle.

Online court records state that she pleaded not guilty during her arraignment on Monday.

Judge Joseph Shetler denied her request for a bond change. Kroeger is being held without bond at the Cole County jail.

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Missouri Task Force 1, an urban search and rescue team attached to the Boone County Fire Protection District, began its trip home from a deployment in flooded south Texas on Friday.

The team was first sent to Texas about a week ago after heavy rains caused devastating flash flooding in the southern part of the state. The team worked in Zapata County, near the southeastern Texas-Mexico border, and then staged in San Antonio to be ready if needed for Tropical Storm Bertha response.

The trip home will take about a day and a half, the Task Force stated in a news release.

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Jazsmin Halliburton

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A man accused of killing his ex-wife and her mother will now go to trial in December.

Judge Josh Devine agreed to push back Randall Fox’s murder trial to December 8. A pre-trial hearing was set for November 9. Court records show Fox’s defense moved to delay the trial after the state disclosed new discovery materials, just a month before the trial was set to start.

Fox, 51, faces two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of armed criminal action and one count of tampering with evidence.

Defense attorney Manuel Tatayon wrote in a motion on Friday that prosecutors gave him autopsy results on June 30, along with 260 pages of discovery. Tatayon said he is still waiting on information in the case “regarding additional potential other suspects.”

Columbia police believe Fox shot and killed Sarah Fox and her mother, Marcia Hess, at Hess’s home in the 1700 block of Ridgemont Drive in 2024. Investigators say they found the two dead inside a basement closet at the home in May after receiving calls that they had not been seen or heard from in several days.

Court documents detail police’s search for Sarah Fox and Hess in late May. Police wrote that they got a call from a family member of Sarah Fox and Hess’s on May 18 claiming they had not heard from the pair in ten days. Police said Randall Fox was at the Ridgemont Drive house that day. During a search of the house, Fox allegedly said a “bad smell” in the house was coming from some sleeping bags. When an officer asked to look inside the closet the bodies were allegedly found in later, Randall Fox said the objects inside “will fall out if he opens it.”

Police said Randall Fox told them in an in-custody interview on May 23 that he didn’t know that they were found dead in the basement of the home. The detective noted that they had never told Randall Fox where exactly the bodies were found in the home.

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Matthew Sanders

Missouri’s top law enforcement official sent a warning Thursday to the Columbia Public Library ahead of an LGBTQ+-themed event for families. She also posted it on social media for the public to view.

The event, “Rainbow Story Time,” will take place Saturday morning and include the reading of two books. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway wrote the library on official letterhead to tell leaders to keep the content de-sexualized and age-appropriate.

A library spokeswoman said the material is appropriate for children.

Do you think Hanaway should have written the letter and publicized it? Let us know by voting in the poll.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A candidate in the Camden County Prosecutor Republican primary was recently held in contempt in court by a judge.

Lynne Brand is running for the prosecutor’s seat in the Aug. 4 primary against incumbent Richelle Grosvenor. Brand is listed as a defendant in a Sunshine Law case along with the county’s sheriff’s office.

A filing in the case says a motion for civil contempt – filed by the plaintiff’s lawyer Dave Roland – was granted on Tuesday, court filings show.

The judge in the case is holding Brand in contempt, but is holding off on a punishment as long as she sits for deposition.

Roland told ABC 17 News in a message that the plaintiff’s side asked the judge to make Brand to pay the money paid to the court reporter and videographer for a July 13 hearing she did not attend. Roland said Brand will not have to pay the $1,000 penalty if they attend the scheduled deposition.

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Demetra Alarcon

VIENNA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A new mile-marker system along the Gasconade River aims to reduce emergency response times and help first responders locate people needing help.

The Maries County Sheriff’s Office and the Vienna Fire Protection District teamed up together to get this completed.

The initiative started when Sheriff Mark Morgan saw that Pulaski County, which borders Maries County, had put up mile markers along the same river. Now, if you are in Pulaski County and go into Maries County on the river, all of the mile markers will be in order and look the same, county officials say.

To cover the costs, the Maries County Sheriff’s Office funded the mile markers by creating and selling department calendars, Morgan said.

Volunteers and employees put up the mile markers. Vienna Fire Protection District Capt. Carson Hayes said he knows of several instances in which the markers would have been helpful.

“People are trying to describe landmarks, and that can be very difficult to figure out which ramp we need to put in at or anything like that,” Hayes said.

The Gasconade River is around 36 miles through Maries County. Some areas of the river bank go through private property and Morgan asked residents’ permission to hang the markers.

“I didn’t get any pushback at all from any of the property owners,” Morgan said. “Everybody was extremely receptive to it. It’s been extremely well received by the community.”

The location of each mile marker can be viewed on online GIS systems. Maries County’s system allows you to select a layer to view them.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Boone County man who claimed in a 2025 federal lawsuit that elected officials got him fired over comments at public meetings in Harrisburg was paid a settlement.

The Village of Harrisburg paid Michael Williams $35,000 in an agreement that was reached on July 13. The court case was dismissed on July 17 and documents were made available to ABC 17 News on Thursday.

A separate settlement was reached with Commercial Trust Company of Fayette during the summer of 2025, but Williams attorney Andy Hirth told ABC 17 News that the details of that settlement are confidential.  

Williams claimed in his lawsuit that the city and bank violated his First Amendment rights and interfered with his employment.

His boss allegedly had confronted him after receiving “complaints directly from members of the Board about his questions and comments,” previous reporting shows.

The lawsuit claimed the bank’s CEO handed him a separation letter in October 2024, laying out the reports of “antagonistic and belligerent opposition to Council decisions” that the bank feared reflected poorly on it.  

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Gov. Mike Kehoe was among one of the 23 signatures seen on a pledge by Republican governors that looks to keep electricity costs down as data centers continue to be built around the country.

“As that infrastructure grows and the related electricity demand increases, the American people should not be footing the bill for the benefit of private companies. Instead, the data center boom should be leveraged to address affordability and benefit all American households and businesses,” the pledge states.

The pledge claims President Donald Trump is asking AI companies to “build, bring, or buy all of the energy needed for building and operating data centers, paying the full cost of their energy and infrastructure, no matter what.”

The pledge alleges companies will build or buy “new generation resources and electricity needed to satisfy their new energy demand,” pay for infrastructure upgrades and negotiate separate rate structures for their utilities.

Multiple data centers have been proposed around the country, including in Mid-Missouri.

Data centers nationwide have been met with pushback from residents, with water and electricity usage among the often-cited concerns. Columbia and Camdenton each passed one-year moratoriums in May on the applications and building of data centers.

Montgomery County residents late last year and earlier this year showed out against attempts to build data centers in the county. Residents and property owners also filed a lawsuit in February in an attempt to halt the construction of an Amazon data center.

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Sutton Parker

COLUMBIA Mo. (KMIZ)

A coalition of U.S. lawmakers, Missouri broadcasters and local emergency officials are pushing for radios that can reach AM broadcast bands to be required in every vehicle.

Senate Bill 315 would require the Secretary of Transportation to issue a rule requiring access to AM broadcast stations in passenger motor vehicles, and for other purposes.

This comes as some car manufacturers have stopped adding the radio signal into newer models, particularly in electric vehicles.

In a press release from Tesla, the company claims the electromagnetic waves generated by electric vehicle drivetrains “cause severe interference” with analog AM radio signals, making traditional reception unstable.

Adding that instead of having a traditional AM radio option, Tesla identified the TuneIn app as an alternative streaming application to provide Tesla owners with access to their preferred radio stations.

The Missouri Broadcasters Association has been meeting with Missouri lawmakers pushing for the bill.

MBA President Chand Mahoney said AM radio is essential during emergencies.

“AM radio is the backbone of the emergency alert system in the United States,” Mahoney said. “So in many cases, it’s those AM radio stations that are receiving the emergency alert first, and then it filters down to the rest of the stations.”

He believes manufacturers are removing the radio signal to monetize the dashboard.

“So one way to do that is to offer subscription-based entertainment, music and information through the dashboard. AM radio, of course, is free and over the air and would get in the way of that model,” Mahoney said.

Mahoney said that when emergency alerts come in, they filter down to all the other stations, including FM stations.

When asked about the progress of Senate Bill 315, Mahoney claims the bill has bipartisan support, with 310 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and 61 in the Senate.

Among those co-sponsors are Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, Rep. Mark Alford, Rep. Wesley Bell, Rep. Jason Smith, Rep. Eric Burlison, Rep. Robert F. Onder, Rep. Ann Wagner and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.

“We encourage people who may be watching this and are concerned about the AM radio coming out of their vehicles to reach out to their members of Congress and have them go to their leadership to take this bill to the floor for a vote,” Mahoney said. “It’s so popular; we know it’s going to pass, but we have to get it to the floor.”

When it comes to the importance of AM radio, Mahoney said that it is heavily relied on in rural communities.

“One rural Missouri AM radio is important every single day of the year. People are receiving their agriculture information, their farm markets, their weather reports. And oftentimes in rural areas, it’s those am signals that are still penetrating much further than the FM signals,” he said.

Trisha Rooda, of Pettis County Emergency Management, encourages everyone to always have three ways of communication in rural areas.

“I think AM radio remains a very important part of emergency management, especially for people in rural areas,” she said.

Rooda added that AM radio is an essential part of communication because a lot of other types of communication do not work in their area.

“Many emergency broadcasts are on AM stations, and those stations have backup power and AM signals reach farther over tall buildings and reach longer distances,” she said.

Senate Bill 315 currently is awaiting consideration and a vote by the Senate.

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