On the Street

Kenneth R. Coleman, a driving force at Boys & Girls Town of Missouri for 24 years, died Oct. 14 of cancer. He was 53. Coleman was Boys & Girls Town’s regional vice president for the southwest region. A successor has not been named, and steps have not yet been taken to replace Coleman, said Marie McGeehan, director of communications. Coleman was dedicated to children. In 2001, he opened the $2 million Ozarks Family Resource Center in Springfield, which has sheltered more than 500 Greene County children removed from their homes in crisis situations. Coleman was active in the Missouri Coalition of Children’s Agencies, the Foster Grandparent Advisory Council, Division of Youth Services Community Liaison Council, Child Welfare League of America and Alliance for Children and Families. He also served as president of the National Fellowship of Child Care Executives.

Second in the world

Drury University’s Students In Free Enterprise team earned second place in the SIFE 2005 World Cup, held earlier this month in Toronto. The University of Zimbabwe placed first. Drury’s multimedia presentation, the basis of the competition, featured DSIFE Inc., a student-run business incubator the team started earlier this year. DSIFE, housed in a renovated downtown Springfield building, has provided networking and consulting services free of charge to eight startup firms. To date, those firms have generated total revenues of $65,000. Other projects are B3, a personal finance education program for youth; The Apprentice, a spin-off of the NBC show in which high school students compete for a summer job at a Springfield Wal-Mart; and Creo, a micro-loan program for startups in Nicaragua.

Job searching on the job

That longtime cohort might not be around the office much longer. According to a nationwide study conducted by the University of Phoenix, more than two-thirds of working adults are looking for a job, even though the majority of them (76 percent) are satisfied at their current place of employment. Why? Respondents are in search of better pay (58 percent), advancement opportunities (47 percent), more interesting or rewarding work (34 percent) and greater responsibility (26 percent), said the Zoomerang survey that polled nearly 2,500 workers in June. Meanwhile, 64 percent said that education and training opportunities are essential to retaining employees. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 1.8 percent.

Slice of Nice

The American Red Cross Greater Ozarks Chapter, in partnership with KY3, has scheduled its sixth annual Everyday Heroes breakfast and awards ceremony for March 15. Nominations for the 2006 awards are open through Jan. 15, and forms are available at www.redcross-ozarks.org or by calling (417) 832-9500. The hero categories are: adult, community justice/law enforcement, education, family, fire fighter, industrial safety, lifetime achievement, medical rescue, military and youth. Hero acts must have occurred in 2005, with the exception of the lifetime award.

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