McHenry County Blog

Joplin suburb Leawood's Board of Trustees Chairman Denis Desmond makes the front page of the Joplin Globe in new St' John's Hospital site announcement. He points at the tree line that marks the boundary between his resident community and Joplin.

My brother-in-law Denny Desmond, 1966 graduate of Crystal Lake Central High School, married my sister Ellen, Class of 1970. They moved to Joplin, Missouri in the early 1990′s.

The self-effacing guy ended up on the village board of a suburb of Joplin called Leawood (population 950).

Then, he became Chairman of its all volunteer Board of Trustees.

His CPA talents uncovered corruption on the part of the village’s treasurer.

Mercifully, my relatives’ home, which we call the “Hotel Desmond,” was untouched by the tornado, which stayed north of Interstate 44 in that area.

Here's what St. John's Hospital looked like in early July, 2011,

The destroyed hospital, St. John’s, was located just north and within sight of the untouched Freeman Hospital.

St. John’s made the logical decision that it should rebuild far enough away from Freeman so a future tornado would not take out the two hospitals at once…as May’s tornado most certainly could have done. (It was a mile wide and about 6-7 miles long. In contrast the first atomic bomb dropped in Japan had a blast diameter of about 6,000 feet.)  St. John’s was on the southern edge of the tornado.

This image was created by the National Weather Service. You can see the 6-mile path in Joplin, which was from 3/4 of a mile to a mile wide. Leawood's location can be seen south of the tornado's path. Leawood is south of Interstate 44, the Interstate replacement for U.S. Route 66. The new hospital will be located south of the Interstate and will undoubtedly spur growth there.

The 100-acre site selected by St. John’s borders the residential village that Denny heads.

What follows is the first part of a long note from my sister, who lives in Joplin. Mercifully, her family lives in Leawood, about a quarter of a mile south of the Interstate on which I saw a photo of overturned trucks. I have written previously about my niece’s brother-in-law’s experience in the AT&T Store across the main shopping street (Rangeline). The store was demolished and one of his co-workers was killed by the tornado.

If you are interested in what the eyes of a child saw during the tornado, my sister tells of a four-year old who saw “butterfly people.” You’ll have to hang in until the final installment, though, because that’s where she put it.

Hi All,

I have been thinking a lot about what we have been going through lately and I know you have been concerned about us. You don’t know how much that means to us.

During the 1965 tornado in Crystal Lake, I was in the Methodist Church being confirmed.

A friend of mine did not show up, so we went to her house afterwards. Their garage had blown into the house across the street. Their house had shifted slightly, but enough that they had to totally rebuild. I think 12 people died that day.

On May 22, Denny & I had taken our 10 year old granddaughter, Keaton, golfing in preparation for junior golf at the country club.

Tornado damage to the strip mall where Orange Leaf Yogurt is located in Joplin.

On our way home, she wanted to try out the new yogurt place, so of course, we stopped there.

We knew a storm was on the way, but we were not overly concerned. We went across town on 20th street.

Little did we know that 45 minutes later that street would never look the same.

Also several stores in the same strip mall as the yogurt shop were demolished. The yogurt shop has reopened.

The tornado alarm sounded right after we got back into the car.

Daughter Lissa was meeting us at our house to help with our youngest daughter Kelly’s wedding invites.

Then son-in-law Brandon joined us with grandsons, Fielding & Hobbs and their cousins, Maggie and Carson. They had been at a ball field practicing.

We were all in our basement watching TV about the storm.

Maggie gets very nervous during storms and ended up throwing up on our carpet. (It’s old and not a big deal.)

Then our electricity went out, and we think that’s probably when the tornado hit Joplin.

At that point, I was running up and down the stairs, looking for radios and batteries. (I’m good to go now.)

When we started to hear about damage, I began occupying the kids with stories about how I sunk my dad’s motorboat when I was a kid.

Then Denny would walk by and whisper, “Home Depot is gone.”

On the Joplin High School sign, the "J" has been replaced by an a duct taped "H" and"IN" with an "E." Nearby tree trunks have been carved into eagles, the team mascot.

A few minutes later, he would whisper, “The high school is gone.”

After the rain stopped, Denny took the kids to a neighbor’s yard, where the water rushes through a ditch. The kids like to play there after storms and they came home all wet.

Lissa was able to post on Facebook that we had not been in the tornado’s path and we were safe.

[And I was snapping photos off the TV and emailing them to Lissa.]

The AT&T Store in Joplin.

Brandon became very concerned about his brother, David, who was working at an AT&T cell phone store across from Walmart, which was also destroyed.

He was about ready to go look for him, when he heard that David was OK. It had taken him an hour and a half to get out from the rubble. One co-worker died that day.

More installments for the next five days.

$325,000 of taxpayers’ money is missing from Joplin, MO, suburb Leawood.

So what?

That’s the location of the Hotel Desmond and my brother-in-law Denny Desmond heads its board of trustees.

The village has about 1,000 people, so $325,000 is significant amount.

And, that’s just what Desmond discovered missing from 2002 through 2008.

Another $673,534 is “unaccounted for” before that date, according to an article in the Joplin Globe.

Long-time Treasurer Gene “Paul” Boyd resigned in October when Desmond, a CPA, confronted him.

Boyd told his employer, Empire District Electric Company, that he had been stealing for the village for over two decades.

My brother-in-law tells me he thinks Boyd stole about a million dollars.

“Our actual revenues in 2007 were $79,000 and actual expenses were $22,000 for a $57,000 surplus,” he emailed me. “He understated our revenues by about 50% and overstated our expenses.”

“In 2007 he stole $60,000 and 2008 stole only $45,000 (because he was caught in October). He showed a surplus of $15.000 to $20,000 per year.”