Grant,
I just got off the phone with Redwood: According to a memo he read me from Signature Stock Transfer, the dividend was mailed to "direct" stockholders (certs in posession) on 5/3. All stock was also transferred to brokerages for "street name" accounts at that time, also.
I then called Vanguard Brokerage Services, where my USSE stock has been held in street name since November 2006. On the second call-back, about 5 minutes ago, an internal notice from their clearing agent, Pershing, appeared in my account. The dividend was received today and will be posted to my account tonight. Since Pershing does the back office stuff for a number of discount brokerages, this indicates that a lot of the confusion has ended.
Dino