I live in zone 6a in the Pocono Mountains, PA. I am not sure where Hannibal is, but it sounds familiar. I went to school in Ithaca, NY maybe I drove past the exit or something.
You are lucky to find this forum before you start growing roses. I killed a bunch of big box store "body bag" roses before learning which ones to grow. I have had the most success with own root roses. Chamblees is a good place to find own root roses. Melva also has some antique roses. I am growing Veinchenbleau and Heiderlosen from her and have more coming this spring.
The first rose that survived in my garden was Austin's Wildeve. I have added a few more Austin's, but Eve is still my favorite (I like it much better than the similarly colored Abraham Darby). The David Austin site says that Wildeve is a smaller rose, but mine has 6' canes. The Austin roses get bigger than expected in America - keep that in mind when you are locating them. The yellow Austins have a reputation for blackspot (yellow roses in general due to their ancestry may be more prone to blackspot, if I remember correctly). I grow Golden Celebration. It is beautiful, but prone to blackspot. I got lucky and got my Wildeve rose literally just off the truck at Walmart, but haven't seen potted Austin roses there since. I had no idea what an "AUSbonny - it's official name- was, but the plant looked very healthy and I loved the blooms. I was perplexed when I planted it because I couldn't find the graft - it didn't have one! I googled AUSbonny, landed in a forum with Sue and Zuzu and am still growing roses.
I LOVE Buck's Honey Sweet. It is classified as a shrub rose but has blooms like a hybrid tea. Buck lived in the Midwest and bred cold tolerant roses.
Kordes, a German company, also breeds hardy roses. I like Westerland climbing rose and Lavaglut floribunda. I have read fabulous things about their "Fairy Tale" roses, but don't grow any, yet.
Julia Child is another great floribunda - a disease resistant yellow. NewYorkRita grows lots of floribundas in groups that she calls "floribundaville". She has a thread of pictures here somewhere.
A good site to look up roses is www.helpmefind.com in addition to this site, of course.
