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12/23/16 — Patricia Jo Bunch

Patricia Jo Bunch, age 65 of Fairmount, IN, passed away on Sunday, December
18, 2016 at Tennova Healthcare-Harton in Tullahoma, TN. Funeral Services
will be held Friday, December 23, 2015 at 12 PM at the Armes-Hunt Funeral
Home in Fairmount, IN with burial to follow at Park Cemetery. Visitation
will be Friday, from 10 AM until the service time. No local services are
scheduled.

A native of Anderson, IN, Mrs. Bunch was the daughter of the late Walter
Charles and Eileen Scott Wihebrink. She attended Main Street Wesleyan
Church in Jonesboro, IN. She enjoyed watching cooking shows on TV and
playing games on her laptop.

She is survived by her husband, William Bunch of Fairmount, IN; son, Jared
Bunch and his wife, Alyssa of Michigan; daughter, Erica Cook and her
husband, Chris of Manchester, TN; brothers Robert Wihebrink, Donald
Wihebrink and his wife, Susan of Warsaw, IN and Walter Wihebrink and his
wife, Dana of Michigan; sister, Barbara Turpin and her husband, Jeff of
California and Virginia Gard of Ft. Wayne, IN and seven grandchildren.

Daves-Culbertson Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Red Raider Basketball Invitational Begins on Monday

2016 Red Raider Invitational. Click to enlarge and print

With high school boys’ basketball teams coming from as far away as Hendersonville and Ooltewah, the 3rd Annual Red Raider Invitational tips off on Monday afternoon at the Joe Frank Patch Memorial Gym.  Coach Micah Williams of Coffee County is welcoming 8 teams from Middle and East Tennessee for the 3 day tournament.

All eight teams will be in action each day as they work their way through the championship and consolation brackets.  The first game time each day is 3 PM.  Monday’s play gets underway at 3 PM as East Hamilton takes on Beech while Middle Tennessee Christian and Franklin County will play at 4:30 PM in the top part of the bracket.  The evening session begins at 6 PM as Grundy County will take on Red Bank.

The Red Raiders will begin tournament play on Monday night at 7:30 as they take on Community.  Thunder Radio will bring you the broadcast of that contest beginning with the Powers Storage pregame show at 7:20.

Attempted Armed Robbery at Manchester Hotel

Suspect

On Thursday night Manchester Police responded to a call at the Hampton Inn on the Woodbury Highway. The call was concerning an Attempted Armed Robbery at the hotel.

Suspect’s car


The suspect was seen on surveillance video as being a black male wearing a black and red hoodie and blue jeans. He is possibly traveling in a 4-door sedan.
If you have any information on this subject please contact Investigator Ray “Butch” Stewart at the Manchester Police Department, call 931-728-2099.

Mother of boy who Killed Classmate Pleads Guilty to Reckless Endangerment

Jennifer Amacher the mother of a middle-school-aged boy that was sentenced in the shooting death of 11-year-old Sienna Dusk Owens of Estill Springs, has pleaded guilty to three counts of reckless endangerment and will be on probation for three years.
She has also been ordered to serve 300 hours of community service and will pay $300 in fines and court costs.
She faced the charges because she was present at the home when the children gained access to a loaded firearm.
Amacher’s son, who was 12 at the time of the shooting at his home in 2015 on Honey Lane in Estill Springs, was ordered by Franklin County Juvenile Judge Thomas Faris to serve an indeterminate sentence. A review of the case has been set for March 8 and then evaluations every 90 days, according to the judge’s order.

Sheriff’s Department getting New Portable Radios

The Coffee County Sheriff’s Department is getting 40 portable radios. The radios will be used by deputies at a cost of $27,000, but none of that money is taxpayer money. The radios will be paid for out of the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department Drug Fund.
Sheriff Steve Graves said he wants to make sure each deputy is equipped with a portable radio.
The radios the sheriff’s department is planning on purchasing are similar to the older ones, but they are more up-to-date with today’s technology than the radios currently used.
Most of the money in the drug fund comes from drug-related cases that officers deal with throughout the year, including Bonnaroo.

Unemployment Rate stays the same as October

Tennessee’s unemployment rate for November was 4.8 percent, the same as the October rate. That’s according to Tennessee Labor Commissioner Burns Phillips. The U.S. unemployment rate for November was 4.6 percent, down three-tenths of a percentage point from the previous month.
Over the past year, Tennessee’s unemployment rate decreased from 5.6 percent to 4.8 percent, while the national rate also declined from 5.0 percent to 4.6 percent.
Total seasonally adjusted nonfarm employment decreased 2,800 jobs from October to November. The largest decreases occurred in leisure/hospitality, other services, & manufacturing.
Over the year, nonfarm employment increased 55,600 jobs. The largest increases occurred in education/health services, professional/business services, & trade/transportation/utilities.

Tennessee Babies born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome on the Rise

Tennessee is seeing a rise in the number of babies born drug dependent and most of those babies are in rural areas.
According to a new study with researchers from Vanderbilt University, the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota, an increasing number of newborns being born with drug withdrawal symptoms from opioids are in rural areas compared to births in urban areas.
A drug dependent baby will experience withdrawals shortly after birth; it’s called Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS).
Tennessee has one of the highest rates of NAS in the US.
There are also more opioid prescriptions in rural areas than in their urban and suburban counterparts. Tennessee has the second highest rate of opioid prescriptions in the US.
So far in 2016, 943 babies have been born with NAS and that number is rising.

LEGO League Tournament held in Tullahoma

Photo by Rob Clutter

A LEGO League Tournament was held at Tullahoma High School on Saturday. Area school teams participated in the event, including ones from Manchester and Tullahoma.
Tomorrow’s innovators practice imaginative thinking and teamwork during these types of events. Guided by adult Coaches, FIRST LEGO League teams research a real-world problem such as food safety, recycling, energy, etc., and are challenged to develop a solution. They also must design, build, program a robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS® technology, then compete on a table-top playing field.
It all adds up to tons of fun while they learn to apply science, technology, engineering, and math concepts (STEM), plus a big dose of imagination, to solve a problem. Along their discovery journey, they develop critical thinking and team-building skills, basic STEM applications, and even presentation skills, as they must present their solutions with a dash of creativity to judges.

Titans Rally to Beat Chiefs 19-17

In the coldest game in franchise history, Titans kicker Ryan Succophad ice water in his veins.

Succop nailed a 53-yard field goal on the final play of the game at the Titans rallied to beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 19-17.

Kickoff temperature was one degree with a wind chill of minus-9.

The Titans took over at their own 25-yard line with 1:07 left in the contest. Quarterback Marcus Mariota drove the team down the field, and put Succop in a position to win it.

Mariota completed 19-of-33 passes for 241 yards, along with an interception. Running back DeMarco Murray ran for 89 yards on 18 carries while Derrick Henry ran for 58 yards and two touchdowns on nine carries for the Titans.

The Titans (8-6) travel to Jacksonville next Saturday to face the Jaguars.

The Titans trailed throughout, but they rallied in the second half and had a chance to win it after a one-yard run by Derrick Henry made it 17-16 with just 3:12 remaining. The Titans tried to win it with a two-point conversion, but Mariota’s pass was incomplete.

But the Titans stopped the Chiefs, and got the ball back for a second chance.

The Titans got off to a miserable start, and they made it difficult on themselves throughout by committing three turnovers.

Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill ripped off a 68-yard touchdown on Kansas City’s second offensive play, making it 7-0 early.

The Titans appeared on the verge of quickly answering back, but receiver Rishard Matthews lost a fumble inside the Kansas City five-yard after making a catch, and the Chiefs cashed it in for more points. It became 14-0 when Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith ran it in from 11 yards out on a scramble.

But the Titans answered back, scoring on a four-yard touchdown run by running back Derrick Henry early in the second quarter to cap off a six-play, 87-yard drive and make it 14-7. Henry had five carries for 41 yards on the scoring drive.

The Titans turned the ball over twice in the first half. In addition to Matthews, Mariota also lost a fumble that was recovered by Chiefs linebacker Ramik Wilson. The turnovers snapped a streak of four consecutive games without a turnover for the Titans.

The Titans turned in a pair of goal line stands to keep Kansas City out of the end zone.

The first came in the second quarter, and it was capped off with back-to-back stops from the one-yard line on third and fourth down. On the fourth-down play from the one, safeties Kevin Byard and Daimon Stafford stopped Chiefs running back Spencer Ware for no gain.

The second came in the third quarter, and it ended with an intercepted in the end zone from rookie cornerback LeShaun Sims. On the play, Sims was covering Chiefs receiver Jeremy Maclin, and he stepped in front of him to end the drive and keep the game at 17-7 with 6:02 in the third quarter.

The Chiefs made it 17-7 at halftime on a 34-yard field goal by kicker Cairo Santos.

The two teams played a scoreless third quarter before Succop connected on a 39-yard field goal to make it 17-10 with 11:54 remaining.

Then came the late rally, which sets the stage for a big finish to the 2016 season.

Preds Fall to Rangers in Shootout

Juuse Saros made 26 saves through 65 minutes, but it wasn’t enough as the Nashville Predators fell 2-1 in a shootout to the New York Rangers on Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena. The result gives the Preds points in 13 of 16 home games this season and puts their overall record at 13-12-5.

Both goaltenders – Saros for the Preds and Henrik Lundqvist for the Rangers – turned in solid efforts, each holding the opposition to one regulation goal with the New York netminder turning aside 31 Predators chances on the night. Saros was especially impressive in the first 20 minutes of his fifth NHL start, making eight saves to keep his team in the game until they found the equalizer.

“I didn’t think we played very well in the first period; I thought we got a lot better in the second half of the game,” Head Coach Peter Laviolette said. “But the first period, for me, we turned the puck over too many times at their blue line. They have such good speed and good transitions, we knew we couldn’t do that. I think we did a better job of managing the puck in the second period and certainly in the third period.”

“We got scored on first in the last couple of games, but we have to give the other team credit,” defenseman Ryan Ellis said. “They’re working hard, they’re trying to make plays and score goals, too. Tonight was a good sign. [The Rangers] have a high-power attack; they score a lot of goals in this League, and [Saros] did a great job in net to hold that team to one goal and then go to a shootout.”

After giving up the first goal, Preds Captain Mike Fisher scored his 100th goal as a member of the Preds, beating Lundqvist at 9:22 of the middle frame to even the score at 1-1, his fourth goal in the last three games. The goaltenders stood tall the rest of the way and through overtime until the Rangers scored twice in the shootout to ice it.

“Both goalies had to be good,” Laviolette said. “I thought Juuse did an excellent job, especially early on against a team like that with so much speed and so much of an attack, a dynamic attack off the rush and off of transition that leads to a lot of opportunities.”

Nashville will now turn their attention to the road and a game in Philadelphia on Monday as they look for improvement away from home.

“We have to find ways to win and get rolling and move up in the standings,” Fisher said. “We know we can be better. We have to be better. [We] have to get back to the way we were playing a few weeks ago, and start getting some wins. We’re a confident group, and we have the guys in here to do it. We’re going to pick it up, and just keep improving and getting better.”

Notes:

Preds defenseman P.K. Subban missed Saturday’s game with an upper-body injury and is listed as day-to-day.

Defenseman Petter Granberg took Subban’s spot in the lineup and finished with four hits in 9:11 of ice time.

The Preds are set to head east as they prepare for a back-to-back set in Philadelphia and New Jersey, beginning Monday night against the Flyers.

Pete Weber’s Post Game Report