Category: News

Mayor Lane Curlee and the Tullahoma Board of Aldermen are pleased to announce that US Air Force Colonel Scott Cain, commander of the Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC) at Arnold Air Force Base will be the featured speaker at the City of Tullahoma’s annual Veterans Day Ceremony. Veterans and the public are invited to attend the Veterans Day Ceremony to be held on Friday, November 10 at the South Jackson Civic Center at 404 South Jackson Street at 10:45 am. At this time, the City of Tullahoma will pause to honor America’s veterans and celebrate their contributions to our nation’s security. After the ceremony there will be a reception with refreshments.
Complete details and schedule at Tullahomatn.gov.

Last week the Manchester Police Department and the Coffee County Rescue Squad conducted a search for a missing man. Anthony Lee Mathis, age 54 of Manchester, had been missing since Sunday, October 22.
As Manchester Police continued to search for Mathis on Monday, they located a deceased male body near Century and Spring St. The body was found in a deep ravine close to the railroad tracks. The body was determined to be that of Anthony Lee Mathis.
Investigator Brandon Tomberlin said police believe that no foul play was involved in the death.

Walgreens recently announced plans to close almost 600 stores as part of a deal with Rite Aid. Most of the stores will be Rite Aid locations. According to the Associated Press the company did not disclose which locations will be closed.
According to the report, the vast majority being closed are within one mile of another drugstore that they will own after the deal that is expected to be completed in the spring.
Walgreens has one store in Manchester and another in Tullahoma. The Manchester location is within a few hundred yards from a Rite Aid location.

Tennessee is moving in the right direction when it comes to eliminating racial disparities for children and their families. That’s according to an index included in a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the “2017 Race for Results.”
White children still have better outcomes in education and family income than children of color, and Linda O’Neal with the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth says specific solutions exist to continue closing that gap.
“We know in Tennessee we can improve outcomes over the long term, if we provide evidence-based programs like home visiting, such as quality early childhood and pre-kindergarten programs that help children get off to a great start,” she says.
Using the report’s index, with a scale of one to 1,000, the state scored 346 for African-Americans in the state and slightly higher for Hispanics. It scored 625 for whites. Tennessee’s data has smaller gaps among demographic groups, compared with most states.
Nationally, the report data shows improvement in the majority of indicators compared with a similar report released in 2014.
Laura Speer, the associate director of policy reform and advocacy at the Casey Foundation, says kids are the future parents, future workers and future leaders of our country.
“As they get older, these kids are going to drive local and state economies,” she notes. “They’re going to contribute to their communities and they’re really going be the driving force in ensuring that we’re all better off in the long run.”
Another bright note highlighted in the report is the state has a higher percentage of children graduating from high school compared with national averages. O’Neal says it’s all part of a larger investment in the state.
“We know all children are the economic engine for the future, and what we do for them today really will determine the kind of workers they will be tomorrow and will be so important for economic development,” she explains.
The report recommends keeping families together and in their communities, helping children in immigrant families access early-childhood education and increasing opportunities for parents.

Officials say tnAchieves, the organization that administers the Tennessee Promise program, is in need of some 4,000 more mentors. Coffee County has a goal of 84 mentors for 2018.
Each Tennessee Promise applicant is paired with a mentor who helps the student in navigating the student process.
Tennessee Promise enables high school graduates to attend a Tennessee Community College or College of Applied Technology tuition-free.
The deadline to apply to be a mentor is December 1st. You can find an application online at tnachieves.org .

The 34th annual Sportsmen and Businessmen will conduct their fundraising event on November 4, 2017 at the Manchester/Coffee County Conference Center. The fun starts at 5pm and will include dinner, live music by the Sound Dawgs, dancing, a reverse raffle and their one-of-a-kind live and silent auctions.
The reverse raffle will have a grand prize of $5,000. Tickets are still on sale for the raffle for $25 each of 5 for $100.
The money goes to help people in need and donations are tax deductible. For more information call 931-728-5048.

Around 200-400 white nationalists arrived in Shelbyville on Saturday for a planned rally, but they were met by 400-600 counter-protesters along with a heavy police front.
The streets were full of police officers from across the state including some from the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department and Manchester Police Department. K-9 units and armored trucks also filled the streets between the two rallies. Officers were also seen on horses and helicopters; drones along with snipers were above the crowd. Reportedly only one arrest was made in Shelbyville.
Another white nationalist event was planned for Murfreesboro, but that event was cancelled. Listen to the report below for more information from Bryan Barrett of WGNS Radio News.

The Director of Grundy County Schools Jessie Kinsey was served a subpoena last week by Grundy Co. Sheriff Clint Shrum.
The subpoena requested records from the Grundy County Schools central office regarding hazing, abuse or sexual abuse over the past five years in the school system.
The school system has 30 days to respond to the subpoena.
Five football players at Grundy County High School are accused of trying to rape a freshman player earlier this month.
Coffee County juvenile judge, Tim Brock, has been selected to preside over the case.
The court date of November 15 is still a possibility. Attorneys will have a conference call with the Judge Brock to discuss the case further.

This year seventeen Westwood Middle School 8th graders are excited to present three Halloween-themed radio shows for WMSR Thunder Radio. The shows will air Halloween Night beginning at 8pm.
A few of those seventeen are playing more than one role. These students have developed a camaraderie during rehearsals and have pulled together as a team for each performance. Rob Clutter has been a patient teacher during the recording of each show, and the students are delighted with the finished products. They hope the audience on Halloween will be as well!
In A Vengeful Corpse, a tale that first aired in 1949, a woman burned at the stake for being a witch seems to be walking the earth hundreds of years later to exact revenge on the descendants of those who prosecuted her.
Margaret Keeton, Ishan Vaidya, Derrick Scott, Maddy Lovell, Mariah Nunley, and Solomon Reynolds perform in this show with Jaxen Waggoner running sound.
Ghost Hunt features a radio disc jockey spending the night in a haunted house as a publicity stunt. She is a skeptic, but she takes along a psychic investigator, who immediately senses paranormal activity. What the disc jockey sees or THINKS she sees drives her to madness.
Ghost Hunt showcases Jaxen Waggoner, Olivia Kilpatrick, Genevieve Garner, Macie Lawrence, Hannah Rogers, and Lauren Perry running sound.
Baby Snooks and Daddy’s Halloween Show is a comedy show made famous by Fanny Brice in the 1940s. In this episode Daddy won’t let Snooks outside on Halloween so that she won’t get into any trouble; however, it’s Daddy himself that ends up in a war of pranks.
The Halloween Show casts spotlights Jacelle Perry, Derrick Scott, Lauren Perry, Thelma Norris, William Barron. Caroline Ballard and Emily Whitten run sound also play characters in the show.
Teacher Karen Lewis said, “I am very proud of the growth these students have made in their creativity and problem-solving as they have developed these shows over the past three weeks.”