Category: News

According to information issued Friday by Grundy County Sheriff Clint Shrum, Grundy County deputies, Shelbyville police, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents have arrested five people on federal warrants on charges of conspiring to distribute drugs.
According to a report in the Chattanooga Times Free-Press, those arrested were Anthony Joseph Bosio, 43, and Jamie C. Sweeton, 41, both of Gruetli-Laager, Christopher Dean Land, 54, of Monteagle, Kenneth Britton, 38, of Whitwell, and Randy Stiefel, 52, of Coalmont.
Bosio was charged with conspiracy to distribute oxycodone; Land was charged with conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and burglary of a pharmacy, and aiding and abetting; Sweeton was charged with conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and burglary of a pharmacy; Britton was charged with conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and Stiefel was charged with conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and burglary of a pharmacy, according to Shrum.
Shrum said a break in the case first came on Sept. 22, 2015, when Robert F. “Bobby” Nunley II was arrested in Sevierville, Tenn., after the vehicle he was driving was identified as one of interest in an attempted pharmacy burglary at Lee’s Pharmacy in Sevierville.
Shrum said information from that case led to a search warrant at Nunley’s home and the identification of Nunley and others involved in a burglary at a Shelbyville pharmacy. Nunley was arrested and indicted in Kentucky earlier this year where he is currently incarcerated awaiting trial.
Shrum said the Monteagle Police Department and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office also assisted in the operation.
“This case is still very active,” Shrum said in the statement. “No further information will be released.”

President Barack Obama has signed a disaster declaration to speed federal recovery aid to victims of the recent deadly wildfires in a hard-hit eastern Tennessee county.
A White House statement says the declaration is intended to expedite federal funding for Sevier County, where fast-spreading flames claimed 14 lives and damaged or destroyed more than 2,500 homes, businesses and other buildings.
The declaration is to allow for grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners back on their feet, according to the statement issued in Washington.
Several firemen from Coffee County helped fight the fires in East Tennessee.

Motlow State Community College will bring back a wide selection of non-credit community courses beginning in January 2017, according to Tom Dillingham, director of workforce development and extended services.
“We are delighted to be bringing back the popular non-credit personal enrichment courses,” said Dillingham. “Our aim is to offer a wide array of courses, varying from Conversational Spanish and increasing an individual’s knowledge of computer systems, to various types of yoga and Ballroom Dancing.”
Courses will be spread over Motlow’s campuses in Smyrna, Moore County, McMinnville and Fayetteville as the College looks to further increase its presence and role in the local communities.
“We have a talented team of instructors who are excited about the opportunity to pass on their knowledge and passion to members of our communities,” added Dillingham.
The courses will be offered through the Workforce Development and Extended Services office. For further information about the courses, email workforce@mscc.edu, or visit the department web site at www.mscc.edu/wdes.

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.
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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.