Category: News

Fire heavily damaged a house on Ovoca Road Wednesday afternoon.
The Tullahoma Fire Department was called to 1203 Ovoca around 1 p.m. where they found flames coming from the front of the home of Gerald Gibson and family.
According to Fire Chief Richard Shasteen, the fire was started by a 5-year-old playing with a lighter who set a bedroom on fire and then the rest of the house caught fire. An individual in the house, Lloyd Chadwick, tried to extinguish the blaze but was unable to do so. He was transported to Harton Regional Medical Center where was treated and later transferred to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville for observation.
Gibson, his daughter Gabriel Osteen and her two children were in the house at the time of the fire but escaped without injury.
There were four dogs in the house at the time of the fire. A Chihuahua and another small dog were overcome by the smoke and firefighter Dwight Stephens attempted to revive both them but was unable to save them, while the other two dogs were retrieved without any injuries.

State officials say 961 people died on Tennessee roadways last year, the second lowest number since 1963 and only the fifth time traffic deaths have dipped below 1,000 since that year.
It is also a 3.4 percent decrease in traffic-related deaths from 2013 when 995 people were killed.
THP Col. Tracy Trott credits DUI and seat belt enforcement for the decline in traffic-related deaths. Troopers arrested 2,000 more people in 2014 than in 2013 for suspicion of DUI. Alcohol-related fatalities dropped 18.6 percent from year to year.
Last year, troopers issued 102,758 seat belt citations, around 28,000 more than the previous year.
Col. Trott said unrestrained motorists still accounted for 50 percent of vehicle occupants killed in 2014.
Speed accounted for 132 of the deaths, and distracted driving accounted for 41.

On January 9th, 2015, Concerns of Police Survivors, Inc. (C.O.P.S.) and partnering organizations will unite in support of law enforcement officers nationwide to promote a National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day (L.E.A.D.). It is an opportunity to show law enforcement officers that our citizens recognize the difficult career they have chosen, in public service to us all.
Each day 780,000 police officers across our country put a badge on and go to work knowing they may face extremely dangerous situations. Yet, they go to work anyway. Being a law enforcement officer is not just a job, it is a calling, and there is sometimes little appreciation. Yet, they do it anyway.
What the public doesn’t see is the toll law enforcement takes to keep our communities safe. On average, between 105 and 203 officers die in the line of duty each year, 50,000 officers are assaulted in the line of duty each year, 14,000 officers are injured in the line of duty each year, and over 300 officers commit suicide each year. There is no other profession in the world, except possibly the military, where you will find these kinds of statistics.

Authorities say they will test nearly 100 people at a Middle Tennessee school for tuberculosis after a student tested positive for the disease.
Dr. Lori MacDonald, medical officer for the state’s Mid-Cumberland region, told The Daily News Journal the Rutherford County student who tested positive had a “very low” bacteria count and it is unlikely there would be any more positive cases.
However, officials plan to test nearly 100 students and staff members at Smyrna High School, where the patient attended.
District officials say the student hasn’t attended classes since early December.

Two Tennessee towns will lose nearly 2,000 jobs over the next three years as Goodman Manufacturing moves the positions to a new plant being built in Texas.
Goodman officials announced on Tuesday that the company plans to consolidate operations at a campus in Houston, which is expected to open in 2016.
The company has about 1,200 workers in Fayetteville, making it the largest employer in a town with about 7,000 residents. A smaller factory in Dayton employs about 700 workers.
Goodman said employees will have the option of making the move with the company or taking a severance package that includes two years of free college and assistance finding other work.
City officials say the advance notice should help soften the blow to the communities.
Several people from Coffee County work at the Fayetteville plant.

Manchester Chamber of Commerce has announced the hiring of Terri Hudson as its new director. Hudson comes to Manchester from her hometown of Richmond, KY. She brings more than 10 years of experience in non-profit organizations. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Eastern Kentucky University and is a graduate of Leadership Madison County and Leadership Central Kentucky.
Most recently, Hudson served as the Vice President of Operations at Bluegrass Tomorrow, a non-profit central Kentucky regional planning and quality of life organization. She was also a job coach and class facilitator at Kentucky River Foothills, a non-profit social services agency.
Before that, she spent five years at the Richmond Chamber of Commerce. It was there that Hudson says she grew professionally, fell in love with chamber work, and gained the knowledge and experience to make a chamber successful. During her tenure, the Richmond chamber experienced exponential growth in membership, member and community engagement, as well as revenues for major events. Her leadership with their Business and Education Partnership committee laid the foundation for Richmond’s recent Work Ready Community status.
Carla Clay, President Elect 2015 said, “The Executive Committee interviewed several promising candidates for the Executive Director position. Terri Hudson embodied all of the traits and expertise for which the committee was searching. I know 2015 will be a great year for The Manchester Area Chamber of Commerce with someone of Terri’s experience leading the way.”

The Coffee and Franklin County Communications Districts and Emergency Communication Districts filed suit recently in United States Eastern District Court in Chattanooga against Windstream Holdings Inc., Windstream Corp., Windstream Communications Inc. and Windstream Norlight Inc. of Little Rock, Ark. to recover $75,000 plus interest by each communication district. The suit is filed under the Tennessee False Claims Act.
The communication districts allege in their suit that the company has not been properly paying them for phone lines that the company controls. By law each phone user pays a surcharge for 911 service and that money is supposed to go to the communication districts.
The suit alleges that the Coffee County Emergency Communications District has levied a monthly 911 charge of 55 cents for each residential phone line and $1.75 for each business line. While the Franklin County Communication District has a fee of 65 cents for residential lines and $2 for business lines and they depend on those funds being collected by the company and paid to the districts by the company.
The suit alleges that the company supplies caller identification per each phone line that is in use in the respected counties and is supposed to report the number of lines to the communication districts. But they allege that the company has not been properly providing the proper amount of funds to the communication districts.
The suit also alleges several other issues and the lawsuit and this story only presents one side of the legal matter. (Thanks to the Tullahoma News)

The following information is provided by local fire departments.
You can help prevent a portable heater fire in your home this winter by following a few fire safety steps:
• Turn heaters off when you go to bed or leave a room.
• Keep anything that can burn, including bedding, clothing, curtains, pets and people at least three feet away from portable heaters.
• Only use portable heaters from a recognized testing laboratory and with an automatic shut-off so that if they tip over, they shut off.
• Plug portable heaters directly into outlets and never into an extension cord or power strip.
• Check the cord for fraying, cracking and look for broken wires or signs of overheating in the device itself.
• Never run the heater cord (or any cord) under rugs or carpeting.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, having a working smoke alarm reduces a person’s chance of dying in a fire by half. For the best protection, install smoke alarms on every level of your home, outside every sleeping area and in every bedroom, and interconnect them if possible. Test smoke alarms monthly and entirely replace any smoke alarm that is 10 years old or older.
Develop and practice a home fire escape plan with every member of your household. Have two ways out of every room and a designated outside meeting place to gather in the event of an emergency.