Category: News

Coffee County schools would like to inform the Manchester students in the school system about their bus service changes for this new year. All high School students in Manchester will be picked up at their usual bus stops located throughout Manchester City Limits. These buses will not have markings on the outside of them making them designated for the high school. The Raider Academy (9th grade) buses will also stop at these same stops within Manchester. These buses will have a large 9 on the right front corner of the bus. The Coffee County school system will be asking students to check and make sure they are on the correct bus by asking your bus driver if needed. Coffee County schools are excited about the start of this new school year and hope that they can meet the needs of your student. Please feel free to call 931-723-5157 if you have any questions about your student’s routes or bus stops.
Coffee County schools begin their 2014-15 year on Tuesday for an abbreviated day, releasing at 10 AM. First full day is Thursday. Manchester City begins on Friday August 1, releasing at 9 AM and the first full day is Monday August 4. In Tullahoma, city schools will begin on Tuesday (July 29) with students dismissed at 1 PM and the first full day will be July 30.

A mother from Manchester and a man from Murfreesboro, both missing since earlier this week, have allegedly been spotted at a location in New Orleans.
Murfreesboro police spokesperson Kyle Evans said the Coffee County Sheriff’s Office was able to confirm through video evidence and other means that Brooke Roberts and Noah Bodwell recently visited an unnamed location in Louisiana.
Coffee County Sheriff Steve Graves said they have NOT confirmed any of this information at this time and this is an open case until law enforcement makes contact with the two people that have been reported as missing.
Roberts, 30, was last seen Monday at the Harper’s Point Apartments in Murfreesboro where she worked as a leasing agent. Bodwell who lives at the apartment complex apparently has not been heard from since Monday as well.
Her SUV was found at the nearby Cason Trailhead greenway.
Investigators believe that the two parked Roberts’s SUV at the nearby Cason Trailhead Greenway where it was found because it was a safe location to leave the vehicle.
Any information about the pair please contact Coffee County Investigator Jason Dendy at 723-3004.

To better inform the voters before the Aug. 7 Coffee County General and Manchester Municipal Elections, the Manchester Times and Thunder Radio teamed up last night (July 24) for a candidate forum at the Manchester-Coffee County Conference Center.
In total, 23 candidates from seven county-wide races and one city race were invited to participate in the event.
Candidates for District Attorney, Manchester Alderman and County Mayor participated in the forum sessions.
Candidates for Coffee County Trustee, General Sessions Judge, Register of Deeds, Road Superintendent and County Clerk spoke between forum events.
If you could not make it to the event, hear the live broadcast on Thunder Radio or would just like to listen to the candidates again you can download any of the various segments on the downloads page at www.wmsrradio.com.

Three advocacy groups have filed a class action lawsuit against the state of Tennessee for allegedly failing to provide certain services as required by the federal health care law.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Tennessee Justice Center and the National Health Law Program.
It follows a letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that was sent to state officials last month, accusing them of failing to meet six of seven critical success factors required by the health care law.
According to the lawsuit, the state has failed to let people know within 45 days.

They are some of Tennessee’s most pristine areas, and a new study shows national parks are not just great places to spend the day but also major drivers of the local economy. In 2013, said National Park Service spokesman Jeffrey Olson, national parks in Tennessee saw more than 8 million visitors, “and together those visitors spent more than $530 million. That supported 7,634 jobs in the state.” The report also shows that Great Smoky Mountains National Park remains the country’s most popular destination in the National Park System, with more than 9 million combined visitors in the park in Tennessee and North Carolina last year alone. Overall, there were more than 270 million visits to national parks across the nation last year, with related spending at nearly $15 billion and some 240,000 jobs supported. “Of all the jobs that we identified as supported by visitor spending in national parks, the bulk of those far and away – I think it was 197,000 – are in these local communities near national parks,” Olson said. “So, this visitation and the jobs have a big impact on those local communities.” July is “National Park and Recreation Month,” during which people across the United States are encouraged to get out of the house and check in on nature. The report is online at nature.nps.gov.

Today (July 25) is a momentous day in Coffee County. Belma Silva is retiring from the Coffee County Circuit Court clerk’s office. Belma has worked for the Circuit Court clerk’s office since July 15, 1967. That’s right…..for 47 years!
Belma’s work family expressed how much she has been appreciated during her tenure in the Circuit Court clerk’s office.
A little bird told us that Belma is a loyal listener to Thunder Radio and especially loves to hear the Atlanta Braves baseball games broadcast here, on her hometown station.
Belma received a special message from baseball hall of famer Don Sutton.