Have you ever dreamed of owning your own business? The City of Tullahoma, in partnership with the Tullahoma Chamber of Commerce and the Tullahoma Area Economic Development Corporation, will be sponsoring a Franchise Forum on Thursday, October 30th from 5 pm to 7 pm for anyone interested in owning a franchise. The event will be held at the Tullahoma Utilities Board, 901 South Jackson Avenue. Several regional and national franchisors have been invited to speak about their franchises and the requirements and process to becoming a potential franchisee. In addition, the panel of speakers will also feature several local...

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park entered the fall foliage season with nearly 9% more visitors, year to date. Figures released by the National Park Service showed 963,317 people came to the park in September – a 9.2% increase over September 2011. Through the first nine months of this year, visits were up 8.9%, meaning 602,000 more people have come to the Smokies this year than in the first three quarters of 2011. Park officials say September is a transition month that usually sees a slight lull in visits between Labor Day and the start of the “leaf peeper”...

This week the Manchester Head Start program went on field trip to visit the Manchester Fire & Rescue. On Wednesday morning (Oct. 17, 2012) over 25 children made the trip to the department’s Main Fire Station on the Hillsboro Blvd to learn about fire safety, tour the facility and look at the fire engines. Firefighter Keith Henderson talked to the children about fire...

Investigators are continuing to wait on evidence from the state crime lab in the murder of 24-year-old Megan Sharpton. The burned body of the young Tullahoma nursing student was found July 2 on the side of Awalt Road in Franklin County. Her Ford Mustang was found later that day sitting the middle of Three Forks Bridge Road in Bedford County. Since then, investigators have interviewed a number of individuals and collected a several pieces of evidence involved with the case and have sent that evidence to the TBI Crime Lab in Nashville for analysis. Franklin County District attorney Mike...

District Attorney Mickey Layne of Coffee County and fellow Tennessee district attorneys have kicked off a statewide campaign to fight the rising rates of prescription medication and synthetic drug abuse among Tennessee’s youth. The campaign is called Deceptive Danger, because Tennessee’s youth is deceived into thinking that any substance prescribed by a doctor or purchased in a convenience store is safe. The campaign also follows an increase in prescription medication and synthetic drug abuse in Tennessee. The rise in prescription drug abuse prompted law enforcement to focus their attention on fraudulent prescriptions, the operations of pain management clinics or...

Democrat Eric Stewart’s campaign says their new poll shows the 4th Congressional District hopeful in a statistical “dead heat” with Republican U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais. Pollster Andrew Myers said the survey of 400 likely voters shows DesJarlais, a Jasper physician, leading State Sen. Stewart of Winchester by 49-45 percent. The pollster says that it’s now a “dead heat” because it falls within the poll’s 4.9 percent margin of error. The polling was conducted Sunday and Monday in the wake of revelations that DesJarlais in 2000 encouraged a former patient with whom he had had a sexual relationship to get...

The Beechcraft Heritage Museum in Tullahoma plans to celebrate Beechcraft’s birthday as well as the 80th anniversary of the Staggerwing, 65th anniversary of the Bonanza, and 75th anniversary of the Beech 18 aircraft. This weekend Beech Party 2012 will commemorate these historical planes as well as other vintage aircraft from the “Golden Age of...

Yesterday (Oct. 17, 2012) a number of Coffee County residents took part in early voting. Poll workers at the C D Stamps in Tullahoma said around noon yesterday that the turnout was a little more than it was the last presidential election. Early voting continues through November 1 at the Stamps center and the election commission office at the administrative plaza in...