Motlow State Community College’s Moore County and Smyrna campuses will open up computer labs from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 1, for area high school seniors to sign up for Tennessee Promise. Motlow State staff will assist students in registering for Tennessee Promise, applying to Motlow State, and completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The Tennessee Promise is Governor Bill Haslam’s program to provide two years of community college or technical school tuition. Tennessee Promise is part of the Drive to 55 initiative to increase the number of Tennesseans with some form of...

After a problem was identified by the State Fire Marshal’s Office $225,000 will be reimbursed to Coffee County. The money coming back to the county is because of a problem with the smoke evacuation system at the county jail. Because of the problems with the smoke evacuation system, inmates were not moved until May 2015. Also, the county had to spend more than $300,000 additionally for upgrades to the smoke system in order to comply with the state’s standards. After months of negotiations, Centric Architecture, SSR and the county reached an agreement in August. The two companies will pay...

Special Agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation have obtained an indictment for a Fayetteville man in connection with the death of an infant earlier this year. At the request of 17th District Attorney General Robert Carter, TBI Special Agents joined detectives with the Fayetteville Police Department in investigating the May 18th death of 3-month-old Tony Carter. On that day, officers with the Fayetteville Police Department responded to an apartment at 1768 Winchester Highway, where they found the infant unresponsive. During the course of the investigation, Agents developed information that Casey Ryan Dollar, who was babysitting the child, was...

The Tennessee Highway Patrol has identified the man killed in a Wednesday morning wreck in Marion County as 32-year-old Matthew Ross Burke of Seymour, Indiana. Preliminary investigation reports state that the semi was traveling west bound on Interstate 24 near mile marker 141 in Monteagle. The driver attempted to negotiate a curve to the left and ran off the roadway on the right side. The vehicle overturned, losing part of its cargo before coming to rest on its wheels. The driver of the semi was not wearing his seat belt and died on impact. The passenger was the driver’s...

Following up on our story of freighting clowns in the area and also in Chattanooga, two juvenile Red Bank Middle School students, described as both male, were charged by the HCSO for making online threats against schools via social media. These threats were directed to Red Bank High and Red Bank Middle Schools and were first reported Tuesday night to authorities. A joint investigation between the HCSO, Red Bank Police Department, and administrators with the HCDE, led to the discovery of these two students based on information they received as being responsible for the clown threat made against Red...

Recent claims concerning scary clowns frightening people that have been heard in other parts of the country have now been heard here in our area. The Coffee County Sheriff’s Department received a call about a possible incident in Summitville Monday night concerning a clown cutting an individual. Deputies responded to the area and conducted a search for the clown, but no clown was found Sheriff department officials say that the department is checking the report out. The spokesperson said, “We check all reports to prove or disprove such claims.” Coffee County Sheriff Steve Graves says, “People in Tennessee carry...

While Coffee County Deputy Eric Clem was patrolling the Prairie Plains area of Hillsboro on Monday night around 10:45pm he observed a structure fire at 1853 Prairie Plains road. Hillsboro Fire Department was called to the scene along with other departments. Clem says in his report that flames were coming out from under the front porch area of the roof and from the living room window area of the house. He also said that he noticed that both eves of the house had a tremendous amount of black smoke coming from them along with the garage door area as...