Late obituaries: Parris and Campbell

Shortly after the printed edition of The Crittenden Press was on the streets today, we received a couple of late obituaries, one from Boyd Funeral Home in Salem and the other from Evansville.

John Ruben Parris, 73, of Paducah died Tuesday, March 11 at his residence. Griveside services will be at 1 p.m., Sunday, March 16 with burial at Loveless Chapel Cemetery in Livingston County.

Kenneth Campbell, 65, of Evansville died Tuesday, March 11 at New Harmonie Healthcare Center. He was born Sept. 10, 1942, in Crittenden County. His funeral is at 2 p.m., Saturday at Alexander North Chapel with burial to be at Liberty Cemetery in Cynthiana.

A complete obituary will printed in next week's newspaper.

Neighborhood Watch

Here's an old-fashioned Neighborhood Watch with a high-tech twist.

John Walsh from America's Most Wanted has helped develop a Family Watch Dog Web site that allows you to type in your zip code or other geographical information to get a bird's eye view of the convicted criminals living nearby.

It's worth a look. Go to http://www.familywatchdog.us/ and put in your zip, city or state. A map will pop up showing where sex offenders and other criminals live in your community.

Tax cigs to supplement fuel

Kentucky's House Revenue and Appropriations Committee voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to tack on another 25 cents to the price of a pack of cigarettes to boost the state's troubled budget. A pack of Malboros would cost $3.36 a pack if the measure is passed by the full House and later the Senate.

Gov. Beshear wanted to raise the cigarette tax by 70 cents. It's a shame he hasn't found enough support to get it done. How about going ahead and upping it the extra 45cents to supplement our fuel prices with the tobacco tax. Now that would suit me just fine.

Marion should take a bold step and become one of the smallest cities in Kentucky to ban smoking in public buildings. There are several restaurants in town where I seldom, if ever, go because of the smoke. And of course, that's my choice.

Another problem I have is watching kids climb out of a car where the parent, or whoever is driving, is pulling puffs off a cigarette. The kids don't have a choice.

More crazy cat stuff

Last week I wrote about the cougar hoax making its rounds on the Internet. Dozens of people sent me emails of the wildcat allegedly photographed near Mattoon. As I explained a week or so ago, those were not taken in Crittenden County.

Again, I have been bombarded this week with photos of a mountain lion allegedly killed near Cadiz. I have ignored this one – in light of the previous faux cat. WPSD-TV in Paducah, however, has taken up the mantle and shot down the recent madness. You can read about their pumping holes into the latest cougar story here.

For goodness sakes, let's quit promoting the craziness by moving these western wildcats across the Web and trying to pass them off as western Kentucky kitties!

A-gassed by prices

Aghast, the price of gasoline may go to $4 a gallon. Already, our nation's fuel prices have gone up more than 100 percent in the past couple of years. It's stifling commerce and spiking consumer credit to all-time highs.

Who do we have to thank for it? Partly the Chinese because their demand is increasing. Partly, we Americans who have failed to embrace alternative energy. But largely, OPEC is to blame. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries can stabilize, or destabilize, the world oil market. Here are the 13 countries that make up OPEC: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. The cartel imposes its own output quotas to keep prices where they want them. Do you think any of hose countries are crying in their sweet crude because we Americans are in a pinch?

The motivation for those countries is partly their disdain for us. Our own corporate greed only adds to the consumer's woes.

Aghast!

Monday update

Starting off the work week, The Crittenden Press is tracking down information on a new story regarding vandalism at the high school late last week. Someone painted explicit messages on the school, gymnasium and even sprayed down some private vehicles parked nearby on Elm Street. Tipline is offering a $500 reward for a conviction of the persons responsible. Call 965-3000 to leave a tip and remain anonymous.

Got an update on Steffany Smith-Lester, the 21-year-old pregnant woman hurt in a Feb. 12 accident on the Ledbetter Bridge. Sheriff Wayne Agent, who is friends with the family, said he went to Vanderbilt Hospital last weekend to visit the young woman. She underwent hip surgery Sunday and remains in a coma. Her 16-week-old unborn child remains in pretty good condition. While Smith-Lester remains in very critical condition, there are some small signs of improvement.

Amy Hill-Tabor, the young woman from Marion seriously injured in an accident in Bowling Green a couple of weeks ago, has been moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation center in Marshall County. Her condition has not shown much improvement, however.

We were saddened by the death of Evan Shelby over the weekend. Shelby lived on the golf course and always surprised me how he could play golf with one hand. He had lost one of his hands in an accident years ago.

Stayed tuned for The Crittenden Press printed edition for an update on these and other stories.

Snowstick says 4

According to the trusty Farmers Bank blue ruler, we got four inches of snow overnight Friday. This morning's bright sunshine on the brilliantly white snow, make shades a necessity.

If you had more than four inches anywhere in Crittenden County, let us know. We'll report our findings later, either here or in The Crittenden Press printed edition. Email me at evans@the-press.com.

Road conditions throughout the state can be found athttp://www.511.ky.gov/ by calling 511 in Kentucky or 1-866-737-3767 for out-of-state callers.

Former Murray State player charged

Nick Turner, who was an All-OVC football player at Murray State in 2005, has been charged with murder in DeKalb County, Georgia. Turner, 24, allegedly killed Dermonde Broadus "when a drug deal ... went bad," according to the Associated Press.

You can read the AP Story here, or go to the Murray State News and read about Turner when he played football there.

Turner was kicked off the team at Mississippi State before transferring to Murray State.

March madness

Try as we might, western Kentucky can't seem to shake Old Man Winter. He came pouring down on us again Friday, creating accidents and filling the grocery store lines with folks armed with gallons of milk and metric tons of bread.

Just before dark, our cameras caught Marion Marion Mickey Alexander closing down his investment firm and heading across town toward home. Howling winds and blowing snow will make this a nice night for a warm fire.

Wildcat country?

Kentucky is known for its Wildcats, but predominately those on the basketball court. Some think a new form of cat is moving into the area and the hysteria surrounding sightings of mountain lions has intensified in western Kentucky.

The recent photographs circulated around via email among many local residents were not taken in Crittenden County, according to a person as close to the original source as I can get. The photos were of a mountain lion in another state. Fish and wildlife folks have looked at the photos, too. They say it's a cub and therefore the photos had to have been taken in the fall, in a place were early snowfall is common. Cougars have their young in the spring and the one in the photo appears to be about 5-6 months old.

With that hoax cleared up, here's some cat food for thought. Cougars are indeed leaving their normal ranges out West and moving in this direction. The migration is well documented. USA Today recently published an article regarding mountain lions moving into the Midwest and South.

The real test locally will be when someone brings in a carcass in the bed of a pickup truck. Up to now, we don't have that. One Crittenden County resident has been proven to have a cougar hide which he says came from a cat harvested near Dycusburg several years ago. My attempts to interview the man in regard to the matter have been unsuccessful. Authorities say the cougar hide is authentic, but they are not sure of where it was killed, or purchased.

For now, Kentuckians are going to have to stick with Billy Clyde's 'Cats.

The inset photo is one of the pictures circulating across the Internet. I cannot tell you its origin, but I can, with a great deal of certainty, tell you that this cat was not in the commonwealth when it smiled for the camera. My apologies to the originator of this photo for not providing correct attribution. When I know who took it, I will share that with our readers.

Football Friday

It's Friday across Kentucky and that always means football in the fall. Now, in the closing days of winter, that again means football for many high schools (that are not out for snow). Spring practice started this week for most teams.

The Kentucky High School Athletic Association allows teams to practice football in the spring once basketball seasons for both girls and boys are over.

Football coaches have 15 school days from the end of basketball season to get in 10 football spring practice days.

Crittenden County started this week. Players were issued gear Tuesday and workouts began yesterday. The Rockets are without head coach Al Starnes right now, however. He had a third spinal surgery Monday. Everything went well and he's expected to be back on the field to some limited degree next week. In his absence, coach Vince Clark is at the helm. Coach Starnes has suffered from chronic back and neck pain for years, a least partly due to the licks he took while playing football at Murray State.

This year, Crittenden is expected to have a good season as most of its regulars return from last season's 4-7 squad. Despite a poor start last fall, the Rockets won 4 of their last 5 games and took Mayfield to the edge in the playoffs before losing by three points.

RB Jeramie Sorina, RB Rodney Robertson, LB Gaige Courtney and QB J.D. Gray will be the building blocks on which this year's team will be formed. They are all in camp this week and Sorina just finished a very successful outing at the Nike Camp in Georgia. He finished among the top 20 out of hundreds of potential college recruits.

The inset photo is of Sorina (4) and Gray (14) tracking down a Caldwell player last season.

County passes insurance tax

The Crittenden County Fiscal Court approved the controversial insurance premium tax during its special meeting this morning.

Magistrates, however, amended the original proposal of a 4-percent tax before casting the favorable vote. The approved version levies a 2-percent tax on all insurance premiums, excluding health, life and worker's compensation. The amended version of the tax ordinance passed by a 5-1 margin with Magistrate Greg West casting the only dissenting vote.

About 40 people attended the meeting. The vote was taken after more than 2 hours of discussion on the issue.

Check out the video below that shows the voting process.

Thursday's not as blue

Here are a few of the things this country newspaper editor will be working on today.

1. The Crittenden County Fiscal Court meets at 9 a.m., to discuss, among other issues, a new insurance premium tax. The proposed tax has created a firestorm on controversy in the community. In less than 2 hours, we should know whether we're going to get it or not.

2. Marion Tourism Director Michele Edwards is collaborating with Eddyville tourism specialists on a new marketing campaign that targets summertime lake goers. "Barkley By Buggy" will focus on Henderson, Ky., and Evansville, Ind., tourists. It will encourage those heading to Barkley Lake to take the backroads on the way, check out the Crittenden County Amish community and invite them to stop in at Marion's antique shops. The plan will center on advertisements in movie theaters in the Evansville market. We'll have a story in next week's Press.

3. A group of people, here and elsewhere in the nation, are encouraging Americans to dress in Blue on Fridays as a show of support to our U.S. troops serving in the Middle East. Marty McKinney of Marion forwarded me an email late yesterday regarding the effort. So get Blue for Friday!

4. Next week, The Press is publishing its annual Home and Garden Special Section. Amid the valuable advertising messages, we will be including some local stories on area home builders and even tell you about the benefits of piers on your farm pond.

To Iraq with love

Every few weeks I bump into Lee Gardella, whose son is serving in Iraq with the military. Gardella is a tireless supporter of her son and the other troops over there. She runs marathons to raise awareness for a war that many of us forget about during our daily lives. She also spends countless hours organizing, collecting and mailing materials to soldiers she's never met before.

Gardella gets a good bit of help from local individuals and businesses, but needs more. She's always looking for new things to send to the troops. She shared with me a letter she received back from a mail clerk in Iraq. He stressed to her how important those packages she sends nearly every week are to the men and women over there fighting a war that has become increasingly unpopular for most Americans.

Gardella could use your help and it won't take long. Just send her a letter that she can forward to the troops in Iraq. Something simple is fine. Thank them for the job they are doing over there. You can email your letter to her at ljgardella@gmail.com.

If you want to do more, she is constantly looking for items to send to the soldiers. They need sun screen, socks, DVDs, and non-perishable candy and snack items. She mails 2-4 large boxes a week to Iraq. Gardella even scavengers through CVS Pharmacy's trash for old magazines and sends them to the troops. CVS lets her have the outdated reading material after the front covers are torn off the magazines to make sure they're not used for resale anywhere.

Latest obituary

A clip from this week's obituaries in the printed edition of The Crittenden Press:

Winter
Old Man Winter died early Wednesday morning when 40-plus degree weather took its inevitable toll on Winter's last breath of snow.

Winter was preceded in death by Bradford Pear and Red Bud, but survived by Yellow Daffodil and Purple Tulip, both of whom will act as pallbearers.

Funeral services for Old Man Winter will be officially held on March 20 with Bro. Vernal Equinox officiating. Burial will be at the City of Marion Debris Field off Depot Street.

All joking aside, winter is surely gone, evidenced by the fact that last night's snow was no match for the Sun's early morning rays. Despite the fact that winter's grasp is loosening, there remain a few scars. Donnie Morgan Phillips told me yesterday that his company, Kentucky Utilities, is still reconnecting electricity at homes damaged by the ice storm three weeks ago. Those of course are anomalies, but nonetheless troublesome for those still living in the dark.

The inset picture was the last taken of Old Man Winter in 2008. Look closely and you will see three whitetailed deer in the frame.

Ease up Mom!

Mother Nature continues delivering a taste of winter even though Spring is just around the corner. Another snowfall blankets Crittenden County tonight. The wintry white stuff started falling just before dark and now, at 7:30 p.m., is accumulating on the ground, contrary to predictions by our local TV weather forecasters.

Over the past year, Mother Nature has handed us a hard, late spring freeze, record heat, a bitter drought, the worst ice storm in decades and now she's topping us off with a March snowfall.

Come on Mom! We're ready for spring. The tulips are already poking up in the flower bed out front of The Press office and this morning I saw some green daffodil shoots shivering in the 20 mph, 32-degree winds. 

Come on Spring!

Suspect sought in teen picture case

Marion police are investigating a possible child pornography case. An arrest warrant for Billy Wayne Holland, 49, of 119 Old Salem Road was issued recently, but police have been unable to locate the suspect since they took several items from his home as evidence on Feb. 24. After reviewing the evidence, the arrest warrant was issued, but by then, police say, Holland had skipped town. 

Holland is charged with one count of possession of matter portraying sexual performance by a minor, allegedly a photograph of a partially naked teen. Anyone with information regarding his whereabouts should contact the Marion Police Department at 965-3500.

For more on this story, turn to The Crittenden Press printed edition which will be on newsstands Wednesday afternoon.

Hold the newspaper obituary

The new-wave media has been ringing the death-knell of newspapers for the last several years, but studies show that it would be very premature to write an obituary for community newspapers such as The Crittenden Press.

The National Newspaper Association recently completed its second readership survey in the past three years. What it found was that 83 percent of adults read community newspapers. Of those, 32 percent read daily. Forty-five percent read their hometown newspapers, 20 percent watch TV for local news and less than four percent turn to the Internet for local information.

Understand, too, that Internet readership is up. We are seeing that at The Press Online. According to the NNA survey, 76 percent of people with Internet service visited their local newspaper's Web site within the past week. However, only seven percent reported daily viewing of the newspaper online.

The strong readership numbers are in stark contrast to various sources that say newspapers are on their way out. Large dailies certainly may be in trouble within the near future, but the small, community-based newspapers are going to be here for a long time.

Eventually, we all will be holding a piece of paper embedded with nanotechnology-supplied microprocessors that will make the page light up like the screen of your computer. Don't laugh, such ink-based processors have already been developed. While they're not ready for the consumer yet, one day you can expect your newspaper to blink and bark just like some of the Web sites you visit.

For now though, be comforted in knowing that your community newspaper has a generation or two left in it.

Super searches

Crittenden and Livingston counties are each looking for a new school superintendent.

Crittenden County Supt. John Belt announced last week his intentions to retire this summer. Now, Livingston's Jack Monroe has delivered the same news to his board of education.

Crittenden County is already advertising for the position. A classified ad seeking candidates appeared in The Paducah Sun Saturday and it is being published elsewhere. Belt has been superintendent at Marion for three years and has provided a calming presence following a stormy few years under former Supt. Fredericka Hargis. By the way, there has been absolutely no recent movement in the defamation lawsuit Hargis filed against several people in the community.

In Livingston, Monroe has been superintendent for the past three years after serving in that school system for the previous 30. He's held various positions within the system, including director of transportation and principal at a couple of the county's schools. The inset photograph is of Monroe.

Bloggin' up a storm

For the past four or five weeks since we started this blog, the feedback has been incredible. Thanks to everyone who is reading. Because it has been widely embraced, The Press Online has added a new blogger who is one of the printed edition's most popular columnists, Brenda Underdown.

Underdown is the official Crittenden County historian and she will be writing a supplemental piece on the Web which will often tell a little more about her research and writings. You can find her at http://ourforgottenpassages.blogspot.com/.

Additionally, Matthew T. Patton is writing a regular blog which can be found on his Web site http://dycusburg.blogspot.com/. Patton is periodic contributor to The Crittenden Press. He is a Dycusburg native transplanted in Pennsylvania where he is in the publishing business. His blog focuses largely on area genealogy.

Finally, Brenda Joyce Jerome, a certified genealogist whose work has focused on Western Kentucky, maintains a blog at http://wkygenealogy.blogspot.com/. She has posted many interesting tidbits about ours and neighboring counties since she began her blog.