Stories from Friday, November 16, 2012

KEISER -- Fred Bourland, director of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Northeast Research and Extension Center, has been named a Fellow in the American Society of Agronomy. Bourland, a professor and agronomist in the department of crop, soil, and environmental sciences, was recognized at the ASA annual meeting in October in Cincinnati...

RUSSELLVILLE -- CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) employee Lucian "Skip" Layne, an area operations manager in Monette, recently celebrated his 40-year service anniversary with the company. As he has done through much/most of his career, the Monette native still serves customers in a wide area of Arkansas, though the types of services his customers utilize have dramatically changed since he started...

Recent reports from the Blytheville Police Department:

Mrs. Ruby Jean Williams, 64, of Osceola, died Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012, in Osceola.

Mr. Lester Charles Albrecht, 73, of Manila, passed from this life Thursday Nov. 15, 2012, at his home.

This week we "inadvertently" sent out overdue notices to many of our customers in Blytheville. These notices were either incorrect, too early, offensive or all of the above. Please disregard these notices and accept our sincerest apologies for them...

I don't know about you, but for some reason the Thanksgiving holiday seems to be a little ahead of schedule this year. Maybe it's just because time flies a little faster as you get older, or maybe because Nov. 22 is a little earlier than usual for the actual holiday.

Daniel R. DiMicco, who has served more than 12 years as chief executive officer of Nucor Corporation, announced today (Friday) that he is passing the responsibility on to current president and chief operating officer, John J. Ferriola.

Having heard the budget presentation from the county's senior citizens program, members of the Mississippi County Quorum Court's Finance Committee are ready to present their completed 2013 budget for Mississippi County to the full Court for approval.

Blytheville Parks and Recreation director Elroy Brown is working on plans to build a skateboard park on the west side of Walker Park next year.

ARMOREL--The Armorel Lady Tigers are still looking for their first win of the season after a 66-52 loss to the Bay Lady Yellowjackets Thursday night. The Tigers fell to 0-8 on the year and 0-2 in the 1A-3 conference standings. Bay led from start to finish in this one. Every time Armorel got within striking distance, the Yellowjackets had an answer and it was usually from point guard Hannah Willard. Willard led all scorers with 22 points and hit three three-pointers on the night...

HORN LAKE, Miss. -- The Blytheville Chickasaws opened the 2012-13 season with a 54-43 loss to Broad Street High School of Shelby, Miss. The two teams combined for 59 total turnovers with Blytheville committing 34 of them. "They (Broad Street) ran a 2-3 zone and then a 1-3-1. We had a hard time adjusting and then when we did adjust, we still kept turning the ball over," said Blytheville head coach Jeff Flanigan, who made his debut on the Chickasaw bench Thursday night...

America made a choice between two fundamentally different visions for this nation's future. The American voters rejected one, and re-elected another. The president has done great things for this country; the stimulus, the auto bailouts, Obamacare, tax cuts for the working class, equal pay for women, student loans and changed the ways credit card companies could charge you, etc...