Stories from Thursday, October 8, 2015

Early voting for Blytheville's proposed one cent sales and use tax begins Tuesday, Oct. 13. Early voting will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Election Office (Moore Center). Early voting will continue until Oct. 19. On election day, Oct. 20, polls will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. There will be voting by ward for this election so polls will be open at the Aamod building, Trinity Baptist and the Election Office (Moore Center)...

Phyllis McClendon began her job as the new executive director of The Haven on August 13 and hit the ground running. "I saw the ad and it was like things coming full circle for me," McClendon said. "Having a background in education and the private sector for healthcare, we were required to report suspicions. ...

Politics change like the wind, but sound principles never do. Are we in Blytheville "tax and spend" creatures or are we hard working, thrifty people that want our government to only do what we can't do for ourselves? Famed British statesman Edmund Burke said, "Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants". ...

The basic problems with the one percent sales tax hike proposed by the City of Blytheville are these: 1) This is a general fund tax, not specified by law for anything in particular. Municipal employees may expect to receive big pay increases; we may hope to gain stronger policing, but neither outcome is assured. Voters have no guarantees for how this money actually will be spent...

I was not born in a library, but you could say that I was raised in several! Books have been key to my life ever since I learned to read. One of the highlights of my elementary school years was taking home the Scholastic book order form every month. My brother and sister and I were allowed to order one book each month, and I always did! Those books were the start of my book collecting, which continues to this day...

By AARON FITZPATRICK Blytheville Courier News The Blytheville Chickasaws take on the Greene County Tech Golden Eagles Friday night in a 5A-East showdown at Haley Field The Chicks are 3-2 overall and 1-1 5A-East at the midway point of the season and are coming off a huge 48-21 win over the Nettleton Raiders last week while the Eagles (1-4, 0-2 5A-East) remain winless in the conference after a 42-21 home loss to Wynne...

Blytheville Courier News The Gosnell Pirates head to Trumann Friday night to take on the Wildcats in another important 3-4A conference showdown. The Pirates (4-0, 2-0 3-4A) remain undefeated after another impressive win last week at Cave City and are ranked as high as 5th in the 4A in some polls. ...

Once again, it is I, The Great Fitzini, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, Sage of Sages, back again to pick this week's prep football games. I finally had a perfect week last week as I believe the fog that was shadowing my vision in the conference season has been lifted...

The Arkansas State Police is investigating a shooting early Thursday morning involving Blytheville police officers. One of the two suspects shot is listed in critical condition. According to Blytheville Police Chief Ross Thompson, around 4 a.m. Thursday, officers were involved in a vehicle pursuit that resulted in a shooting...

Blytheville police are investigating an armed robbery, Wednesday afternoon, at Family Dollar on West Main. According to the police report, around 3:13 p.m. Wednesday, a black male -- wearing a white shirt, gray shorts, a mask and white sock on his hand -- pointed a handgun at the employee and demanded money...

The Supreme Court or Arkansas affirmed the conviction and denied an appeal Thursday, by Tevarius Tevon Green requesting that his 2013 capital murder conviction in the shooting death of Daniel Goodwin, Jr. and subsequent life sentence without possibility of parole be overturned...