Congratulations to our stringer/columnist Tamara Belinc on the birth of her baby girl Ella Rose. It was a difficult pregnancy, but mother and child are doing well and big sister couldn't be more excited.

I just found out that an old colleague of mine passed away. I worked with Joe Patton at the Tullahoma newspaper for years, but anyone who has ever worked at a newspaper with a hard-nosed, go-for-the-throat, ethics above advertising newspaperman has worked with a Joe Patton. Irascible, honest, relentless, he wasn't so much a stereotype of the old newshound as he was representative...

This got into the print edition, but I had to share it online. I was driving home through the Raus community Thursday and saw this magnificent red-tailed hawk sitting on a fence post, not two feet from the road. I've always seen them from a distance, but this was the closest I'd been to a wild one. I stopped the car and grabbed the ever-hand camera and got a shot of him sitting there. Finally, after some car-horn encouragement, he took flight...

Joe McCurry just called me to let me know that Rufus, the boxer who got away from a boarding kennel and was shot, died this morning due to an infection. There are so many people we want to blame -- those who were supposed to keep the dog safe for its owners and those who shot the animal and left it to die .... If he had been found sooner, perhaps the infection could have been prevented, but if he had never gotten away, he would nothave been shot...

Can anyone tell me when Dr. Michael Roy Sharpe was a physician here in Shelbyville? He has been charged in Alabama with rape and sodomy as well as child pornography. According to Alabama State Senator Larry Dixon, Sharpe was accused of hitting a teenage boy in the emergency room here, but we don't know when or whom. He worked in Lebanon and Lawrenceburg in the early 1990s...

Does anyone know how Bugscuffle Road got its name? Do you have any other odd names from this area with unusual origins? Help satisfy my curiosity, please!

More than 1,200 horses died at racetracks this year.

I've always said that Little League would be a lot more fun for the participants if they made the parents stay at home. I'm coming to believe that the horse show would be a lot more fun for the competitors if they made the money stay at home. I wonder how much soring, bribing and government interference there would be if all they were competing for was bragging rights?...

If you can get to the Celebration, tonight's a good night to do it. The qualifying classes for the world grand championship take place and you can see some of the greatest walkers in modern history -- including several who have come out of retirement -- strut their stuff in the center ring...