Stories from Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Funeral services for Denise Lyn Ibis, 33, of Murfreesboro, who died March 6 will be held Friday at 10 a.m. at the St. Williams Catholic Church. Burial will follow in the Willow Mount Cemetery.

Funeral services for Reuben Earl Butler, 78, of Shelbyville, who died Monday at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, will be 2 p.m. Thursday at Hillcrest Funeral Home. The Rev. Wallace Rowland and the Rev. Gary Williams will officiate and burial will follow in Hillcrest Memorial Gardens.

Funeral arrangements for William Robert Pitts, 84, of Shelbyville, who died Sunday at Harton Regional Medical Center, will be Thurs. at 2 p.m. at Gowen-Smith Chapel. Burial will follow at Hazel Cemetery. Bryan Nerren and Donnie Jones will officiate.

Funeral services for Earl Richardson Harden, 72, of Shelbyville, who died Monday at Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville, will be 1 p.m. Thursday at Feldhaus Memorial Chapel. Doug Moore will officiate and burial, with full military honors, will be in Willow Mount Cemetery.

Thunderous applause was heard after a 4-0 vote by Bell Buckle's town council Tuesday night to pass a resolution that would allow citizens to vote on a controversial annexation issue that has been the topic of heated debate for months. Bell Buckle citizens were packed into the town's volunteer fire hall to see what their government was going to do about the continuous issue of annexation that has been the main topic of concern around town for the last six months...

Bedford County Board of Commissioners, meeting Tuesday night, amended the proposed privilege tax on new construction so that it applies only to residential construction, not commercial construction. The tax, $1 per square foot, must be approved by the Tennessee General Assembly before it can become effective. ...

U.S. Sen. Bill Frist said the proposed bankruptcy reform bill is on "the final pathway to approval" in the Senate after a 69-31 procedural vote on Tuesday. "I'm proud of the legislation," he said during a telephone conference call Tuesday with Tennessee reporters. Frist predicted the bill will pass the Senate on Thursday...

Two of three defendants in last week's suspected meth lab bust had their bond lowered by 25 percent in Bedford County General Sessions Court when they were assigned defense attorneys Tuesday. Bond remained at $210,000 for Michelle Lee Arnold, a 26-year-old mother of three children younger than age 6...

Is it just me or are there some real discrepancies in our mother tongue? While many of you may not spend a great deal of time thinking about words, having made my living for 20-plus years as a wordsmith, I've noticed some disturbing trends. We've always heard the English language is filled with exceptions and contradictions, but just when I think I've figured out how to conjugate properly or what the correct word for a thing is, something changes, and I'm left feeling like English is really a foreign language to me. ...

As the 2004-2005 basketball season came to an end for area basketball teams recently, so did the coaching career of one of the nicest persons to ever grace the sidelines. Cascade Middle girls basketball coach Brenda Ayers has decided to retire from coaching after 21 years. She will remain as a teacher...

Funeral services for Ronald Britt Bailey, 56, of Tullahoma, who died Monday at the Alvin C. York Veterans Administration Medical Center in Murfreesboro, will be 2 p.m. Thursday at Elm Street Church of Christ in Lynchburg.

NASHVILLE -- The step from high school to college is never an easy one. Make that step from tiny Wartrace to a university in our state's capital and the adjustment is that much more complicated. Former Cascade star basketball player Laura Cowley faced such a task as she is finishing off her first season as a member of the team at Belmont University...