Stories from Sunday, May 15, 2005

Funeral services for Austin Johnson, 83, of Shelbyville, who died Wednesday at the Alvin C. York VA Medical Center in Murfreesboro, will be noon Monday at Bird Street Church of Christ.

Frances Elizabeth Thomas, 93, of Tullahoma died Friday at Life Care Center. Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Monday at Tullahoma Funeral Home with Pat Allison and Steve Grubbs officiating. Burial will follow at Hillcrest Memorial Gardens.

COLUMBIA -- With the pressure of having to win in order to advance to the Region 4-AAA Tournament, Shelbyville's Golden Eagles set their eyes on the District 8-AAA championship in the title match against Tullahoma Friday evening. With the match knotted at two each, the fifth-ranked Wildcats scored in the closing minutes of the game to secure a 3-2 win and yet another district championship...

A national grassroots on-line organization that supports the troops overseas is gearing up for the Fourth of July with the idea to make their holiday a little brighter while they serve their country. ProudPatriots.org's Operation 4th of July is a patriotic effort with the objective to send gifts and holiday messages to our troops deployed away from home...

Customers of Shelbyville Power, Water and Sewerage System will receive a cross-connection questionnaire in the next few weeks, accompanied by the latest water quality report. The water quality report is good news, with local water quality meeting EPA standards...

A request for a new trial is virtually guaranteed on behalf of a Shelbyville man who was found guilty Friday by a Bedford County jury on the charge of unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon. That's according to defense attorney N. Andy Myrick Jr. who represented Alonzo Mason in the first trial over which Judge Robert Crigler presided since his appointment to the 17th Judicial District bench by Gov. Phil Bredesen...

Four horses may have been stolen from property on Hannah Gap Road in far southwestern Bedford County. The horses were last seen Sunday, May 8, and were gone when Linda Lalongde of Lewisburg arrived Thursday morning, a report filed by the Bedford County Sheriff's Department said...

The Shelbyville lawyer and his client, a 19-year-old mother charged with murdering her son right after delivery, will get a copy of the newborn's autopsy if she's indicted or when a judge tells the state to release the record. District Attorney General Mike McCown had that answer late Friday morning for Mariafelix Morales' attorney, John Norton, who's made arrangements for a hearing on May 24 before General Sessions Court Judge Charles Rich to decide whether the autopsy is a public record...

Because nurses are in demand, at least some Bedford County Medical Center employees aren't too worried for their job security with the prospective sale of the county-owned hospital to a Brentwood-based business. "They need nurses and therapists, so it would be hard to get them all from somewhere else," said Larry Leister, a respiratory therapist at BCMC. ...

The past two years, I've gone on foreign mission trips with Sewanee-based LEAMIS International Ministries and then written multi-part series about them in the Times-Gazette. Every year I worry that I'm being self-indulgent by taking the space, and yet you the readers have been incredibly kind, commenting on the stories for months afterward -- and, after that, asking me if I have any trips coming up...

Shelbyville Central took two firsts in the Region 4-AAA track meet Wednesday and Thursday at Riverdale High in Murfreesboro. Nick Tate won the 400-meter dash in 50.23. The 4x400 relay team -- Jonathan Rogers, Michael Carrillo, Tate and Matt Johnson -- won in 3:29.2...