Stories from Wednesday, June 3, 2009

H.P. Lovecraft was an early horror writer and in "The Dunwich Horror," he wrote about whip-poor-wills, a mottled brown and gray bird that sings at night. "Whip-poor-WILL." According to Lovecraft and New England folklore, the birds are servants of the devil and wait outside the home of a dying person. If their calls become louder, they have captured the soul and taken it to Satan. If they grow quiet, the soul escaped and made it to heaven...

Marie Higgins Jeffcoat, 83, of Shelbyville, formerly of Cordova, died Tuesday. A memorial service will be held at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at Cordova Baptist Church. Visitation with the family will be held from 10 to 11 a.m. at the church.

Eva Mae Luster-Johnson, 72, of Tullahoma, died Tuesday at her residence. Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at Revival Center Church of God in Christ with Elder Cedric Seay officiating and Supt. George Lewis giving the euology. Interment will follow at Evergreen Cemetery...

I got an e-mail last week from a friend and T-G reader, Donna Brock, sugesting that I feature the web site Free Rice (freerice.com) in this column. "I loved the concept," wrote Donna, "and it is a good vocabulary builder, much like the old 'Word Power' section of Reader's Digest that I often enjoyed."...

Shelbyville Team Camp action continued all across Bedford County on Tuesday. Shelbyville Central fell during the morning session to Morristown West 55-28. They rebounded by turning up the defensive pressure to hand defending Class AA runner-up Livingston Academy a 55-33 loss. Upperman edged SC 47-46 in overtime in the nightcap...

The Shelbyville-Bedford County Humane Association's annual wine tasting and silent auction, "Summer Lights," raked in more than $9,000 this year, a figure that is up from last year. "This was more than last year by quite a bit," said Diane Forbes, president of the SBCHA. "It was great. We had several new food vendors and a very large turnout ... Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we had a lot of new faces."...

County departments made their budget requests during a hearing held Tuesday afternoon by Bedford County Financial Management Committee, but committee members stressed that times are tight and the county has little to spend. "We're probably in the worst economic downturn that I can remember," said committee chairman Joe Tillett. ...

Two men were charged in connection with the attempted theft of a vehicle driveshaft early Friday at a Deery Street repair shop. Officer Tory Moore, who had been notified of a "suspicious person," found "a set of legs protruding from underneath a Chevrolet Camaro," he said in his report...

Shelbyville City Council, after hearing from merchants in the affected area, may try keeping the segment of Depot Street closest to the square as one-way but making it westbound rather than eastbound. The issue was discussed at a study session Tuesday night...

If it were easy to become an Eagle Scout, it wouldn't make the front page of the newspaper. Fewer than 5 percent of Scouts ever achieve the highest ranking, which requires hours of community service, dedication, sweat, blisters, and just plain work...

It was improbable, implausible, and valiant-like in nature. But in the end, despite a draconian effort, it was simply not possible that the Vanderbilt Commodores could overcome their opening round loss to Middle Tennessee State in the NCAA Louisville Regional this past weekend...