Stories from Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Three teenage boys left a trail of theft and vandalism from Elm to Madison streets Friday night and Saturday morning, targeting a church, gym and several businesses, Shelbyville police said. The boys surrendered to police after a parent found unfamiliar items inside a building behind his Deery Street home and began asking questions. Baseballs, bats, a handheld public address system and walkie-talkies were among items recovered by police...

Sandra Jean Bollinger, 69, of Shelbyville died Monday at Heritage Medical Center. Graveside services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Brown Cemetery with the Rev. Bobby McGee officiating. No visitation is scheduled. Feldhaus Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements.

As Shelbyville City Council member Lee Roy Cunningham stood in 11-degree pre-dawn chill Monday watching his North Main Street home and business burn, he seemed surprisingly at ease. "I thank the good Lord that he woke me up and told me to get out," Cunningham said. "I can replace a house but I can't replace lives."...

The ongoing mortgage fraud scandal was chosen as the top local story of 2009 by a non-scientific poll on the Times-Gazette web site. In fact, among 11 specific choices and "other," more than half of the 302 participants in the poll chose the mortgage fraud story...

Sentencing for Shelbyville home builder Roger Ritch, who has pled guilty for his participation in a multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme, has been delayed until next month. Ritch was scheduled to be sentenced Monday. However, an order signed by U.S. District Judge Harry S. Mattice Jr. on Monday has continued the sentencing hearing until Feb. 8 at 1 p.m....

Follow-up health inspections for four Shelbyville restaurants shows improvement, according to the man who does the checking. Last week, the Times-Gazette published health inspection scores for Bedford County eatries, some of which had been graded only days ago...

From just before Thanksgiving to Christmas Day, it seems as though there were dozens of coat drives, toy drives and canned food drives. Jay Pope was thinking about that one day as he was burning leaves in his yard and he had a vision. "There were all these little fires, sucking the oxygen away from the other fires and none of them really prospered," he said. "I thought, 'Why not make one big bonfire?'"...

Harris Middle's girls got 26 points from a pair of seventh grade post players and backed their performance with a steady defensive effort to claim a 35-19 win over visiting Franklin County North Monday on night in Central Tennessee Conference play. "We're working hard and are getting better and better on both ends of the court," Harris coach Mark Potts said. "We did a good job of getting the ball into our post players and then they did a good job of putting the ball in the basket."...

Even though it had been 20 days since Cascade Middle last played, the Champions came out firing against visiting Middle Tennessee Christian Middle on Monday night. A shooting touch that yielded five of the team's eight 3-pointers in a 21-point second quarter gave Cascade all the cushion it needed en route to a 66-51 win...