Stories from Sunday, April 18, 2010

How does your garden grow? Travel along from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 6, with the Shelbyville Bedford County Chamber of Commerce Beautification Garden Tour and you'll see. "This year's Garden Tour takes you around Shelbyville and Bedford with many gardens at historic homes and neighborhoods," said Lynn Hulan, who is helping coordinate the event. ...

Is there anything better than being surprised by your children? Not those, umm, uneasy surprises, like that first weirdness you find in the diaper, the girlfriend with the pink cotton candy hair and eyebrow rings, or the disturbing tendency to sing show tunes in the shower...

To the Editor: Coal saves trees, provides jobs and could be used in connection with gas, electricity and oil. Using all these resources, helps to maintain a balance in the use of resources. The EPA has too much power and needs to use common sense and quit destroying jobs...

Liberty Middle's Patriots remembered to pack their bats with them for their road trip to Chapel Hill as the offense cranked out 13 hits, but it wouldn't be enough in a 19-9 loss to Forrest Middle on Friday. Dillon Lucas paced the Liberty attack with three hits. Trevor Sanders contributed a pair of hits and plated three runs. Stetson Blackwell, Jacob Davidson and Maddin Reeves each had two hits...

In a matchup between a pair of quality middle school teams, visiting Community remained undefeated with a 6-2 win over Harris Middle on Friday evening. With the game knotted at 2-2 going into the seventh, the Vikings (17-0) rallied for four runs in the top half of the inning. The big hit was a three-run double off the bat of pitcher Taylor Paschal...

It was a tough day for Community Viking fans as they bore witness to their team squandering an early lead and falling 13-11 to the Middle Tennessee Monarchs on Day 2 of the Walking Horse Classic in Wartrace on Friday afternoon. The Vikings jumped out to a 5-1 advantage but walks and four errors contributed to their demise despite an outstanding hitting effort for their squad, who finished with 11 hits on the day...

After starting off its 2009 season with a 20-0-1 record, Cascade had vivid aspirations of an undefeated regular season. That all came to a crashing halt when Mt. Pleasant shocked the Champions on the opening night of the Walking Horse Classic. Needless to say, payback was in Cascade's mind when the two locked up Friday night in the Classic...

A cab driver was attacked and his cell phone stolen on Candy Lane in Shelbyville late Thursday night, police said. The driver told officer Jerry Draine he was struck by several men as he knocked on the door at a trailer where he'd been told to pick up a fare...

A Shelbyville man faces possible deportation after pleading guilty to statutory rape on Friday. Tomas Felipe Bartolome, 21, will serve one year, six months at 30 percent on the charge, and Circuit Court Judge Lee Russell said that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency also has a hold on him, meaning that Bartolome will likely be removed from the country...

Jenny Hunt of Bell Buckle has announced her candidacy for the 62nd District State Representative seat in the August 5 Democratic primary. A Bedford County resident since 1994, Hunt holds a bachelor of science degree in business administration from Auburn University, majoring in personnel management and industrial relations...

A man who escaped custody at the Bedford County Courthouse last November had a sentence of over a year added to time he is already serving for a burglary conviction. Larry Randall Henry II, of Crater Road, Murfreesboro, agreed to a sentence of three years at 35 percent on the charge of escape during a plea hearing before Circuit Court Judge Lee Russell on Friday...

The man accused of one of the state's largest animal cruelty cases will complete a second 30-day period of drug rehabilitation before appearing again before two judges. Meanwhile, a 2011 trial date has been set in federal court in his suit against the county, the sheriff's department and three of its deputies...

The newly-formed Bedford County Sheriff's Mounted Patrol, which held a public "meet and greet" event Saturday at Tractor Supply Company on North Main Street, hopes to play a role not only in crowd control and security at events like the Celebration but also in missing persons or evidence searches where it is impractical to bring a motorized vehicle...

The Bard is back. The Tennessee Shakespeare festival will take place on the Webb School campus for four weekends, from June 18 to July 11. Unlike the first year of the festival, which ran for two weekends with "A Midsummer's Night Dream," and last year, when the company produced two shows, "Midsummer" and "Romeo and Juliet" over a four-week period, this year there will be one show all four weekends...

Nine runs in the first two innings staked Shelbyville Central to a substantial lead in the early going against visiting Marshall County on Friday in the Tullahoma Invitational. The Lewisburg bunch rallied from a 9-2 deficit by posting crooked numbers in four of the last five innings and won 18-10...