Stories from Saturday, January 25, 2020

The countdown had begun! In 10 days... in nine days... in eight days... in seven days... in six days... in five days. On a Friday back in 2014, she came to me and said, "Papa, in four days I will be 5 and you are invited!" I asked her, "Invited to what?"...

As we start a new year, it seems like a good time to talk about new books. We just got in two big orders of brand new materials and Ms. Doris has been working hard to get them cataloged and prepared for you to enjoy. I hope we can tempt you to visit and use your card to devour some of these tasty morsels for your mind...

Just because a mentor starts unconsciously humming Motown tunes during a heart-to-heart talk with you about temptations, that doesn't mean his advice is irrelevant. A church in Cottage Grove, Minnesota has made national headlines because of an audacious "In order to save the village, we had to destroy it" strategy to rebrand itself...

Jenifer Leigh Steagall of Shelbyville and Brandon Michael Pickett of Shelbyville have announced their engagement. The bride-elect is the daughter of Marjoria Steagall of Tullahoma and James Steagall Jr. of Montgomery, Alabama, and the granddaughter of Clyde Clifford of Shelbyville, the late Peggy Elam (Clifford) Gaston, the late James Steagall Sr. and the late Helen Steagall. She is a graduate of Shelbyville Central High School and is employed by TOA Murfreesboro...

Charles Murphree of Unionville is pretty well known around here for his farm-fresh honey. What might just be one of this 87-year-olds undiscovered talents is what he considers a God-given gift for making musical instruments. Murphree most recently completed a fiddle from reclaimed wood from the old Longview Baptist Church, which due to age, was demolished in 2018. ...

In the first two full weeks of the new year, around 500 young firefighters and 157 instructors were engaged in intensive training in Bedford County, studying the tools and techniques for battling wildfires. While the 17th Annual Tennessee/Kentucky Wildland Fire Academy was underway, six new large wildfires were reported: in Colorado, Oklahoma and Georgia, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. ...

Lone Star Rodeo will mark its 30th anniversary of appearances in Shelbyville with competition Friday, Jan. 31, and Saturday, Feb. 1, at Calsonic Arena on the Celebration grounds. This will be the championship event for the rodeo's 2019 season, so there will be a high level of competition...

We get the weekend kicked off with a cloudy, chilly and damp day on Saturday and it is not out of the question that there could be a little bit of light precipitation during the early morning. Sunday is looking like the best day of the weekend with partly to mostly cloudy skies and highs in the upper 40s...

As the Christmas story was being read in homes and churches on Christmas Eve, Christ's birthplace of Bethlehem was being honored in another way as well. A new Internet radio station named Belén -- Spanish for Bethlehem -- went live Dec. 24 from Beth Sar Shalom Church on Madison Street...