Stories from Tuesday, December 19, 2006

by David McNeal HO!HO!HO! With the Christmas season rushing every faster and the big day looming ahead, I thought it would be great to take time to make holiday wishes for some needy folks I run into in my job of chasing sports. For high school basketball officials in northwest Arkansas, I wish for them a rules book that they can interpret correctly. Somewhere in there it says a defensive player is entitled to the space he occupies, from the floor all the way to the ceiling...

BERRYVILLE -- The Bobcat junior high basketball teams took on the Gentry Junior Pioneers last Thursday, with the following results reported by the coaches. Junior High Boys 9-7, 11-14, 21-34, 27-46 Coach Budd Smith said his team played better the first half, but didn't come out fired up to start the second half...

Week of Dec. 11 December 13 3:40 a.m. - Police performed a blood-alcohol content proficiency test. 5:15 p.m. - Police were dispatched to a two-vehicle traffic accident on Springfield and Main streets. 7:55 p.m. - Police were dispatched to a suspicious person on South Springfield Avenue...

Week of Dec. 11 Dec. 11 10:43 a.m. - Police provided fingerprinting service for a subject seeking employment. 10:59 a.m. - Police provided a VIN verification. 1:20 p.m. - Police were dispatched to the heath department to work a private property traffic accident...

Week of Dec. 11 December 11 4:29 p.m.- Caller stated that a white plywood reindeer was stolen off of front porch. December 12 1:40 p.m.- Officers notified that a subject that had taken money under false pretenses (possibly phony repair work) and was back at business to do more work. Subject arrested...

EDNA ELLEN WINKLE formerly of Blue Eye, Mo., died Dec. 14, 2006, at James River Care Center at the age of 100. She had been a resident of Springfield, Mo., for 10 years. She was the third child of 11 born to Frank and Paulina Jane Wise Swofford on Nov. 20, 1906 near Oak Grove...

MILDRED MASTERS, a resident of Eureka Springs, was born Dec. 7, 1928, in Wheatley, Ark., a daughter of Bernard and Ebb (Miller) Bruce. She died Thursday, Dec. 14, 2006, in Eureka Springs at the age of 78. Mrs. Masters was an elementary school librarian. ...

GARY NOOLE FULTZ, a resident of Green Forest, was born March 29, 1956, in Salinas, Calif., a son of Joe Noole Fultz and Wilma Jean Usrey. He died Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006, in Springfield, Mo., at the age of 50. Mr. Fultz was a truck driver. He is survived by one daughter, Sonja Savage of Alpena; two sons, Scott Harp of Harrison and Kenneth Shane Fultz of Green Forest; one sister, Linda Poyner of Green Forest; one brother, Eric Fultz of Green Forest; six grandchildren, Evan and Haley Savage of Alpena, Whitney, Miranda and Kenna Harp of Green Forest, and Christina Fultz of Green Forest; several nieces and nephews and a host of family and friends.. ...

DR. ROGER J. ANDRUS, 91, a former resident of Siloam Springs, died Dec. 13, 2006, in Tahlequah, Okla. Born Oct. 17, 1915, in Clear Lake, Iowa, he was the son of Max and Lucy Potter Andrus. The family moved to Minnesota in 1921, and Roger graduated from Mora High School, Mora, Minn., in 1933. He married Mary Roth, his childhood sweetheart, on Dec. 6, 1939, in Phoenix, Ariz...

EUREKA SPRINGS -- "Bobcat tick fever" -- this diagnosis can sound like a dreaded death knell to a cat owner whose cat has been bitten by a tick carrying the disease. Up until recently, it was 100 percent fatal and promised an agonizing death to a cat not euthanized before its final stages...

BERRYVILLE -- After nearly 25 years working in the county assessor's office, Zelah McCollough is retiring. She served the last eight years as Carroll County Assessor, having won the position in 1998 in a race against Eugene Walden. "Carolyn Williams was stepping down and I had worked all that time under Carolyn, ever since I started in 1982," Zelah remembered. ...

BERRYVILLE -- The Carroll County Quorum Court approved a 2007 budget Friday morning, but without any money for the sheriff's office, detention center and central dispatch. The justices of the peace also grappled with financial questions regarding the prosecuting attorney's office and the election commission, granting Prosecutor Tony?Rogers' budget request, and deciding to address expenditures for election commission legal expenses with a clean-up ordinance after the first of the year...