The Smithville Municipal Election will be held in June again this year.
Mayor Taft Hendrixson wanted to get the city charter changed to move the city election date from June to August but that will have to wait for now.
A change in the city charter requires approval by the aldermen and the state legislature and Mayor Hendrixson reported to the council during Thursday night’s special meeting that state lawmakers won’t be able to work in that legislation this year. The deadline for filing proposed state legislation was Thursday, January 26. “I talked to State Representative Weaver last Friday. She said it was going to be impossible to get it through. We can go ahead and do it (change the charter) but it won’t apply to this year. We cannot get it through. So as of tomorrow (Friday) I plan to write the election commission a letter and call for a June election. Its about the only thing I can do,” said Mayor Hendrixson.
The city election is set for Tuesday, June 19 to elect a mayor and two aldermen, each to serve a two year term. The election commission is now issuing qualifying petitions to candidates who want to run. The qualifying deadline is March 15.
The positions are currently held by Mayor Taft Hendrixson and Aldermen Cecil Burger and Steve White.

Steve Repasy of the Midway Station was named the “2011 County Firefighter of the Year” Saturday night during the department’s annual awards banquet held at the Smithville Church of God annex.
County Fire Chief Donny Green, who presided over the ceremony, said Repasy met all the department’s criteria in earning this award. “Steve was nominated this year and his evaluation was of his fire calls, training attendance, and his community service. The fire calls and training attendance stand for itself. He excelled in both of those. As far as his community service, Steve has been very instrumental in helping us with our extrication program. He is a retired metal worker so he has been able to help us fabricate some of our equipment that we use on our extrication truck. He has been able to do some things that has saved us a lot of money with our extrication program where we didn’t have to hire it done or we didn’t have to buy the pieces of equipment that he actually fabricated. So he has helped us with that. Starting last January, many people may have noticed out in each community where we have a fire station, we have put fire station signs up in front of the fire halls. Along with some others who helped, Steve took a lead role in getting these signs erected and put up across the community. We now have the new signs put up. I want to add that we did get these signs on a grant. We now have all these signs up across the county. They’re very nice signs and they are out by the roadway. It identifies where all of our fire stations are located. It also has a little message on there, if we have people who live in the community who would like to be a volunteer, it gives a contact number where they can call and offer their services if they want to be a volunteer to help in their communities. Steve has done all that and he has spent a lot of his personal time. These are things we look at which are above and beyond the normal training and fire response. These are things our firefighters do out in the community and we try to look at the firefighters who excel in those things each year in selecting these awards and for those reasons Steve Repasy was selected as our 2011 DeKalb County Fire Department Firefighter of the Year,” said Chief Green.
Lieutenant Jay Cantrell, County Fire Department Equipment Officer, received the “Officer of the Year” award. Chief Green said the same three elements used to select the “Firefighter of the Year” are also used by the department in honoring the Officer of the Year, training attendance, incident response attendance, and community service. “Jay spends countless hours working on buildings, equipment, and vehicles to help keep our maintenance costs down. The most notable thing that Jay does is that he keeps all of our equipment maintained and proof of that is that during our inspections with our ISO evaluations this year, we were commended highly on the maintenance of our vehicles and the safety features that has been kept up on these things. So Jay has played a very instrumental part in our department and as a result of that it has benefitted the community greatly because, as everyone knows, we have the reduced ISO rating and a huge component of that evaluation in that survey with ISO was how the equipment and buildings are kept up. Jay played a major role in that and for that reason Jay was selected as the 2011 Officer of the Year,” said Chief Green.
The “Rookie” award went to Rodger Sweet of the Main Station. Chief Green said this award is totally based on hours of training and goes to a firefighter in his first year of service to the department. “We feel like during the first year of a firefighter’s membership, the most important thing they can do is train so that is the sole criteria that we use in the Rookie of the Year selection. For 2011 Rodger had 174 hours of training, which is a significant amount of training. Included in that 174 hours was the 64 hour basic firefighter school and also the 22 hour LIVE burn that is done at the fire academy. But outside of those two trainings he has done extra training to improve his fire fighting abilities. We certainly want to recognize that because Rodger has done a good job, as well as all these other guys that have come along this year. We define a rookie as any firefighter who has been on the department for a year or less. We pull all those training hours and then we determine who has the most training hours. Rodger had the most training hours for 2011,” said Chief Green.
Twelve firefighters were recognized and presented pins for their years of service including the following:
Five years of service: Duncan Block (Austin Bottom Station), Ryan Carlile (Austin Bottom Station) Gelasio Chacon (Marco) (Johnson’s Chapel Station), Larry Dalton (Austin Bottom Station), Cathy Jones (Austin Bottom Station), Bob Myracle (Austin Bottom Station), Wesley Slager(Liberty Station), and Paulino Solorzano (Liberty)
Ten years of service: Jason Rice of the Keltonburg Station
Fifteen years of service: Gene Foster of the Short Mountain Highway Station and Howard Pyles of the Liberty Station.
Twenty five years of service: Chief Donny Green
Several members of the department were also presented cash awards, funded through a federal safer grant, which Chief Green said is to help retain and recruit firefighters.”In 2010, we were awarded a Safer Grant from the federal government that is a non-matching local grant and does not require any local funding, it’s 100% federal, to help us recruit and retain firefighters. Some of the things we’ve done is provide these training award incentives for firefighters such as length of service awards, firefighter of the year, rookie of the year, and for firefighters who made 100% of their monthly training or at least 75% of their monthly training. We’ve made those awards and we hope that’s a tool we can use to help encourage our firefighters to stay on board and continue being involved with training in our department.” Firefighters who made 100% of their monthly training each received $400 and those who made 75% of their monthly training took home $200 each.
Those receiving 100% Training Perfect Attendance Awards are as follows:
David Agee, Anthony Boyd, Jay Cantrell, Kelly Cantrell, Gelasio Chacon (Marco), Nelson Davis, Bill Fowler, Anthony Johnson, Bradley Johnson, Darrell Johnson, Donnie Johnson, Dustin Johnson, Jerry Wayne Johnson, Kristie Johnson, Gary King, Richard Kinsey, Michael D. Lawrence, Ronald Merriman, Roy Merriman, Bob Myracle, Jeremy Neal, Andy Pack, Shawn Puckett, Jeff Rankhorn, Steve Repasy, Jason Rice, Robin Summers, Rodger Sweet, Calvin Tramel, and Jeff Williams.
75% Training Attendance Awards:
Lee Ansell, Jacob Bond, Kyle Casper, Billy Crymes, Billy Fuson, Donny Green, Shane Hickman, Cathy Jones, Jimmy Martin, Kenny Maynard, Logan Maynard, Bradley Mullinax, Billy Parker, Danny Parker, James Pennington, Richard Roberts, Paulino Solorzano, Hunter Stanfield, Bradley Taylor, Hugh Washer, and Chris Wyke.

Smithville Police made a drug bust on Friday in the housing projects on Morgan Drive and arrested a suspected dealer.
Smithville Police Chief Randy Caplinger told WJLE that 33 year old Teresa Pauline Thomas of 436 Morgan Drive has been charged with sale and delivery of a schedule VI, II, and III controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. Her bond totals $45,000 and she will be in court on February 2.
Acting on numerous citizen complaints about suspected drug activity from this residence, Smithville Police conducted an undercover drug investigation, using an informant, who went to Thomas’ home on Tuesday and made the drug buy, according to police.
A search warrant was prepared and served on Thomas at the residence on Friday. According to Chief Caplinger and Detectives Matt Holmes and Brandon Donnell, police found in Thomas’ purse nineteen baggies of marijuana each weighing one gram; ten baggies of pot each weighing two grams; and one baggie containing five grams of marijuana. Also found in her purse were twenty five and a half hydrocodone pills and two and a half suboxone pills. A further search of the home turned up another thirty grams of marijuana, cut straws with residue, a pipe, multiple prescription pill bottles without their labels, two pill crushers, two marijuana cigarettes, scales, two boxes of sandwich bags apparently intended for packaging drugs, and a notebook containing the names of people who allegedly owed Thomas money for drug transactions. An undisclosed amount of cash was also seized. Because children were present in the residence at the time of Thomas’ arrest, the Department of Children Services was notified.
Thomas was taken into custody and charged in the case. Police said during the interview, Thomas allegedly admitted to police that the drugs and paraphernalia found in the home belonged to her.
In addition to Chief Caplinger and Detectives Holmes and Donnell, Captain Steven Leffew, K-9 Officer James Cornelius and Officer Matt Farmer assisted in the case.
Chief Caplinger praised his officers for their work in this and other cases. “The officers are working really hard on drugs and I urge anyone who has information on suspected drug activity in the city to call the crime tip line at 464-6046,” said Chief Caplinger

Two men have been arrested by the Alexandria Police Department in separate burglary investigations.
19 year old Marv Richardson Cash of 109 Lavergn Street was picked up on Friday, January 20 and charged with breaking into a residence on Flemming Street in Alexandria while 21 year old Andrew Dalton West of DeKalb County was arrested on Thursday, January 26 and charged with burglary and theft at 137 Avant Circle in Alexandria.
In the case involving Cash, Alexandria Police Chief Mark Collins told WJLE Thursday that police were called to a residence on Flemming Street on Friday, January 20 to take a burglary report. “Someone had taken a brick and busted out a window to gain entry. While inside the home, they took a 55 inch LED TV valued at $1,300 and left through the back door. Later in the investigation, an eye witness stated they saw a black male around 6:30 a.m. identified as Marv Cash carrying a large object from the home covered in a blanket. The TV and blanket were later recovered in some nearby bushes.” said Chief Collins.
Cash was arrested and charged in the case. His bond is $16,000 and he will be in court on February 2.
Meanwhile, in the West case, Chief Collins told WJLE that police responded to a call at 137 Avant Circle on Thursday, January 26 to investigate a burglary. “The victim told police that someone had entered their home by cutting a screen and raising a window. While inside, they had taken two car speakers and other miscellaneous objects. While speaking with neighbors, one witness stated they had seen West inside the home going through personal belongings while another witness stated they had seen West around 6:30 a.m. loading the objects into a blue van. Later that morning, West was found and arrested in the case. Some of the items were recovered at the residence where West was staying,” said Chief Collins.
Bond for West is $20,000 and his court date is February 2.

Elizabeth Sanders from DeKalb County is one of eight young people selected from across the nation to serve on the National 4-H Congress design team. Elizabeth, along with the Extension professionals and volunteer leaders comprising the team, with help give guidance to the planning and implementation of the 2012 event to be held in Atlanta. National 4-H Congress is the culminating event for high school members competing in one of the 4-H projects.
Elizabeth attended the 2011 Congress as Tennessee’s state winner in the goat project. She was initially selected as a nominee by the Tennessee delegation attending the 2011 Congress and after submitting an application and video tape, was chosen by the National 4-H Congress design team selection committee.
Congratulations to Elizabeth. She will attend the first planning meeting in February in Atlanta.

Victoria Dawn Tatrow of DeKalb County, the reigning Miss Tennessee High School America, will be competing in the national pageant this March in San Antonio, Texas.
The 17 year old beauty, daughter of Corey and Vickie Funk and the late Shanna Tatrow, was crowned Miss Tennessee High School America at the state pageant held August 6, 2011 at the Buckman Performing Arts Center in Memphis.
Tatrow, a senior at DeKalb County High School, will represent the state of Tennessee at the 2012 Miss High School America & Miss Collegiate America Pageant March 7-10 . This year the pageant will be held at the BEAUTIFUL Lila Cockrell Theatre located on The Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas.
Tatrow, who attended the county commission meeting Monday night, told WJLE afterwards that the national pageant is fun filled with many wonderful activities including a visit to Sea World, Dinner at the River Walk, River Walk Boat Tour, Photo Shoots, Alamo Tour, and so much more. ” It offers a scholarship of $10,000 to any college that I want, a $5,000 wardrobe, and a lot of other goodies”, said Tatrow.
“I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me in this county and I hope to make you proud,” she said.

Smithville Police apparently solved a Wilson County auto theft with the arrest of a 34 year old Woodbury man last Saturday.
Brady Gordon Cunningham is charged with possession of stolen property, a second offense of driving under the influence, and driving on a revoked license. His bond is $9,000. He also faces an auto theft charge in Lebanon. Cunningham is further charged with introduction of a controlled substance into a penal institution where prisoners are quartered. His bond on that offense is $1,500 and he will be in court on all local charges February 2.
Chief Randy Caplinger reports that police received a call on Saturday, January 21 to be on the lookout for someone driving toward Smithville in a 2007 Chevy Silverado that could have been stolen. Cunningham had stopped to get gas in Alexandria and when someone there had paid him a compliment about his truck, Cunningham reportedly replied that he had just stolen it. The incident was then reported to central dispatch.
Smithville Police spotted a truck fitting the description and pulled it over on West Broad Street. The driver, Cunningham, had slurred speech and appeared to be under the influence. He was asked to get out of the truck. He was unsteady on his feet. Cunningham submitted to but performed poorly on field sobriety tasks. A computer check of his drivers license revealed them to be revoked for a previous DUI conviction. According to Chief Caplinger, the license tag on the truck belonged Cunningham but was registered to a Honda car. Cunningham told the officer that he had recently traded the car for the truck and had left his registration paper work at home. The pickup had not been reported as stolen. Police then conducted an Internet search using the serial number of the truck and found that it came from the Highway 231 auto dealership in Lebanon. The owner of the business was contacted. After checking, he discovered that the truck was missing from the car lot. After he reported it stolen, Cunningham was charged in the theft. Cunningham had in his possession the original key to the truck. Authorities are not sure how he obtained it.
Sheriff Ray said that after Cunningham was arrested by the Smithville Police Department he was brought to the sheriff’s department. While correctional officers were searching Cunningham, they found on him a prescription bottle that contained three yellow pills believed to be Hydrocodone with Ibuprofen. These pills were in a bottle that did not belong to Cunningham.

The DeKalb County unemployment rate for December dropped to 8%, down from 8.3% in November and 1.4% under the December, 2010 rate of 9.4%
The local labor force for December was 9,870. A total of 9,080 were employed and 790 were unemployed.
DeKalb County’s unemployment rate for December was the third lowest among the fourteen counties of the Upper Cumberland region as follows:
Pickett County- 14.9%
Jackson- 10.9%
Clay- 10.8%
White- 10.7%
Van Buren- 10.6%
Cumberland- 9.9%
Warren-9.6%
Fentress- 9.5%
Overton- 8.7%
Smith- 8.5%
Macon- 8.4%
DeKalb-8%
Putnam-7.5%
Cannon- 7.2%
County non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rates for December 2011, show that the rate decreased in 56 counties, increased in 27 counties, and remained the same in 12 counties.
Tennessee’s unemployment rate for December fell to 8.7 percent, down from the November revised rate of 9.1. The national unemployment rate for December 2011 was 8.5 percent, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the November rate.
Williamson and Lincoln counties registered the state’s lowest county unemployment rate at 5.4 percent. Both counties had higher rates in November with Williamson at 5.8 percent and Lincoln at 5.6 percent. Scott County had the state’s highest unemployment rate at 18.8 percent, up from 17.5 percent in the previous month, followed by Obion County at 15.3, which was unchanged from the November rate.
Knox County had the state’s lowest major metropolitan rate of 5.9 percent, down from 6.3 percent in November. Davidson County was 6.9 percent, down from 7.3 percent in the previous month. Hamilton County was 7.2 percent, down from 7.4 percent, and Shelby County was 8.8 percent, down from the November unemployment rate of 9.3 percent.

Forty two students will be competing in the ninth Annual County Wide Spelling Bee on Thursday, February 2 at 6:00 p.m. at DeKalb County High School.
The 2011 County Spelling Bee Champion is Chase Bryant
Earlier students from DeKalb Middle School, DeKalb West School and Northside Elementary School competed at the school level to become eligible for the county competition. WJLE will broadcast the Spelling Bee LIVE. Along with thirty-nine counties, the first and second place winners in the DeKalb County Spelling Bee will compete in the Middle Tennessee Regional Spelling Bee sponsored by Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz and Belmont University. The regional bee will take place on Friday, March 2, 2012 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. The winner of the Regional Spelling Bee will compete in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C.
The purpose in sponsoring the County Wide Spelling Bee is to “help students improve Spelling skills, increase vocabularies, learn concepts, and develop correct English usage that will help them all their lives”.
Participants in this year’s County Wide Spelling Bee are:
DeKalb West:
4th Grade: Lexy Gammons, Christian Trail, Kelsey Wade
5th Grade: Callie Mulloy, Harley Sloan, Thomas Tippin
6th Grade: Jacob Frazier, Mark Mace
7th Grade: Jayra Plattenburg, Brandy Rock, Casey Vickers
8th Grade: Madison Hayes, Mary Mofield, Kirkland Smallwood, Morgan Vickers
Northside Elementary:
4th Grade: Chantz Bowling, Anna Chew, Isaac Cross, Braxton Hutchings, Katherine Malone, Raiden Martin, Logan Speaks, Malia Stanley
5th Grade: Madi Cantrell, Malone Fletcher, Molly Hall, Dulce Marcel, Ashley Phillips, Christian Sisk, Isaac Walker, Derek Young
DeKalb Middle School:
6th Grade: Kayla Belk, Olivia Fuson, Haley Martin, Allison Maynard, Shauna Pedroza, Hunter Speaks, and Justin Stanick
7th Grade: Alexis Cantrell, Timothy Cassinera, Reagan Patton, Skylar Pease, Alyssa Sewell