DeKalb County High School has released the names of Top Rank students in the Class of 2017 including the Valedictorian Rachel Fuson and the Salutatorian Hunter Robinson.
The following students have met requirements to be considered for Top Rank:
Rachel Fuson
Hunter Robinson
Eli Cross
Jayrah Trapp
Allison Rogers
Baylee Phillips
Callie Cripps
Kristen Parsley
Kayley Caplinger
Luke Green
Chloe Cripps
Taylor Spare
Katherine Parsley
Sahara Lafever
Caitlyn Lawrence
Maegan Harris
Clayton Hoyle
Lexie Bates
Gentry Harpole
Erica Birmingham
Alex Steel
Steven Jennings
Alexis Roller
Jacob Self
Skylar Pease
Bailey Redmon
Hanah Panter
Zachary Parsley
Maddison Dickens
Regan Foutch
Myranda Bailiff
Emily Wallace
Paige Snyder
Kaylee Braswell
Rebekah Brandt
Jason Perricone
Rosa Payne
Caelin Crips
Neely Evans
Michael Warren
Julianne Richardson
To be considered for top Rank, students must take at least 10 honors, dual enrollment, and AP courses and students must have a 21 or higher ACT composite score.

Come pitch your tent tonight (March 2) at “Camp Read S’more.” DeKalb West School is opening its doors to the community for the second annual Family Literacy Night, starting at 5:45 p.m.
“The learning aspect is important, but to me, the memories and the family time are the most important things that would be gained from that night,” says Librarian Amanda Mullinax, who coordinates the event. “I was chatting a couple of weeks ago about what to expect from this night with our new first grade teachers, Mrs. Ashlee Thomason. She made the comment that these type things are going to be what her students remember about her. When it’s 15, 20 years down the road, they’re probably not going to remember Mrs. Ashlee teaching them a phonics lessons, but they are going to remember the night that she had a carnival out in the hall. They’re going to remember the fun, the silly, and the different things.”
Children’s author Mike Shoulders will return as a special guest speaker to kick off the festivities before the crowd is dismissed to pursue other activities. Students in all grades also will have their Literacy Fair projects on display. A Clifford the Big Red Dog carnival will be happening on the first grade hallway while visitors might spy The Cat in the Hat and other book characters roaming through the building. Hike through Winnie the Pooh’s 100 Acre Woods, stroll through a book walk with Thing One and Thing Two or tap into your inner author with a session on Cooking up Crafty Characters. Additionally, the new DWS STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Club for 5th-8th grades will be unveiled as Junior Beta President Garrett Hayes and Club Sponsor/Special Education teacher Teresa Sullivan give an overview of the club.
Besides turning literacy into a fun affair, this event highlights the strong need in education to boost children’s reading skills. DeKalb County Schools have set a goal that 90% of all students will be on or above grade level at the end of 3rd grade. Mullinax says it’s crucial to begin building a child’s reading skills as early as birth.
“A Kindergartener does not have to come in reading, but they have to come in with some recognition of sound and letters and alphabet and how letters make sounds,” says Mullinax. “Those are skills that now students are expected to bring to the table as they enter school where when I was younger, we learned that when we got to Kindergarten.”
“It used to be that first grade was for reading,” she continues. “It’s not that way anymore. Now, Kindergarten is for letter recognition and for learning to tie those letters into words and those words into sentences. Our Kindergarteners here are already expected to read sentences. If they are getting those literacy skills and that foundation from birth, then when they get here they can build, and we can keep them where they’re expected to be on their particular grade level.”
The new reading goal along with the “20 for 20” program highlights the need for families to climb aboard in helping the child with literacy in the early years.
“Literacy doesn’t need to begin when they enroll for Kindergarten or Pre-K. It needs to begin much earlier than that. It isn’t simply sitting down for 20 minutes and reading. It’s any activity that deals with the development of letters and sounds and being able to comprehend what is in that picture, even picture games where they might describe what’s in the picture. They can read a book long before they can read words. To me, the “20 for 20” in our school is very beneficial. I’m also hoping that it is trickling down in the home to the students that are going to be at the West school in the next couple of years because that ties into the 90% reading goal.”

A DCHS Sophomore is this week’s “Classroom Champion”.
Lydia Brown recently received the award presented by Smithville Attorney Jim Judkins and Dwayne Page of WJLE.
Brown is the daughter of Stephen and Amanda Brown and her siblings are Austin and Grant.
Lydia is an active member of Salem Baptist Church. She is an athlete on the DCHS girls basketball and softball teams and a member of the FBLA, Science Club, Climate Crew, and FCA.
Brown said she loves math and hopes to one day enter the medical field after college.
In an effort to recognize achievements of students in the DeKalb County School System, WJLE has partnered with attorney Judkins in featuring a “Classroom Champion” each week for the next several months.
The name of the student selected each week will be announced on WJLE and will be featured on the WJLE website. Each student winning will receive a plaque and a gift certificate.
“This is our way of recognizing and celebrating the achievements of the future citizens and leaders of the community. It can benefit their learning and overall school atmosphere and climate. The students’ selection is based on academic performance, responsibility and work ethic, leadership abilities, and citizenship and character,” said Judkins.

A sex offender was in DeKalb County Criminal Court Friday.
51 year old David Royden Drennan of Sparta Highway, Smithville, indicted for violation of the sex offender law, entered a plea to the lesser offense of attempting to violate the sex offender registry. He received a sentence of 11 months and 29 days on supervised probation and was fined $350.
Sheriff Patrick Ray said that on Monday, February 8, 2016 Drennan allowed minor children to live with him at his home in violation of his sex offender registration.

High winds caused some structure damage this morning (Wednesday) in Alexandria but no injuries were reported.
Alexandria Police Chief Chris Russell told WJLE that a roof was partially blown off a house on High Street and a metal carport was blown across Nashville Highway. Several trees are also down. Electricity service was interrupted for some people.
“It looks like the worst of the thunderstorms is over. Alexandria seemed to get hit the hardest with some roof damage and a carport blew across the road. There were some small trees and limbs down around the county but nothing severe. There was also some wind damage with tree limbs down around the Silver Point area. There has only been some minor flooding in the usual spots at this point with some water over the road on Bright Hill Road,” said DeKalb County Emergency Management Agency Coordinator Charlie Parker

Edgar Evins State Park, Silver Point, has seen a lot of change in the past few years. Now it is welcoming another native son of the area as the new park manager. Kenneth Gragg assumed his new duties at Edgar Evins on January 19th after nine years as a ranger at Tims Ford State Park, Winchester. The last four years of that time he served as the park manager.
Kenny, as he prefers to be called, grew up in Cookeville, the son of Regina and Ken Gragg. He graduated from public schools there and from Tennessee Tech in 2006 with a degree in Wildlife and Fisheries. Earlier this year he graduated from the National Association of State Park Directors State Park Leadership School.
He is married to Amanda Ballard Gragg, also of the area. They have two children, Gavin who is 6 and Elsie who is age 4. Kenny said he and his wife will be looking for a house fairly close to the park in either Putnam or DeKalb counties.
Gragg will be the second “new” park manager at Edgar Evins since the retirement of Carl Halfacre in the fall of 2014. Carl was followed by Jacob Young, a native of Liberty who was transferred to Fall Creek Falls State Park, Spencer, last October. Since that time Ranger Mark Taylor has been the Interim Park Manager, a role he had also filled in the months between Halfacre and Young. Despite the many changes in leadership of this park in recent years Ranger Taylor, Ranger Brad Halfacre, and Ranger Justin Vaughn, with help of all the support staff, have provided the continuity and stability to keep the park going strong and providing a positive experience for visitors.
Fount Bertram, President of the Friends of Edgar Evins State Park states “We have enjoyed a great relationship with all our previous park mangers and look forward to working with Kenny Gragg. He will no doubt continue the good work while bringing new ideas and leadership. Please drop by to say hello and welcome him home to the community.”

The state is willing to remove a “public use” deed restriction and allow the county to pay fair market value for the Cherry Hill Community Center property on Cookeville Highway.
During Monday night’s meeting, County Mayor Tim Stribling informed the county commission that the excess land committee of the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s Right of Way Division met in January and granted approval clearing the way for the county’s outright ownership of the Cherry Hill Community Center property.
Although the state deeded the 0.24 acre site to DeKalb County in August, 1981, a restriction currently requires the county to use the property for public purposes. After taking control of the site in the 1980’s the county constructed the Cherry Hill Community Center there. In recent years community interest in the center has waned and the building is now in need of repairs. Members of the county commission have expressed an interest in either disposing of the property or leasing it.
In order to have the “public use” deed restriction removed and for the county to assume total control of the property, the county commission recently authorized County Mayor Stribling to file with the Tennessee Department of Transportation an application for “Conveyance of Interest of Surplus TDOT Right of Way”.
County Mayor Stribling explained that this process requests the state to ascertain the fair market value of the property should the county decide to purchase it.
“The committee has determined that the public use restriction can be released if fair market value is paid by the county. Your request has been recommended for approval and will now proceed to the environmental and appraisal processes. After all necessary approvals have been obtained you will be issued and executed a release of all restrictions,” according to a letter to the county from TDOT’s Right of Way Division.
“The way they explained it was they will send an individual out from the state and they will take a look at the Cherry Hill property. If they think the value of it is below $10,000 then the state TDOT office in Chattanooga will come up and do the appraisal on the land only. If they think the property is valued at more than $10,000 then they would get an independent appraiser to come up. If we do buy the property at fair market value then that restriction for public use will be removed from the deed,” said County Mayor Stribling.
The county is not required to buy the property from the state even after the fair market value is determined.

A man who was nabbed in a Smithville Police Department undercover drug investigation and months later allegedly burglarized a pickup truck was in DeKalb County Criminal Court Friday.
37 year old Robert Lee Nichols, Jr. appeared before Judge Gary McKenzie and entered a plea to sale of a schedule II drug (less than 0.5 grams) and auto burglary. He received a three year sentence in the drug case suspended to 180 days to serve and he was fined $2,000. Nichols got a two year sentence for the auto burglary to serve 19 days. The two terms are to run consecutively for a total of five years but he will be on TDOC probation. He was given jail credit of 106 days. Nichols is to make $48 restitution to the Smithville Police Department and $75 to other victims in the case.
Nichols was one of eight persons indicted as a result of an undercover drug investigation by the Smithville Police Department
“On January 14, 2016 the Police Department launched an undercover drug investigation based on several complaints of illegal drugs being sold throughout the city. Using a confidential informant we were able to make several buys throughout the city. The cases were presented to the DeKalb County Grand Jury on Monday, November 28, 2016 and sealed indictments were returned against these individuals,” Chief Mark Collins told WJLE.
The indictment against Nichols and a co-defendant alleges that on February 22, 2016 they did unlawfully and knowingly sell and or deliver a controlled substance, to wit: Methamphetamine, a schedule II controlled substance, in an amount under 0.5 grams.
Meanwhile, in November, 2016 Nichols was arrested for auto burglary by the Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff Patrick Ray, said that on Wednesday, November 9, 2016 Nichols and another person broke into a 1998 Nissan Frontier and stole a machete and foldup chair. Entry was made by breaking out the glass window to the truck. The next day, Thursday November 10, Nichols was arrested after being stopped near his home on Hodges Road for driving on a revoked license. The case was investigated by a detective of the sheriff’s department.