* Second in a two-part series
The year 2016 produced a wide array of headline-grabbing news in Tallahatchie County.
Following are some of the top stories of the year, as recorded in the pages of The Sun-Sentinel.
July
» The James C. Kennedy Wellness Center in Charleston launches the “Charleston Farmers Market and Movie Night” at the center.
» Bryan Roberson Farms reports that the first cotton bloom in Tallahatchie County was discovered June 28 in a field on South Creek Road.
» The Webb Board of Aldermen adopts a “Dangerous Dog Ordinance,” banning the ownership of pit bulls and Rottweilers, and any other mixed-breed dog that is a combination of those two breeds, in the town.
» The Charleston Police Department takes delivery of a 2016 Ford Taurus donated to the department by Sayle Oil Co. The police cruiser is one of three of the new cars acquired by the police force, with a federal Rural Development grant paying for the $27,000 cost of each of the two other cars.
» Recently unsealed court documents show federal authorities seized 800 acres in Tallahatchie County as part of an ongoing, multi-state probe into allegations of a multi-million-dollar pharmacy fraud ring. The hunting land outside Charleston and near Brazil is worth more than $400,000, according to courthouse records, and is owned by Hattiesburg businessman Wade Walters.
» It is announced that Carla Ross is the new executive director of the Tutwiler Community Education Center, succeeding Sister Maureen Delaney.
» Charleston pharmacist Robert Salmon is honored as the 2016 Bowl of Hygeia winner for the state of Mississippi at the Mississippi Pharmacists Association’s 145th annual convention and trade show in Sandestin, Florida.
» State inmate Jonathan T. Bray, 25, of Baldwyn, is found hanging in a shower cell at the Tallahatchie County Sheriff’s Sumner Work Center in Sumner. The July 12 hanging death is ruled a suicide.
» Gary “Farm Boy” Schmitz, 39, of Pittsboro, suffers minor superficial injuries when an Amtrak passenger train smashes into the tandem axle area of his log truck at a rural crossing just south of Glendora. The trailer of the truck is empty at the time of the July 21 accident.
» Former Charleston High School softball player Alexis Tallant signs to play softball for Blue Mountain College.
August
» The Tallahatchie County Fair opens Aug. 3 at the fairgrounds.
» A circuit judge in Panola County finds probable cause for Mississippi Highway Patrol trooper Dino Stutts to face charges following a June 3 incident in which he allegedly slung Tallahatchie County Deputy Sheriff Benji McKinney against his patrol car.
» Public meetings are held in Sumner and Tutwiler to identify opportunities for increasing long-term access to healthy foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, in western Tallahatchie County. The sessions are sponsored by a team of five graduate students from the University of Michigan and the Emmett Till Interpretive Center.
» Charleston-area resident Jennifer Hargett Barefoot, 36, is shot to death while her husband, Jim Barefoot, 40, and her sister-in-law, Jim’s sister Vikki Barefoot Holland, 44, are wounded by gunshots in an Aug. 8 triple shooting between relatives in the Pope community of rural Panola County. Within the week, Jim is charged with capital murder in the case.
» A man whose car was on fire on a rural county road is charged with stealing the personal vehicle of one of the responding firefighters — Justice Court Judge Jimmy Fly. Roger Havens, 36, of 1091 Oak Grove Road, Charleston, is charged with grand larceny and attempted aggravated assault after he also allegedly discharges a .38 revolver he found tucked away inside Fly’s 2006 Toyota Tacoma.
» Mrs. L.E. Frost of Charleston turns 104 years old on Thursday, Aug. 18. The longtime midwife is said to have helped to bring over 1,000 children into the world.
» The Tallahatchie County Library Board votes to close the doors of the county’s branch library in Tutwiler effective Sept. 1 due to state funding cutbacks. The decision is later reversed.
» Tallahatchie General Hospital’s James C. Kennedy Wellness Center in solicits public donation of certain items to be delivered to the victims of recent record flooding in Louisiana.
» Tutwiler resident Amelia Davis signs the deed to become the latest owner of a West Tallahatchie Habitat for Humanity home.
» The Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi unveils a new scholarship award honoring the late Charles M. George, who was Tallahatchie County’s first African-American district school superintendent.
September
» Football players for Strider Academy and M.S. Palmer High School are airlifted from football stadiums at Strider and West Tallahatchie in Webb, respectively, on Friday, Sept. 1, after sustaining game-related injuries. The worst was later said to be a pinched nerve in the neck.
» Tallahatchie County officials report Sept. 5 that John Leo Hill IV, 59, of near Webb has been missing for several weeks. Sheriff William Brewer says “suspicious circumstances” surround the disappearance, but as 2017 dawned, Hill’s whereabouts remained unknown.
» Charleston pharmacist and businessman Robert Salmon, 72, is bitten on the foot by a rattlesnake while working near his lake cabin south of the city on Sept. 8. He receives 30 vials of antivenom before finally improving enough to be released from an Oxford hospital more than a week later.
» The first “Mayor’s Bike-A-Thon and Community Event” is held in Charleston Sept. 10. It is sponsored by Mayor Sedrick Smith.
» Sharon A. Herron is named the new director of the ICS West Tallahatchie Head Start Center in Glendora.
» The Charleston High School Tigers defeat the West Tallahatchie High School Choctaws 39-6 to claim a 30th straight victory in the cross-county varsity football series dubbed the “Battle of the Golden Egg.”
» The Strider Academy varsity Rams beat the Delta Streets Lions 30-20 to snap a 35-game winless streak for the varsity football team that began in August 2013.
» The Charleston Lady Tigers slow-pitch softball team wins the District 3-3A title.
» A 6,900-square-foot commercial building on West Main Street in Charleston is destroyed by fire. The building is owned by Tallahatchie County Sheriff William Brewer. The State Fire Marshal’s Office and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigate, offering a reward of up to $7,500 for information about how the blaze started.
» Charleston police investigate the early-morning burglary of Little’s Express, a convenience store located at 412 S. Clay St., from which “a large sum of money” was reported stolen.
October
» The body of Christopher George Young, 42, of 290 Fifth St., Crowder, is recovered from the Tallahatchie River near Strider on Oct. 3. Officials say Young apparently drowned after jumping into the river at Sheley Bridge, located two miles north, on Oct. 1. There is no evidence of foul play.
» Due to extremely dry conditions, a ban on all outdoor burning is adopted by the Tallahatchie County Board of Supervisors and approved by the Mississippi Forestry Commission. A partial statewide burn ban is eventually ordered by Gov. Phil Bryant.
» The Tutwiler Mayor Health Council receives an award for its work in fostering health and wellness. The award is presented by the Mississippi Delta Health Collaborative.
» An Oct. 10 accident involving an SUV and a Tallahatchie County Road De-partment Mack truck injures six occupants of a Chevrolet Tahoe, including four who are airlifted from the scene of the incident on Highway 32 Central by four separate helicopters. All of them survive.
» A crowd estimated at several thousand flocks into Charleston for Oct. 15’s sixth annual Gateway to the Delta Festival on Court Square.
» The Charleston Board of Commissioners votes to hire Luther Folson, a 46-year-old Water Valley resident, to succeed longtime Charleston Police Chief John Page, 62. Page earlier announced his retirement at the end of 2016 after more than 33 years with the city police, including nearly 15 years as chief.
» After finishing the 2016 regular season undefeated at 7-0, the Strider Academy junior high football team beats Greenville Christian 16-14 to capture the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools’ 8-Man Northern Division championship and end the year at 8-0.
» The West Tallahatchie junior high Choctaws defeat Humphreys County 6-0 in triple overtime to win the program’s first Delta Valley Conference football title since 2009. The junior Chocs end the season with a mark of 7-1.
» Three men are arrested in connection with the Oct. 12 late-night shooting death of Tutwiler resident Moseah McDanail, 22, on North Chickasaw Street in Webb.
» The third annual Sumner Harvest Festival is held Oct. 22 on Sumner’s Court Square.
» Delta Young, 52, a former deputy clerk in the Sumner office of the Tallahatchie County tax assessor and collector, is sentenced to 18 months of supervised probation for embezzling $16,848.09 in county funds.
» West Tallahatchie High School boys’ basketball coach Bernard Berryhill is named a 2017 All-Star basketball coach.
» Delta Regional Authority awards the town of Webb $53,788.09 to support water and sewage systems.
» Former church clerk Marilyn Diane Ross, 63, of Scobey is indicted by a Tallahatchie County grand jury on a charge of embezzling $56,604.53 from New Hope Presbyterian Church and Cemetery.
» Aletha Scott, 32, of Tillatoba is indicted for depraved heart murder in the death of her reputed boyfriend, Lezelrick Poole, 29, of Charleston. The indictment charges that Scott struck Poole with her car during an early-morning April 2 encounter on Saint Charles Street in Charleston. He died April 4 at a Memphis hospital.
November
» Billionaire businessman and TV reality show star Donald Trump, a Republican, defeats Democrat Hillary Clinton for U.S. president, but Clinton carries Tallahatchie County in the Nov. 8 voting.
» An Operation Christmas Child shoebox gift drop-off site opens at Sumner Baptist Church.
» The Charleston High School Marching Band earns high marks at several recent competitions.
» Tippo native Mose Allison, an internationally celebrated jazz-blues pianist, trumpeter, vocalist, poet and songwriter, dies Nov. 15 at his home in Hilton Head, South Carolina. He was 89.
» The National Charleston Day Organization conducts its fifth annual turkey raffle and coat giveaway Nov. 17 at the Charleston Day Club Center.
» A Charleston man and woman are killed in a one-vehicle accident on a rain-slick stretch of Highway 35 south of Charleston Nov. 28. Henry Lee Cashaw, 53, and Rubystein A. Patterson, 69, are pronounced dead at the scene.
» A storm-related power outage leaves Charleston without electricity for more than 22 hours Nov. 28-29. Election officials are forced to use paper ballots at several Charleston precincts until portable generators can go online to supply power to touchscreen machines for a Nov. 29 general election runoff for Supreme Court.
» Tutwiler voters face a Nov. 29 redo of an earlier election for Education District 1, a position on the West Tallahatchie School District Board of Trustees. Some voters in that town had received the wrong ballot during the Nov. 8 general election, necessitating the do-over. As she had earlier in the month, incumbent Lucinda Berryhill wins re-election handily.
» State Rep. Tommy Reynolds donates $30,000 to the Tallahatchie Early Learning Alliance.
December
» Two men are shot and two face charges due to an exchange of gunfire in a residential neighborhood of Charleston on Dec. 4.
» After winning their region for an eighth straight year and capturing the 3A North Mississippi title for a third consecutive year, the Charleston High School Tigers earn a berth to the 3A state championship game, where they lose a 12-8 decision to Kemper County on Dec. 3.
» Roger Dale Murphey Sr., 59, of Tippo pleads guilty Dec. 6 in Tallahatchie County Circuit Court to culpable manslaughter in the March 2015 shooting death of Mandy Wynne Baker, 35. Sentencing is set for Feb. 17.
» The Friends of the Tallahatchie Library group is formed to support the county-owned Charleston and Tutwiler public libraries.
» Large crowds turn out to view the Charleston Christmas parade on Dec. 10 and the Tutwiler Christmas parade on Dec. 14.
» The Mississippi Department of Transportation unveils details about ongoing construction projects on Highway 32 between Charleston and Webb and notes that over the next five years, MDOT will have completed, or have in progress, projects to replace 15 structurally deficient bridges in Tallahatchie County. In addition, MDOT announces that it expects to let the contract for replacement of the Tallahatchie River bridge at Strider in early 2022.
» Two men rob Sherman Creek Grocery on Peters Hill Road on Dec. 14.
» Charleston High School football player Jonathan Jones plays in the 2016 Mississippi/Alabama All-Star Football Game on Dec. 10 in Montgomery, Ala.
» Charleston High School football players Tre Truly and Raheem Wilson play in the Bernard Blackwell North/ South All-Star Football Classic on Dec. 17 in Gulfport.
» On Dec. 28, in an article in USA Today, Charleston High School All-Star linebacker Jonathan Jones (6-0, 200) is listed as a member of the first-team defense for the 2016 American Family Insurance ALL-USA Mississippi Football Team. Players were selected based on their athletic achievements from the 2016 football season.
» Curtis Delmar Johnson, 80, of Lambert dies in a one-vehicle accident on Highway 35 north of Charleston on Christmas Day.
