By DUANE SHERRILL / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard Rescue crews pull Cheryl Smith from the wreckage of her family’s car after it collided with a school bus on Shellsford Road Tuesday afternoon. Smith and her husband, Scott Smith, were critically injured. (Duane Sherrill photo) Two people were critically injured while seven passengers on…

By JAMES CLARK / Editor for the Southern Standard A 4-year-old boy drowned late yesterday after wandering off from his baby-sitter.The boy, Damien Bolden, was one of four children being watched at a Cope Street residence.According to a preliminary report, the victim walked off from the residence with another child while the baby-sitter was attending…

Joe Wyatt Mayfield, 47McMinnville resident and Warren County native Joe Wyatt Mayfield, 47, died March 4 at his home after an extended illness.A Carrier employee, he attended Locust Street Church of God and was the son of Billy Marshall and Marie Turner Mayfield.He is survived by daughters, Katie Lauren and Jenna Nicole Mayfield, both of…

By Joan Ryan / Columnist We had been told all week that an act of terror could be imminent.We watched flashing reminders on television every day that the government had upgraded the nation’s terrorism alert code to orange. We read stories about Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge advising everyone to assemble survival kits of water,…

By Hope Hines / Columnist There are spies everywhere.Don’t look now, but somebody is watching you. If not at this very minute you are reading my column, they soon will. And it’s highly likely you won’t even know it.Scary, huh.No, I’m not talking about the government, your boss, your neighbor or even your husband or…

By Duane Sherrill / Columnist What’s a man got to do to get his face put on a billboard nowadays?As of this week, I’ve been with the Southern Standard for 13 years, writing thousands of stories over that period, stretching from my original story on March 4, 1990 about two dogs that got trapped inside…

Our Viewpoint While many of us log long hours at work to earn an honest living, there are scam artists out there logging extended hours to dream up dishonest schemes. These are schemes concocted to separate us from our hard-earned dollars. Some are intended to drain our life savings.Con men can knock on our doors,…

By Roger Cook / Columnist After someone has spent 10 years in prison for robbing a bank and then set free into society, should this person and his family think the community ought to accept him/her with open arms as if he/she had done nothing wrong? This would be perhaps the ideal way if you…

Six hundred years ago, a rich and defiant English merchant named Richard Hunne sued church authorities until, exasperated, they had him jailed in London’s Lollard’s Tower, where wires were driven up his nostrils to his brain until he died in a pool of blood, becoming one of the British Protestant Reformation’s most famous martyrs.The night…

Former quarterback and head coach of the Green Bay Packers and Pro Football Hall of Famer Bart Starr will be the keynote speaker March 6 for the Middle Tennessee Council Boy Scouts of America’s annual Patron Luncheon at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel.The announcement was made today by co-chairs Thomas E. Beeman, CEO of Saint Thomas…