By CHARLES W. JOHNSON News Editor for the Southern Standard The Highland Rim Cycling Classic returns to McMinnville this weekend. Those marvels of endurance and physical conditioning on their high-tech and sensationally swift bicycles will be racing into Warren County this weekend for one of the region?s premier racing competitions as the Highland Rim Cycling…

DICKSON (AP) A truck going the wrong way on Interstate 40 and a van carrying prisoners crashed Tuesday, sending five people to the hospital. The truck driver faces charges in the incident that occurred just before 5 a.m., according to Tennessee Safety Department spokeswoman Julie Oaks. Officials with the prisoner-transportation company that owned the van…

NASHVILLE (AP) Universal carding for beer sales is one step closer to becoming a reality in Tennessee after a committee voted to send it for a full House vote. The bill advanced Tuesday by the House Finance, Ways and Means committee would require store workers to ask for identification from everyone, no matter how old…

MURFREESBORO (AP) The manager of a Christian bookstore chased a would-be robber with a pair of scissors and cornered him until authorities arrived, Murfreesboro police said. Tim Davis was working alone Saturday afternoon at his family-owned Salt and Pepper Christian Store when a robber showed him a note demanding money and claiming he had a…

NASHVILLE (AP) McMILLAN A proposal to create a $6.15-per-hour minimum wage in Tennessee is poised for floor votes in both chambers of the General Assembly after being advanced by House Finance, Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday. House Majority Leader Kim McMillan, the measure?s main sponsor, said the Tennessee is among only six states that…

William Rusher When the ordeal of coping with the world’s complexities becomes too much for us, we Americans tend to take comfort in the reflection that the United States is, after all, “the world’s only superpower.” This overlooks the discomfiting fact that the United States is also well on its way to becoming known as…

Duane Sherrill Are we all in agreement the Sherrill Poll was accurate? If you saw Friday?s paper and the side-by-side comparisons, you?ll notice it was even more accurate than most national election polls I?ve seen. Hey, I?m no mathematical whiz, I simply took political polling back in college and I?ve tweaked my method over the…

DANIELS I don’t know how everybody else feels about it, but to me I think Hispanic people in this country, legally or illegally, made a huge public relations mistake with their recent demonstrations. I don’t blame anybody in the world for wanting to come to the United States of America, as it is a truly…

Nat Hentoff James Madison, the architect of the First Amendment, credited the newspapers of his time for “much of the lights” that “conducted the United States to the ranks of a free and independent nation.” This year’s Pulitzer Prizes show dramatically how newspapers — above all other media — remain essential to Thomas Jefferson’s warning:…

By CHARLES W. JOHNSON News Editor for the Southern Standard Brothers Ridge, left, and Roth Nunley are pictured with the Gingko tree planted in the WCHS courtyard in memory of their aunt, longtime WCHS teacher Linda Nunley, who lost her battle with cancer last year. Ridge and Roth Nunley remember longtime Warren County High School…