Southern Standard readers are invited to extend happy birthday and anniversary best wishes to friends and loved ones through this weekly column. Please submit your messages by our noon deadline each Thursday. No more that three wishes to any individual, please. Happy Birthday Wishes: March 24 ? Happy birthday Greg ?Hammer? Gillette. We love you,…

The Southern Women?s Show is a spectacular annual event that brings together the things women love: cooking demonstrations, fashion shows, makeovers, facials, entertainment, motivational speakers, health and fitness advice and lots of unique shopping. The country?s best-loved women?s show returns to Nashville on April 12-15 at the Nashville Convention Center. Here are just a few…

Warm spring breezes carry the promise of rebirth and new life. Spread the spirit of loving kindness this Easter season by making an extra Easter basket. Give it to someone who?s not expecting it, or drop it off at a local shelter, home or school where someone is in need. This simple act of kindness…

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) ? This much Jeff Gordon knows for sure: His life will change dramatically when his daughter is born this summer. And maybe, just maybe, his NASCAR career won?t seem quite so important. ?I think it?s going to be one of two things: It?s either going to make me work that much harder…

BLUFFTON, Ohio (AP) ? Some players who survived a bus crash that killed five teammates said they wanted their first game since the accident to be about baseball, but it was much more than that. ?The whole season is for the five of them,? team captain Ryan Baightel said after the game. ?We owe it…

Free basketball instruction The Warren County boys? basketball staff will be offering free fundamental instruction for present sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade boys in the county not presently playing a school sport (baseball, soccer, track, tennis, or golf). It will be held each Tuesday and Thursday in the month of April from 4:30 to 6:15 at…

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? Jeff Gordon leads the Nextel Cup standings, Jimmie Johnson won two of the first four races and Kyle Busch picked up his first victory last Sunday at Bristol. Casey Mears? Well, he?s not doing quite as well. Hendrick Motorsports? newest member has gotten off to a slow start in his first…

Green Hill resident John W. Watson, 82, died March 28 at his home. A dairy farmer and a member of Banks Cumberland Presbyterian Church, he was the son of the late Jessie and Beadie Vanatta Watson and was preceded in death by brother, Steve Watson and grandson, Barry Melton. He is survived by his wife,…

By Chuck Shepherd The West Tennessee Detention Facility (Mason, Tenn.) made a video pitch for California inmates, hoping some would volunteer to be outsourced under that state’s program to relieve overcrowding. The hard-timers should come east, the video urged, because of West Tennessee’s “larger and cleaner jail cells, 79 TV channels, including ESPN, views of…

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) ? A car going against traffic on an interstate collided head-on with a Greyhound bus early Saturday, killing one person and injuring 20 as frantic passengers were forced to exit through windows, police and witnesses said. The car, driven by a young woman, was headed the wrong way on Interstate 85 at…