Small-town gunman shoots 2 from home - Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Small-town gunman shoots 2 from home - Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: "

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Small-town gunman shoots 2 from home Fort Wayne Journal Gazette AP CENTER – Police say a 61-year-old gunman fired several shots from his home in a small central Indiana community, seriously wounding a medical delivery ... wxin-health-care-worker-shot-multiple-times-071610Fox 59 all 32 news articles »

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COLUMN: Big Neighbor might be watching you -- if you're lucky

By PENNY WEAVER, News Editor
pweaver@jg-tc.com

Ah, the unique charm of living in a small town: Everyone knows everyone; most people are related to everyone; and when someone new moves into town, they must be assimilated.

Whoops — perhaps I’ve confused “charm” with an old episode of “Star Trek.”

Almost all my life, I’ve heard people — mostly younger folks — complain about living in a small town. Inevitably, in these conversations, it’s the “nosy neighbor” who is brought up as an offender.

Someone always has an old fart in their neighborhood whom they portray as poking their nose into everyone else’s business, as if this elderly menace sits by a picture window with an Uzi awaiting one wrong move by some cigarette-smoking teenager.

I’ve heard this busybody stereotype described as if she or he is parked on a front porch or with a nose pressed against a window, binoculars in hand, notebook and pen nearby, long-lensed camera hanging heavily about the neck, and the phone with the police station’s number on speed dial at the ready.

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Smalltown murder of ‘well-liked’ man

by Roger Bell
The Daily Herald Staff Writer
Published/Last Modified on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 5:14 PM EST

GARYSBURG — Garysburg Police, along with the Northampton County Sheriff’s Office Detective Division are seeking information on the murder of a popular citizen of their small town over the weekend. According to Garysburg Police Chief Raymond Vaughan, Lieutenant Michael Boone of his department received a call Saturday at 7:34 p.m. from the Northampton Communications Center indicating a man was lying in the road on Apple Street. Along with Deputy Mitchell DeLoatch, of the Northampton County Sheriff’s Office, Boone responded to the call to find Thomas Charles Watson, 58, of West Railroad Street, bleeding from the head at the scene.

Watson was rushed to the Halifax Regional Medical Center and transferred to Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville, where he died early Sunday morning.

“This has become a shock to the entire Garysburg community,” Vaughan said. “Mr. Watson was well-respected and well-liked throughout the town. He would help anyone he could.”

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Bridgewater is the last dry town standing

This story originally appeared in the Sunday, Jan. 24 print edition of The News-Times. Click here to subscribe.

BRIDGEWATER --This the last dry town in the state, the single ordinance-ordered reef of sobriety in a tidal wash of booze. You cannot buy alcohol anywhere within this town's borders.

The town is facing the challenges of the 21st century by sticking to its teetotaling guns established at a town meeting nearly 75 years ago.

"I have never been asked about someone opening a package store or a restaurant,'' said First Selectman Bill Stuart, who has been first selectman for the last 26 years and has acquired a certain institutional memory. "People don't see the need for it.''

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Ban Merriam Webster's Dictionary?

In a small town less than a hundred miles south of Los Angeles, a school district will soon meet to decide whether or not to ban Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as being "age in-appropriate."

The whole ordeal started with a parent's complaint that his child came across the words "oral sex." The dictionaries were removed from classrooms last week, and a committee is being formed to determine whether a permanent ban on Merriam Webster dictionaries is in order.

Menifee, which is in Riverside County, is a small town with under 100,000 residents. Their school district serves students from kindergarten through eight grade.

The decision to remove the dictionaries from the shelves of all classrooms in the school district, according to an assistant superintendant, wasn't only because the dictionary mentions "oral sex," but "a number of referenced words" school administrators found offensive. Clearly, Menifee elders are more concerned about insulating children than educating them.

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UPDATE!

Brazen burglars break into many businesses, scares small town

New Paris, IN

The New Paris community is looking for a man who has been breaking into about a dozen of its businesses the last few months.

Reporter: Alana Greenfogel
Email Address: alana.greenfogel@wndu.com

The only thing hotter than the coffee at a local New Paris diner is the topic everyone’s talking about. A brazen burglar is making his way from business to business all around town.

"It's very, very rare,” says Ashley Elliot, who cooks at the diner. “Very rare."

"I haven't...I've never...No...I've never seen anything like this," adds Sue Gantt, who also works at the diner.

Across the street from the diner, two businesses are among the growing list that’s been burglarized in the last few months.

"They're brazen. They just don't care," says Larry Johns from Travel Lite, which was broken into last week. "He just goes from business to business. He's hit one, two, three, four, five businesses in this little country area."

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Baldwin fatal stabbing shakes up small town

BALDWIN - The Wednesday stabbing death of Marilyn Jean Russell has shaken this little town west of Jacksonville.

It's one of those places where neighbors know and look out for each other - and where violent crime, especially murder, is rare, some residents and family members said on Saturday.

"I've been here 27 years and you could probably count on one hand the number of people that have been killed here," said Elmer Still, a friend of Russell's and owner of an auto repair shop near the intersection of U.S. 301 and U.S. 90.

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