Other Days: July 31, 2024

10 YEARS AGO, JULY 30, 2014The Bob and Brenda Young family of the Rye community has been named Cleveland County's "Farm Family of the Year" for 2014.The old Phoenix Hotel and adjoining buildings on Main Street in downtown Rison received yet another reprieve this week, when equipment problems and a failure by the power company to turn off the electricity resulted in a second postponement of demolition of the structures. The site is to be cleared for a new bank building.Rickey Spencer of Kingsland, the Zone 1 representative on the Cleveland County School Board, confirmed last Thursday that he intends to serve another five-year term on the board. Spencer, nor anyone else, turned in the required petitions by the July 8 deadline to be placed on the school election ballot for September 16. County clerk Sharon Gray said that since Spencer was the last person elected to the position, he automatically remains as the Zone 1 representative until the next election in five years unless he resigns. Spencer has served on the Cleveland County School Board since its inception in 2004 following the merger of the Kingsland and Rison districts.The Cleveland County School Board approved raising student lunches by 10 cents to $1.60 and adult prices for breakfast and lunch to $1.90 and $3.25, respectively. Student breakfast prices will remain the same.20 YEARS AGO, AUGUST 4, 2004The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis has ruled in favor of defendants in a lawsuit filed by Margaret Stuckey and her son, Charles Stuckey, Jr., against the now defunct Cleveland County Solid Waste Authority, two of its board members and one of its employees. In an opinion, the court said it entered judgment in favor of the defendants, "finding that there was insufficient evidence to support any theory of liability as to any party that was properly subject to suit." The Court of Appeals decision upheld a June, 2003, deci...