Other Days: November 13, 2024

10  YEARS  AGONOVEMBER  12,  2014Last Tuesday's general election was the last time that retiring county clerk Sharon Gray will oversee an election, but it is one she had just as soon forget. Gray said her office was covered up with phone calls from poll workers across the county, reporting various problems with their voting machines. And on top of that, when the electronic devices were plugged into the tallying equipment at the courthouse here to calculate all the votes, it failed to work and Gray's office had to tally all the votes by hand. The county's results finally got to state officials shortly after 1 a.m. on Wednesday. Also, problems with voting machines were reported across the state. Gray said she believes the problem stems from the fact that machines are now 10 years old and need to be replaced, an issue that will have to be addressed by the office of the Secretary of State. Cleveland County's voter percentage turnout for last Tuesday's election ranked 16th in the state at 56.24 percent. All employees of the Cleveland County School District will be receiving a one-time payment of $500 after the school board approved Supt. Johnnie Johnson's recommendation for the payments. The one-time payments will cost the district $76,762.59.At a special meeting last Wednesday night, the Rison City Council approved an ordinance needed to move forward with a $145,000 USDA bond issue that is being used as part of a $484,000 federally-funded project to make sewer improvements within the city.Rison mayor Vernon Dollar announced that he and others are trying to launch Veterans Worldwide Assistance Program (VWAP), a program that will help American veterans cope with their service-related problems through a veteran exchange program with other countries. Rison won the battle at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, as the Wildcats pulled away in the second half to d...