By LOUIS MELLINI
Staff Writer

HAMILTON - Marion County jailers, Hamilton Police Officers and Marion County Sheriff’s Deputies had their hands full after a riot broke out in the Marion County Jail in Hamilton on Thursday night, Aug. 12, in Hamilton.
Marion County Sheriff Kevin Williams spoke briefly about the incident to the Marion County Commissioners on Monday, Aug. 16, during a regular commission meeting at the commission office in Hamilton.
Williams said that the inmates became angered due to the high temperatures within the jail on the day of the riot.

By Luke brantley Staff Writer WINFIELD - On Monday, Aug. 16, the Winfield Chamber of Commerce voted to cancel Mule Day for the second year in a row, according to Chamber of Commerce President Dana Peoples. Last year’s event was canceled due to COVID-19, and this year’s event met the same fate. “We greatly regret that Mule Day 2021 has been cancelled,” a statement released by the Chamber of Commerce said. “COVID-19 continues to pose a serious public threat to the State of Alabama and to our community.

By LOUIS MELLINI
Staff Writer

By SCOTT JOHNSON
General Manager

By LOUIS MELLINI
Staff Writer

By Luke Brantley
Staff Writer

By LOUIS MELLINI
Staff Writer

HAMILTON - Marion County Emergency Management Agency Director Eric Terrell spoke to the Journal Record on Friday, Aug. 13, expressing great concern about the effectiveness of the county’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m very concerned about where we’re headed. We had a quiet summer, but a month or so ago, we started seeing that things were not trending in the right direction,” said Terrell.

By Louis Mellini Staff Writer HAMILTON - New water plant operator Jeff Watkins is set to begin work in the City of Hamilton after an official vote by the Hamilton City Council to hire him on Monday, Aug. 2, at Hamilton City Hall. Watkins will replace David Peoples, who officially retired on Sunday, Aug. 1. Mayor Bob Page stated he is glad to have Watkins come to the City of Hamilton to take the position at the Hamilton Water Department.

By LOUIS MELLINI Staff Writer Gov. Kay Ivey announced that Alabama’s preliminary, seasonally adjusted June unemployment rate is 3.3%, down from May’s rate of 3.4%, and well below June 2020’s rate of 7.7%. June’s rate represents 73,744 unemployed persons, compared to 75,398 in May and 171,721 in June 2020, representing an over-the-year drop of 97,977. “As our unemployment rate continues to drop and employers continue to fill jobs, we’re proud to celebrate the fact that Alabama is open for business,” said Ivey.

HAMILTON - North Mississippi Health Services hospitals in Hamilton and Tupelo, Amory, Eupora, Iuka, Pontotoc and West Point, Miss., have been recognized with a 2021 Premier QUEST Hero Award.
The QUEST Hero Award recognizes NMHS hospitals for their exemplary efforts to act nimbly and quickly evolve care and operations in the face of extraordinary circumstances presented by the pandemic.

Last March, the world shut down.
I was still in college at Troy, and all classes went online. All work for the Tropolitan (the student newspaper) was being done virtually.
After a few weeks of not leaving my apartment, I was starting to go insane. I beat all my video games and binge-watched all the shows I’d been planning to watch. Cabin fever was setting in.

It seems a weird time to be celebrating or marking anything, but it is a fact on the calendar that next Wednesday marks the 40th anniversary of my first newspaper interview.
Essentially, I have been in the news business for 40 years now, and almost always dominated by newspaper work. I briefly tried radio for a few months and certainly I have added work on our digital platforms since I returned to the Eagle, but generally I have been about putting out a newspaper. And I figured out I've spent about 30 of those years in Marion and Walker counties.

The field may be set for the race to fill the Seat of our iconic senior U.S. Senator, Richard Shelby. When Senator Shelby announced that he would not seek a seventh six-year term in the United States Senate earlier this year, many of us expected a stampede of candidates to throw their hats in the ring. When a U.S. Senate seat opens for the first time in 36 years, you might expect everybody who had ever won a 4-H speaking contest to enter the fray. However, I guess politics does not have quite the allure that it used to in bygone days.

Marion County Probate Judge Paige Vick addressed the Marion County Commissioners on Tuesday, Aug. 3, to ask for a little over $200K to digitize deeds and mortgage files from 1901-2007.
Vick wants to use American Rescue Act funds to move the project forward, but even if this project is not eligible for those monies, we at the Journal Record believe the project should be funded in any way possible.

By Scott Johnson
General Manager

By Luke Brantley
Staff Writer

By Louis Mellini
Staff Writer

By Luke Brantley
Staff Writer

GUIN — The 3M facility in Guin is facing a proposed consent order from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM).
PFAS and PFOS, also known as “forever chemicals” were discovered in Guin's water supply last year. The 3M plant is located just upstream from the city's water plant on Purgatory Creek.

By Scott Johnson
General Manager

GUIN – A Marion County man has been arrested and charged with fifty counts of possession of child pornography.
David Lee Banta, 25, Guin, was arrested without incident on Wednesday evening, Aug. 4, at his residence by the Marion County District Attorney Investigators.