Gas leak gives kids day off from school
Photos courtesy of Dennis Butcher
Officials from CenterPoint Energy met at
the Claiborne Parish Fair Complex Tuesday morning, staging the complex as their
command center. Eric Barkley, district director, met with Claiborne Parish
officials, including Homeland Security Director Dennis Butcher, Haynesville
Police Chief Anthony Smith, Haynesville Mayor Sherman Brown and CenterPoint
Operations Supervisor Mike Womak. The three leaning over the computer are
CenterPoint Energy service technicians. The Claiborne Parish Fair Complex was
the staging area for CenterPoint Energy service technicians as they quickly and
methodically responded to a gas leak that shot off gas for thousands of
customers as well as Haynesville schools.
The Guardian-Journal
Students
who attend Haynesville schools got an unexpected day off following a gas leak
that had not yet been repaired Tuesday.
Transportation
Supervisor Ronnie McKenzie said a tractor hit a gas line off Hwy. 615, breaking
an eight-inch line.
Eric
Barkley, district director for CenterPoint Energy, said a contractor’s
equipment broke the line around 5:30 p.m. Monday.
“A contractor’s
back hoe struck some of our equipment, which caused the outage,” he said. “We
immediately responded, and we enacted our emergency operations plan soon
thereafter.”
It’s a
three-step process, he said, which means workers recognize it’s a significant
event and are mobilized to begin repairs. At this point, all meters on that
particular system are turned off, and once they are turned off, they restore
gas to the system to purge it from any air that may have gotten into the lines.
Once they are sure the lines are in working condition again, then they go back
and do what’s called a “re-light,” where workers go back and turn the meters
back on.
Officials
met at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, and officials said there were 1,114 meters were affected.
As of that meeting, approximately 600 meters were turned off. Homeland Security
Director Dennis Butcher said there were about 60 service technicians from all
over the area were out turning the meters off.
Both
school cafeterias run on gas and without gas, kitchen staff cannot cook lunch
for the day, said Claiborne Parish Superintendent of Schools Dr. Janice
Williams.
“Without
the cafeteria, we can’t serve food,” she said, “and hopefully this issue can be
resolved so we can have school back in session tomorrow (Wednesday). We’re
working closely with CenterPoint to reach a resolution for this issue.”
As of
Tuesday morning, CenterPoint workers were ahead of schedule to getting
everything back up and running. Shortly after noon, they began the re-lighting
and restoring gas to its customers. Priorities included the nursing home, the
medical clinic and the schools.
CenterPoint
workers from as far as Little Rock, Arkansas and East Texas were brought in to
fix the gas line break.
School Board honors Students of the Year
The Guardian-Journal photo/Michelle Bates
Students of the Year were honored at
Thursday’s Claiborne Parish School Board meeting. Pictured from left are
Schools Superintendent Dr. Janice Williams, Students of the Year Summerfield
Senior Austin McCurry, Summerfield Eighth Grader Ashlyn Turner and Haynesville
Junior High fifth grade student Ethan Coker, Pre-K to Eighth Grade Supervisor
Bob Bond and School Board President Will Maddox.
The Guardian-Journal
Students
of the Year were recognized at Thursday’s Claiborne Parish School Board
meeting.
This
year’s students of the year are: Ethan Coker, a fifth grade student at
Haynesville Junior High School, Ashlyn Turner, an eighth grade student at
Summerfield High School, and Austin McCurry, a senior at Summerfield High
School.
Coker
is the son of Keith and Lauribeth Padgett of Haynesville. His favorite subjects
are science and history. He is actively involved in 4-H, AWANAS, market and
breeding goats project, market swine projects, exhibition poultry project and
the 4-H Outdoors Skills Archery Team.
Ethan
serves as the president of the 4-H Club and treasurer for the Claiborne Parish
Livestock Club. He also won the State Records Only contest this past summer for
his outstanding Records Portfolio, which he has admitted helped him put
together his Student of the Year application!
As a
result, he was awarded a three-day long, all expenses paid, educational trip to
the Louisiana Gulf Coast (Marsh Maneuvers). He enjoys hunting, fishing, video
gaming and reading when time permits.
Turner
is the daughter of Miki and Jason Turner of Summerfield. She enjoys playing
softball, watching wrestling, riding the four-wheeler and playing Wii.
She has
one dog and several cows. She raises them to show as a 4-H project. She states,
“I’m a country girl, and I’m proud of it!”
McCurry
is the son of Angela and Marty McCurry. He is a senior, and taking, in his
words, “a few challenging classes such as calculus and physics.”
He is a
member of 4-H, BETA Club and FCA. This year, he is serving as president of 4-H
and is treasurer of the BETA Club.
McCurry
plays baseball, travels nationally showing Brangus livestock and represents
this parish proudly.
After
graduation, he plans to attend Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, but
is undecided at this time about his major. However, he is considering something
in the architecture or engineering field.
The
school board congratulated these students on this honor, and School Board
President Will Maddox touted that each of these students were members of 4-H,
which is a testament to the impact the organization has on children’s lives.
Congratulations
to these students!
Traffic stop leads to arrests
The Guardian-Journal
One
Homer man turned himself into police and another was arrested on drug charges
following a traffic stop.
Demarius
D. Willis, 24, of Homer, turned himself in on Thursday, February 9, on warrants
for resisting an officer, driving under suspension, possession of Schedule I
CDS (marijuana), possession of drug paraphernalia, open door into traffic lane,
failure to yield to emergency vehicle, no seat belt, disobey stop/yield sign,
reckless operation of a vehicle and open container. Bonds on all these charges
totaled $5,000.
Kevin
D. Franklin, 31, of Homer, was arrested on Wednesday, February 8, on charges of
possession of drug paraphernalia with bond set at $500 and possession of
marijuana, third offense, with bond set at $10,000.
According
to police, Homer Police Sgt. Van McDaniel conducted a traffic stop on February
8, in which he’d noticed a vehicle roll through a stop sign on Washington and
Lee D. Nellams Streets. He signaled the vehicle to pull over by turning on his
emergency lights and sounding the siren on his unit.
The
driver of the vehicle, later identified as Willis, refused to pull over for
more than half a mile, finally stopping on Lyons Hill Road. McDaniel then made
the traffic stop, and reports say Willis exited his vehicle when he stopped.
Verbal commands were then given to get back into the car, and instead, Willis
reportedly ran off. Because there was another person in the vehicle, reports
say the officer did not pursue Willis.
He then
made contact with Franklin, the passenger in the vehicle, asking him to exit
the vehicle. As the suspect was exiting, the officer reportedly detected a
strong odor of what may have been marijuana coming from his person and the
inside of the vehicle.
Franklin
was immediately detained and put inside McDaniel’s patrol unit by Homer Police
Chief Russell Mills, who was on the scene with McDaniel. Once Franklin was
detained, the two began to search the vehicle, which revealed a weight scale
commonly used to measure drugs. According to reports, the scale had what
appeared to be drug residue on it, and it was collected and taken into
evidence. A further search revealed what was believed to be marijuana seeds
throughout the interior of the car. These seeds were also collected and taken
into evidence.
Reports
say that Franklin admitted to smoking marijuana in the vehicle and eating a
marijuana joint to conceal evidence.
Franklin
was placed under arrest and transported to the Claiborne Parish Detention
Center on the above charges.
Willis
turned himself in the next day.
In a
separate case, Jarvis Willis, 23, of Homer, was arrested on Tuesday, February
7, on domestic abuse with child endangerment charges with bond set at $2,000,
and a probation and parole violation with no bond. The warrants stem from an
incident in December 2011 when Officers Willie Knowles and Thomas Davis were dispatched
to the 3200 block of Dutchtown Road in reference to a disconnected 911
emergency call.
The two
officers went to the home and were met by the victim Angela Gilbert. According
to reports, Gilbert told police that Jarvis Willis was at her home when they
began to argue. Reports say she then told officers that Jarvis Willis hit her
in the head several times. When 911 was called again, reports say Jarvis Willis
fled the scene.
Davis
observed what appeared to be knots on the victim’s forehead, of which she
refused medical treatment.
The
child endangerment charge comes in because at the time of the altercation, two
children were present in the home.
He was
arrested by police and taken into custody. Arresting officers were Sgt. Van
McDaniel, Chief Mills, and Captain Donald Malray.
Celebrating Black History Month
February 16
At 6
p.m., the Boys and Girls Clubs of Timber Ridge will celebrate Black History
Month themed “Black Women in History and Culture.” The guest speaker will be
Homer Mayor Alecia Smith.
February 25
You are
invited to a Black History Parade at 3 p.m. in downtown Homer! Bring the kids
and come celebrate with us! For more information, please call 318-927-9214 or
318-805-7218.
Former board president defends himself
amidst allegations
MICHELLE BATES, Editor
The
former president of the board of Claiborne Parish Fire District #3 defended
himself at this month’s Claiborne Parish Police Jury meeting amid allegations
he was breaking the law.
Danny
Mills, who was removed from the fire district board in January by the police
jury, said he didn’t know that he’d been removed from office until it was
published in the newspaper the following week.
“I feel
like I should have been given an opportunity to explain what had taken place,
and I saw the newspaper and received a letter that I’d been removed from the
board,” Mills said. “Breaking the law is not what I tried to do. We received an
anonymous letter in the mail that our ethics lawyer said I was breaking an
ethics law involving nepotism.”
According
to a letter from then Fire District #3 then-Secretary West Ogden to the police
jury, Mills had been knowingly violating ethics laws including nepotism. He
cited Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics LSA RS 42:1112, 1119 and 1161A.
“When I
got this letter, I didn’t know what nepotism was, much less how to spell it,”
he said. “Whenever my son was hired on to the fire department, the Town of
Haynesville handled all the money. They paid his checks, his insurance and all
his benefits.”
However,
all of Larry Mills’ paychecks came from the Fire District #3 funds, according
to records, not the Town of Haynesville. At the time, the town was handling all
the finances for the fire district, but all paychecks were coming from Fire
District #3 funds. The town has no authority over the funds, but they kept the
books for them. That was changed in 2011, where all the books and recordkeeping
were turned back over to the fire district.
Also,
according to Ogden’s letter to the police jury, Mills admitted to “breaking the
law by not stepping down and by letting his son come to work (after being told
that was in violation of the law.)”
According
to Mills, his son Larry, was hired in August 2007 with the approval of the fire
district board and the Town of Haynesville. However, the minutes from the
town’s August 2007 meeting do not show where the town approved the younger
Mills’ hiring.
The
minutes from the August 2007 meeting of the fire district board show the board
did approve his hiring, but it does not say who voted how. It just says,
“Discussion on hiring replacement for officer hired to keep fire record books.
Mills boy (Larry Mills) was hired.”
Present
at that 2007 meeting were Terry Manes, president, Freddy Crump, Danny Mills,
Jim Bower and Crawford Williams, secretary treasurer.
According
to Mills, it was in 2011 that the board received the letter stating they were
in violation of nepotism. He then contacted Attorney Jim Hatch, and Mills said
Hatch told him they weren’t in violation of nepotism.
When
his son came back into town following the January police jury meeting, Mills
said he told Larry that he intended to step down from the board. Larry made it
clear, he said, that he wanted his father to stay on the board.
He also
discussed the incident in which Mills allegedly threw his pager at Haynesville
Fire Chief Mark Furlow, saying he did not consider himself throwing anything at
anyone. He said he tossed the pager on the table and it slid, falling to the
floor beside the chief.
“If I
was throwing it, I think it would have gone a lot farther than that,” Mills
said. “But that’s what was said I did.”
He also
said one thing that was left out of the article in the newspaper was that the
pager was picked up and thrown back and went “whizzing past my head at about 40
miles an hour.”
He also
touched on the fact that he’d asked the treasurer to pay for items not approved
by the board, and he said that was true. He said several thousand dollars had
been spent on water rescue equipment and also out of town training.
“No
questions were asked about the equipment or the training that was paid for,” he
said. “I thought the wetsuits were paid for, and I thought the room and board
was paid for (on the out of town training). When Larry came back, we told them
we would pay for this. And none of this until now had been approved by the
board. I don’t see where I asked the treasurer to pay for anything that
shouldn’t have been paid for to start with.
“You
know, inmates have a right to due process, and my name was put in the paper as
one of the biggest crooks in Claiborne Parish and I didn’t even know it was
happening,” he said. “When we hired Larry, nepotism was the farthest
thing from my mind on the volunteer fire department. Had we known, we wouldn’t
have done it then. None of us outright tried to commit nepotism. I’ve not tried
to ask the treasurer to pay for anything that shouldn’t have been paid for. I’m
sorry this couldn’t have been handled behind closed doors, and I’m sorry this
has split the board. I just wanted an opportunity to give my side and that’s my
side.”
Also,
at the time, Mark Furlow was fire chief, but he has no dealings with the board
other than to go before them for any purchases that need to be made or if he’s
requested to attend a meeting. Furlow, who has stepped back from the entire situation,
is also juror for Police Jury District #2. In January’s meeting, he abstained
from voting when Mills was removed from the fire district board, citing a
conflict of interest as he is the fire chief.
Resigning
from Fire District #3’s board were Eddie Bailey, Alan Fanning and Freddy Crump.
Taking their places are Matt Reeder, Russell “Rusty” Durham, Justin Childress
and Cameron Goodwin, the new secretary treasurer. West Ogden also stepped down
as the fire board’s secretary.
In
other news, merit raises were given to highway department employees, including
Truck Drivers Randy Crittendon, Greg Buggs, Todd Brown and Foreman Eric
Kennedy.
Also,
the process of adopting a resolution to close a portion of Pitman Road is
underway. The road closing was requested by Eric Holley, who wishes to close
only the portion on his property, and it does not affect any other landowners.
The
state project of replacing the Sanders Road Bridge is complete. It has passed
final inspection and everything is ready to go. The bridge should be opening
soon.
The
next meeting of the Claiborne Parish Police Jury will be held Wednesday, March
7 at 9 a.m. in the meeting room at the Claiborne Parish Police Jury Complex.
For more information, or for questions, please call their office at 318-927-2222.
Blood drive set for February 22
Athens
High School will host its second blood drive of the 2011-12 school year on
Wednesday, February 22, from 8:30 AM to 1:30 PM. The LifeShare mobile bus will
be onsite to facilitate the drive.
The
first drive to ever be held at Athens High School took place earlier this
school year when 20 units were donated. Several students and staff members
donated blood, many for the first time. Mr. Keith Beard, school counselor and
blood drive contact, was excited about the response for the first-ever blood
drive.
The
blood drives at Athens High School are provided for not only the students and
staff, but for the entire community, as well. People from Athens and the
surrounding area are encouraged to support the February 22nd drive. T-shirts
and refreshments will be provided. Several lives can be saved from each unit
donated.
Russellville Marker now in place
The Guardian-Journal photo/Michelle Bates
The Russellville Marker has now been
replaced, which was broken and knocked over. Through the generous donations of
many, the marker was replaced, which is the first parish seat for Claiborne
Parish. In 1828, Claiborne separated from Natchitoches Parish, and it was at
that time that Claiborne was part of several other parishes, including
Bienville and Webster Parishes. Beverly Volentine and others came to the police
jury meeting to accept a gracious donation by Gibsland Bank and Trust,
represented by Patricia McMullen, for the marker. Lavelle Penix, pictured
above, expressed his gratitude for the hard work these ladies put forth in
gathering the funds to mark this historical site. Measures have been taken as
well to make sure the marker is not broken again, he said.
Homer Police Lieutenant retires
Photo courtesy of Lt. Roger Smith
A retirement reception was held for
retiring Homer Police Lt. J.D. Faulkner Thursday, February 9. Faulkner has been
with the Homer Police Department since 1995. He was awarded an award of
excellence for his many years of service to the department. His fellow officers
are sad to see him go, but wish him well in the next chapter of his life.
Faulkner, left, is pictured with Homer Police Chief Russell Mills.
Firefighters train for small space
rescue
A
training course sponsored by LSU was held at the Homer Fire Station on Tuesday,
February 7, for confined space firefighter rescue. Dawn Young, an LSU training
instructor, conducted the course, showing firefighters how to rescue a victim
or another firefighter from small, tight spaces. Major subjects of the course
was firefighter rescue and recovery, shared techniques on how to remove the
victim through a confined space such as a small window. Firefighters from every
department in the parish attended the training course. The three hour course
involved some classroom time which covered technique applications and then a
hands-on training. Equipment and props for the course were provided by Pine
Country Training Facility, located at Camp Minden in Webster Parish.
Firefighters Tommy Sanders, Ricky
Bearden, Dale Wheeler, Mark Owens, Matt Reeder, Bobby Morgan train at the Homer
Fire Station on how to get out of small confined spaces during a fire.
Firefighters fully dressed out and got hands-on training while trying to get
out of this small window.
Instructor Dawn Young looks on as Mark
Owens of Haynesville climbs through the small “window” in full gear. Also
pictured are Firefighters Rickey Bearden, left, Ken McBride and David Monk.
