Daily Corinthian
Thursday Feb. 19,
2015
50 cents
Vol. 119, No. 43
Partly sunny Today
Tonight
26
15
20% chance of rain
• Corinth, Mississippi • 16 pages • 1 section
Corinth firefighter killed in wreck BY ZACK STEEN zsteen@dailycorinthian.com
KOSSUTH — A Corinth firefighter died from injuries sustained in a one vehicle wreck Wednesday morning. Corinth Fire Department En-
from Union Baptist Church on County Road 560. Authorities were alerted of the wreck when a passerby called 911 during the early morning hours. “Ronald was a like a brother to us all,” said Corinth Fire
gineer Ronald Franks, 41, was confirmed dead at the scene by Alcorn County Coroner Jay Jones. Franks was found inside his wrecked vehicle several hours after the accident about one mile
Chief Billy “Lucky” Briggs. “We couldn’t have asked for a better firefighter.” Franks, who was employed with the fire department for almost seven years, drove a fire truck for Fire Station #3 on
Norman Road. “It’s like losing a member of the family,” added Briggs. “He’ll certainly be missed.” Funeral arrangements are incomplete with Magnolia Funeral Home.
Ice Storm of 2015 ACE: 2,500 lost power
Agent: Most trees seem OK
BY ZACK STEEN zsteen@dailycorinthian.com
Memories of Ice Storm ’94 flooded those without power Monday as a winter storm brought cold temperatures and dumped less than an inch of freezing rain on the area. ACE Power confrimed 2,500 customers were without power at the peak of the storm. “Outage calls started coming in pretty fast around noon Monday,” said Jason Grisham, manger of engineering at ACE. “Our crews did an excellent job. They worked from lunch time Monday until about 5 p.m. Tuesday to get almost everyone back online.” The ice and snow accumulation created power outages due to heavy ice on the power lines and fallen trees and tree limbs. “We know it’s very cold on our customers, but we were working around the clock as hard as possible to get everyone’s power restored,” Grisham said, who remains on call for ACE 24/7 in case of any system issues. “We are quite fortunate it wasn’t any worse.” Power was restored to most of customers within three hours. A handful of customers are still without power today.
BY JEBB JOHNSTON jjohnston@dailycorinthian.com
all over the county,” Gibens said. “The outages weren’t really in an exact area. We had a lot of little outages spread out across the county.” Gibens commended ACE Power crews for getting everyone back online quickly. “Crews were dispatched out fast and did a remarkable job
Most trees are expected to recover from the damage of Monday’s ice storm if they aren’t dealt another blow with the storm expected to hit the MidSouth on Friday. “Right now, we’re sitting pretty good, but if we were to get any more ice it could cause some major issues as far as tree tops and power outages, not to mention damage to landscaping plants,” said Patrick Poindexter, extension agent with the Mississippi State University Extension Service in Alcorn County. He hoped for more melting to occur before Friday’s storm, which is forecast to include ice accumulations. In his estimation, the Monday storm does not begin to compare to the damage wrought by Ice Storm ’94. “There have been some limbs that have broken out of some rather large trees, but not to the point that you’re going to
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Please see TREES | 2
Photo by Mark Boehler
Ice lingering on trees and plants Wednesday made for some picturesque scenes when the sun showed its face for awhile. More snow and ice is forecast for the area today and Friday. “About a dozen customers had meter base damage where an electrician is necessary to help restore power,” he said. “Those customers are still waiting on electricians to finish their work and once we get the call, we will be back to restore their power.” Grisham said ACE called in help from Lee County’s Tombigbee Electric Power Associa-
tion. “Tombigbee sent a line crew and a couple of service crews. They helped us replace about ten poles that had damage from the storm,” Grisham added. Alcorn County Director of Emergency Services Ricky Gibens said his office received calls all day Monday. “There were power outages
Area murder case goes Meet the director: Casey Duke to state Supreme Court BY KIMBERLY SHELTON kshelton@dailycorinthian.com
BY BRANT SAPPINGTON bsappington@dailycorinthian.com
A Prentiss County man serving a life sentence without parole for capital murder was scheduled to have his case heard this week by the Mississippi Supreme Court. Charles David Burleson II is seeking a new trial in the 2010 death of Stephen Holley of Thrasher. Burleson was convicted in October 2012 of capital murder in the case and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Jeremy K. Huguley was also originally indicted for capital murder in the death. He later pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to serve 40 years in prison. Stephen Holley, 45, a disabled furniture factory worker, died at the North Mississippi Medical Center Friday, May 21, 2010, from an assault at his home in Thrasher on May 15, 2010. Prosecutors said he had been struck by a metal object and robbed. At trial the prosecution ar-
gued Burleson and Huguley went to Holley’s home, took items from the home and during that time Holley was beaten and left unconscious. They noted it was not necessary to determine who struck the fatal blow, but rather only to show the defendant was a party to the crime that led to the victim’s death. In his appeal to the state Supreme Court Burleson’s attorney argues the trial jury should have been provided with an instruction regarding how to consider circumstantial evidence, the trial court should not have allowed the indictment to be amended to charge him as a violent habitual offender and the trial judge should not have admitted evidence regarding a gun found in the defendant’s possession which was not relevant to the crime charged. The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear oral arguments in Burleson’s appeal on Tuesday and will hand down its decision in the case at a later date.
Homeschooled from kindergarten onward by a wise, intelligent and open-minded teacher she calls mom, Corinth-Theatre Arts’ newest director Casey Duke caught the acting bug at an early age. The only child of two engineers at ThyssenKrupp Elevators, Duke recalls her mother’s involvement with CT-A’s guild, while her father has performed in several plays over the past three years. “I actually started out here at CT-A, and would have majored in English had I not gotten involved during my last year of high school,” said Duke, who graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in theatre from the Mississippi University for Women in May of 2014. I had previously completed a lighting internship at Lees-McRae Summer Theatre in North Carolina.” Following graduation, the theatre major returned to Lees-McRae as their Master Electrician, then before moving straight on to Goodspeed
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CT-A Guest Director Casey Duke Musicals in East Haddam, Connecticut, for a four-month electrics apprenticeship. “I returned to Mississippi the day before Christmas Eve,” said the Corinth native. “I travel often for work and guest directing ‘Rabbit Hole’ at CT-A is currently my job, along with extra technical and clerical work for the establishment.” While this is her first fulllength play to direct, the thespian has directed a one-act
play required in her college directing class, among other senior-level undergrad projects and served as the Assistant Director for CT-A’s production of “Footloose” in 2012. Describing her directing experience thus far as overwhelmingly positive, the director had nothing but love for her cast, home theatre and community. “Everyone is so on board with the project and ready to do as much as they can to make it happen. The thing that’s easy to forget about our community theatre for us professionals is the level of commitment to the art, and for the art’s sake,” she said. “You don’t get as much of that in the big leagues. It’s really the reason we all started doing this in the first place, and it’s nice to be reminded.” “If it weren’t for CT-A, I would have never gone into theatre,” added Duke. “My first plays here were ‘Charlotte’s Web’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ when I was maybe seven or eight. Then I came back as a Please see DUKE | 2
On this day in history 150 years ago
Weather........7 Obituaries........ 6 Opinion........4 Sports...... 10
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All buildings of military value in Columbia, S.C. are burned by Sherman’s men, including foundries, machine shops, railroads and arsenals. The Confederate vessels in Charleston harbor are scuttled by their crews to prevent capture.
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