Taste
Wednesday Sept. 18,
2013
50 cents
Home & Garden
Healthy potato soup packs porky flavor.
Pumpkins, gourds make attractive fall displays.
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Daily Corinthian
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Vol. 117, No. 223
• Corinth, Mississippi • 22 pages • 2 sections
‘Stand Your Ground Freedom Rally’ set BY STEVE BEAVERS sbeavers@dailycorinthian.com
The Alcorn County Patriots are going out with a bang. The group will be holding another “HB2 Victory Rally’” with its “Stand Your Ground Freedom Rally” at Crossroads Regional Park on Saturday.
Saturday’s event will mark the final rally of this sort, according to members of the local organization. “It took a while, but what we tried to do has been done,” said event organizer Bobby McDaniel of the passing of the state’s open carry gun law.
An array of speakers are part of Saturday’s 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. agenda. Local state representatives Nick Bain, Lester “Bubba” Carpenter and Tracy Arnold are scheduled to speak during the day. John Moran, president of the Mississippi Oath Keepers, will
More info released on local’s drowning Staff Report
CAPE SAN BLAS, Fla. — More details have been released on the drowning of a Corinth man Monday morning. According to authorities, Tom Timms, 45, of Corinth, was unresponsive when pulled from the water. Timms, a paramedic with Magnolia Regional Health Center Emergency Management Services and Air Evac Life Team, was vacationing with his wife, Rebecca, when he started yelling for help after going swimming in the gulf. Gulf County Sheriff’s Office deputies, who responded to a distress call in the area of Seahorse Land, described the surf conditions as very rough. Timms was just 100 feet out past the surf line when he began yelling for help. Witness Charles Seguy, a
dive master, told deputies he heard screams and saw the victim waving his arms in distress. Seguy went into the water and found Timms unresponsive after reaching him. The dive master attempted water rescue CPR on the Corinth man, but conditions were too rough for it to be performed. After pulling the 45-yearold to shore, Seguy began CPR before Timms was pronounced dead at the scene. Timms and his wife were staying in a beachside condo in Cape San Blas, a remote area of Florida about 50 miles south of Panama City. Arrangements for Timms, who is survived by his wife and a son, Eric, are incomplete with Memorial Funeral Home. The Star newspaper in Port St. Joe, Fla., contributed to this story.
Booneville man charged after high-speed chase BY BRANT SAPPINGTON bsappington@dailycorinthian.com
A Booneville man led law enforcement on a chase reaching speeds in excess of 100 mph Monday before being stopped and arrested in Itawamba County. Elvin Darren Farrar, 20, of 552 County Road 5011, Booneville has been charged with felony fleeing, along with numerous misdemeanor traffic offenses, and remains in the
Prentiss County Jail on a $5,000 bond. Farrar was driving a motorcycle when he fled from Prentiss County Farrar Deputy Please see CHASE | 3A
be on hand for the mass reaffirmation of the oath to the Constitution. The Oath Keepers is a nonpartisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to defend
the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Oath Keepers reaches out to both current serving and veterans to remind them of their oaths, to teach them more about the Constitution they Please see RALLY | 3A
‘Biloxi Blues’
Staff photo by Steve Beavers
Eugene Morris Jerome, played by Cody Daniel, is constantly challenged during the many events of the play to engage in life rather than watching and writing about it in the Crossroads TheatreArts production of “Biloxi Blues.”
CT-A sharing Neil Simon’s play BY STEVE BEAVERS sbeavers@dailycorinthian.com
Six U.S. Army recruits make it through more than just basic training in Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues.” The Crossroads Theatre-Arts will be sharing Simon’s semiautobiographical play, starting Thursday at the Crossroads Playhouse. Show time is 8 p.m. with performances scheduled through Saturday. A Sunday matinée is slated for 2 p.m. “It’s a comedy which also serves to make a point,” said director Cynthia Potter. The play centers around
20-year-old Eugene Morris Jerome, played by Cody Daniel, who is drafted into the Army during World War II. The Brooklyn native is sent to Biloxi for basic training along with five other young men. “Biloxi Blues” is a tale of these young men as recruits in 1943,” said Potter. “The story covers the indignities they suffer and the growing up they do.” Eugene, based on Simon, learns to cope with fellow recruits from different walks of life. “He experiences his ‘coming of age’ as he survives boot camp
in the swamps of Biloxi,” said CT-A artistic director Cris Skinner. “Eugene learns from the conflict with another Jewish recruit and is constantly challenged during the many events of the play to engage in life rather than watching and writing about it.” Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for students. Tickets can be reserved by calling the CT-A at 662-287-2995. Individuals can also purchase tickets at the theatre between 1-6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday or at the door prior Please see BLUES | 6A
Tourism tax continues to set Corinth collection records BY JEBB JOHNSTON jjohnston@dailycorinthian.com
Corinth sales tax collections ended fiscal 2013 with a couple of good months while the tourism tax continues on a recordsetting pace. The deposits made this week will be the last of the fiscal year for both taxes. After four consecutive months of negative growth, sales tax proceeds
rose for each of the last three months. The current deposit, $450,176.25, is up 4.5 percent, or almost $20,000, from the year-ago level, giving the tax a total for fiscal 2013 of $5,536,961.34, up 1 percent from the prior fiscal year. Sales tax has struggled to gain momentum in recent years. Fiscal 2012 ended with an increase of 2.6 percent; fiscal 2011 ended
with an increase of a quarter of 1 percent; and fiscal 2010 had negative growth of almost 3 percent. The city budget for fiscal 2014 anticipates the generally flat trend will continue. Collections across the state rose 6 percent during the latest month, and that trend was reflected in the region, with eight of 11 area municipalities post-
Index Stocks......8A Classified......5B Comics......9A State......5A
Weather....10A Obituaries......6A Opinion......4A Sports....12A
ing gains. The month’s results reflect sales activity that occurred in local businesses during the month of July. The 2 percent tourism tax on prepared food and lodging had a modest 1 percent gain for the month with a total of $94,003.72. It is the 11th consecutive monthly increase for the tax, which ends the fiscal year with another record high
of $1.109 million, up almost 5 percent from the prior year. The tourism tax has generated more than $1 million for each of the last three years. With the continued increase, the tourism office will see an increase in its monthly allotment of tourism funds from $42,000 to $45,000 in the new fiscal Please see TAXES | 3A
On this day in history 150 years ago The Battle of Chickamauga. For the first time, the Confederate Army of Tennessee outnumbers the Union 68,000 to 58,000. Southern attempts to position its army between the enemy and Chattanooga are not successful.
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