LADY TIGERS BATTLE LADY GENERALS ON THE DIAMOND, PAGE 12 FOR MORE.
Were the police at your neighbor’s recently? See if they made the police reports, Page 3.
THE RECORD Serving the Dadeville & Lake Martin area since 1897
WWW.THEDADEVILLERECORD.COM
VOL. 119, NO. 9
THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 2016
Harris tops Lewis in district attorney race Trump, Clinton, Shelby and Rogers carry Tallapoosa County By CLIFF WILLIAMS and MITCH SNEED Staff Writers
Chief Assistant District Attorney Damon Lewis lost his bid for district attorney to replace the retiring E. Paul Jones in the Fifth Judicial Circuit of Alabama to former law enforcement officer and Chambers County attorney Bill Harris. “It does not look like we will pull it out tonight,” Lewis said Tuesday night as he was getting numbers from Macon County. “It has been 18 years that I have enjoyed working for the state of Alabama. I look forward to the future.” Overall, Harris finished with 7,818 votes to 6,724 for Lewis. Lewis carried Tallapoosa County 4,531 to
2,729 though Harris carried the boxes in Union, Reeltown, and Tallassee. Lewis lost Randolph County 919 votes to Harris’ 2,009 and in Chambers County 990 to 2,297. The Fifth Judicial Circuit covers Chambers, Macon, Randolph and Tallapoosa counties. Harris will face Democrat Jeremy Duerr, who ran unopposed in the Democratic Primary, in the November general election. Amendment 1 passed in Tallapoosa County 6,552 to 3,516 and carried statewide as well. Voter turnout in Tallapoosa County was strong as more than 44 percent of the county’s 27,000 registered voters took to the polls. Statewide, Cliff Williams / The Record more than 35 percent of voters turned out. Voters take to booths at the Dadeville Recreation Center Tuesday to vote. Locally See ELECTION • Page 3 voters cast a vote for DA and Congress.
‘NO SERVICE’ strikes locally
Prison reform cuts sentences for many crimes
Verizon says tower outage hit area cell customers hard
By MITCH SNEED Editor
By MITCH SNEED Editor
Were you without cellphone service Tuesday and Wednesday? You weren’t alone. A large group of Verizon Wireless customers were in the same boat in Central Alabama. Verizon Wireless officials confirmed that Tuesday night’s storms that rolled across Central Alabama have caused outages involving 20 cell phone towers in Central and East Alabama as well as a few in West Georgia. Verizon had technicians working on the problem and as of 11:04 a.m. Wednesday, a temporary fix had been made and most of the customers who had been without service reported being back up and running. The outage was first reported at about 7:40 p.m. Tuesday evening. The fix was made at 11:04 a.m. Wednesday, records show. Officials say some short, smaller See VERIZON • Page 11
Cliff Williams / The Record
Dadeville Parks and Recreation Department said goodbye to Gary Melton last Friday, a man who had been a driving force there for more 30 years.
AParksFOND FAREWELL and Recreation’s Gary Melton retires By CLIFF WILLIAMS Staff Writer
The City of Dadeville is losing a local sports icon. Gary Melton is retiring from the Dadeville Parks and Recreation Department after 30 years of service. “Everything in town that is
athletics, he has had a hand in,” Dadeville Parks and Recreation Director Scott Baker said. “When I came here 10 years ago, what a great help he was to me. I just hope that when my time is up I can have done a quarter of what he has done.” Friday, many of the city of See RETIRED • Page 11
Prison reform has been an issue in Alabama for decades, with the population in some facilities at more than 200 percent. While the Alabama Legislature introduced a plan that will address many of the issues, many local officials said the plan may help overcrowding at the expense of public safety. In talking with the men elected by the citizens of Abbett Elmore and Tallapoosa counties, they see more problems than fixes with the new plan – especially for the victims. “I think it’s the victims who are being forgotten in all this,” Tallapoosa County Sheriff Jimmy Abbett said. “Being a victim of a crime is a traumatic experience. Then once a suspect is caught, the legal process is long and that’s frustrating. Then throw into the process that even if they are convicted they may not get any jail time – that even makes it worse. I think it’s the victims who are being slighted in this change and I think that needs to be addressed.” See REFORM• Page 5
Dadeville Record Military vehicle rally this weekend announces delivery changes
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By MITCH SNEED Editor
STAFF REPORT TPI Staff
The Dadeville Record has partnered with the U.S. Postal Service for delivery of the newspaper to subscribers. The change is effective March 10 for home delivery customers. “Partnership with the U.S. Postal Service allows us seamless, same-day delivery directly to our customers’ mailboxes,” said Record Publisher Kenneth Boone. “Whenever you get your mail, you can expect that day’s edition of the Daily News.” The Record remains available for purchase every day at more than 100 convenient singlecopy locations including stores and newspaper racks. Those newspapers are available at the break of dawn or whenever the business opens.
If you see a steady stream on military vehicles in the area this weekend, no, the area is not under invasion. Instead, The Dixie Division Military Vehicles Club is hosting the East Alabama Regional Spring Rally Friday and Saturday at Wind Creek Park. Local military vehicle enthusiast Gary Poe said that there will be 30 or more vehicles on display, including Jeeps from four separate wars, cargo vehicles and other memorabilia. “The will start rolling in at about 8 a.m. on Friday morning and they will be there until probably about 3 p.m. on Saturday,” Poe said. “The only admission is the cost of admission to the park. I know we will have Jeeps from World War II, Korea and Vietnam. We have deuce-and-a-half trucks, Humvees and all sorts of things. We have members from all over the state
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Mitch Sneed / The Record
Gary Poe climbs into his “deuce and a half” military cargo vehicle that he will show at this weekend’s rally at Wind Creek State Park.
485.29 Reported on 3/2/16 @ 1 p.m.
of Alabama and there’s no telling what some of them will bring in here.” The event includes equipment displays and a swap meet as well. Poe said that anyone with any interest in military history would enjoy coming See RALLY • Page 11
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