Of the people, By the people, For the people
Happy 4th of July
TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 / Vol. 2 Issue 24 / 75 cents
Inquiry to say if Damascus is a speed trap
Out with a bang ‌. The 2016 Archey Fork Festival ends with a fireworks show Saturday night in Clinton City Park. Earlier in the evening, the annual Fishing Derby drew lots of youngsters to the pond for the competition. Earlier in the day, scores of people milled about the Court House square for the annual car show that drew more than 100 antique and classic vehicles. For more photos from Archey Fest, see Page 16.
Anita Tucker/Voice staff
Photo by Robert Snyder/for the Voice
An investigation by the Arkansas State Police will determine once and for all if Damascus is a speed trap. Motorists have long complained that police in the tiny town of less than 400 on U.S. Highway 65 straddling the line of Van Buren and Faulkner counties unfairly target drivers. The speed limit on the highway drops from 60 to 45 as cars enter the town. Police there say they could ticket many more times the drivers than they do and many residents say slowing drivers helps keep the town safe. Last year, according to reports, Damascus police wrote 2,032 tickets. One report states that Damascus brought in more than $2.5 million in fines and fees from speeding and unsafe driving tickets in a six-year period while Clinton brought in just under $300,000 in the same period. Damascus Police Chief Rick Perry said his officers are actually pretty lenient with their ticket writing and generally don't write tickets for less than 15 mph over the limit. Prosecuting Attor-
Notes
Reminder: Next week's Voice of Van Buren County will be a day late due to the Fourth of July holiday. Post offices will be closed, so papers won't go out until Tuesday afternoon. The Voice office will be closed Monday, July 4, in observance of America's 240th birthday. We will be back in the office Tuesday, July 5. Happy Fourth, everybody. Ordinance: The city of Clinton allows shooting off fireworks until 10 p.m. from June 20-July 10 in the city limits, according to City code enforcer Tim Clark. That is the same time period that fireworks may be sold. The ordinance is 2002-04, Clark said. Ready to win?: It's contest time at the Voice and this time we want to see your best photographs from the past year. Send us your photos taken in Van Buren County in the past 12 months and if our judges like yours best, you'll win a $50 Visa gift card. See Page 9 for more details. Deadline to enter is July 29, 2016.
ney Cody Hiland said he decided to ask for an investigation to decide the issue. Arkansas law bans speed traps, which is defined as writing more than half of its speeding tickets for less than 10 miles an hour over the speed limit or generating revenue that exceeds 30 percent of the preceding year's expenses for the town. After a request from the prosecutor for the investigation, the state police then obtain certified records of citations, fines, fees and other appropriate documents. Hiland said the Bureau of Legislative Audit will assist with the investigation. If Damascus is found to be a speed trap, Hiland said, there are two possible sanctions: One would be to bar the police department from patrolling the highway at all; and the other would be that any revenue generated from the citations would go to a local school district. No timeline for the completion of the investigation has been given. Hiland requested the investigation in a letter to state police last week.
Severns' hearing set for July 8
Junior Isaac
The brothers lay at rest side by side in Salem Cemetery.
a fire and Dennis decided to try to have the brothers' medals replaced. They received help from the military and senator in doing so. Dennis says he was always curious about the lives and deaths of the brothers he never knew. Dennis had another brother, Bill, who was in the military, joining the Air Force, and he was the right age for the Vietnam War. His father would entertain no thoughts of that, though, Dennis said. "He would have met them at the back door with a shotgun if he had needed to," Dennis said. Elmer,
A pre-trial hearing is set for 9 a.m. July 8, 2016, in Van Buren County Circuit Court in a capital murder case. Andrew Jack Severns, 46, is charged with murder in the February shooting death of Jonas Donahue in Shirley. According to court documents, Severns had been thinking about killing the 28-yearold for more than a year. When deputies arrived on the scene at a residence on state Highway 9, they found Donahue's body in a vehicle and Severns inside a house, the court documents show. Severns surren-
See Brothers on page 2
See Hearing on page 2
Aubrey Isaac
Rocky Hill brothers made ultimate sacrifice In April 1944, a pair of brothers from the Rocky Hill community arrived in Europe to join the Allied effort in World War II. George A. Isaac, known as "Aubrey," had left Boston on April 7, 1944, after training in Tennessee, California and Kansas. He arrived in England on April 16, 1944, part of the 79th Infantry Division. His company arrived on Utah Beach on June 14 and immediately wheeled west to secure the port of Cherbourg in France. It reached the outer fortification on June 22. It was there that day that a German bullet ripped through the young man from Arkansas, mortally
wounding him. Aubrey Isaac was 19. His parents back in Rocky Hill were informed of his death. His mother, Leona, was pregnant with her 10th child. Two months later, the family received word that Aubrey's 24-year-old brother, Junior, had been hit by shrapnel while fighting in the St. Lo area. He, too, was dead. Junior left behind a wife and two small daughters. "Can you imagine what their mother went through?" asks her daughter-in-law Mary Isaac. Her husband, Dennis, who was the baby born that August of 1944, says
his parents didn't talk much about their loss, though he always knew how deeply they felt it. He remembers the day his brothers came home in 1950 or '51 -the flag-draped coffins, the military salute, the service at Salem Cemetery. The parents lived out their lives in Rocky Hill. Leona Isaac died in 1972 and is buried near her sons. Elmer Isaac lived until 1985. He was 91 when he died. Dennis and Mary, who live in Springdale, know as much as they do about the brothers' deaths because of correspondence from U.S. Sen. John Boozman. Elmer Isaac lost his home in