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Clay County Classics . . . 1997-98 |
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Clay County Classics . . . 1997-98 |
Remember that at The Manchester
Enterprise, “reporting” often means
merely taking material from the police blotter. But what a
blotter!
December 3, 1998
The editor further elaborated his philosophy of journalism. “First off,” he wrote, “it’s got to have a factual basis. We can’t rely on rumors. That would definitely make some interesting reading if we did start printing rumors, but logically you know we can’t . . . Sometimes stories take time to develop . . . If we prematurely run a story, we could risk being sued, destroy the credibility of a person(s) involved, or hinder a pending investigation. . . . Like I said before, the newspaper business is tricky. . . . If you do nothing wrong then you will not find your name involving a negative story. But if you do get accused or are found guilty of doing something wrong, don’t get upset at your name being in the newspaper. . . . If you did the crime, so be it.”
Noticing that two men who had been shot “had various pellet injuries to their chests,” a State Police trooper told The Enterprise “I feel they were shot with a shotgun.” A Flat Creek man was charged with the crime.
November 26, 1998
A 30-year-old Manchester man, furious because he thought the referee was cheating his team, stormed the basketball court during an elementary-school game. He was thrown out of the gym, but came back and resumed his assault. He smacked the ref on the back of the head and injured two children and a teacher. The man, who didn’t even have a child involved in the game, was arrested and held on $100,000 bond. The local coach expressed bafflement: Fans, he said, “were enjoying the youthfulness and inexperience of both teams.”
The editor of The Enterprise responded to complaints that the paper prints too much bad news on its front page by telling readers that issues featuring “bad news” or “a negative type story” typically sell better.
September 17, 1998
The editor of The Enterprise came out in favor of impeaching President Clinton. The writer’s rationale is that a president is ineligible for a private life (“he’s the president 24 hours a day seven days a week”), that his perjury was “preplanned,” not spontaneous, and that he has disgraced his daughter.
July 23, 1998
A 47-year-old Lockard’s Creek man was arrested on drunk driving and cocaine-possession charges when police stopped him on a routine traffic check. They became concerned when they noticed that he had a can of beer between his legs. When they made him get out of the vehicle, they found 14 bags of cocaine.
July 2, 1998
In his weekly column, the editor of The Enterprise wrote that “any trained monkey can play football, basketball or baseball,” but “golf is without a doubt the single hardest sport I’ve ever been associated with.”
June 18, 1998
A 36-year-old Sester Hollow man was charged with wanton endangerment after he threatened police with a gun when they arrived at his home to investigate complaints of a domestic dispute. He later claimed he had been holding a Chihuahua, not a gun. The Enterprise headlined its report “Stop or I’ll bark!”
June 11, 1998
A 26-year-old Big Creek man who ran for constable last month was arrested for both theft and robbery with a gun.
A defeated candidate for clerk of the county court demanded a recount. It showed that she lost by a margin of more than 2-to-1. She also wrote a letter to the paper, complaining that the election was “a running gag from the time the polls opened.”
The Enterprise interviewed the local dog catcher. He told the newspaper: “This isn’t an easy job at all. A dog is extremely hard to coax in a dog box.”
June 4, 1998
The front-page headline in The Enterprise’s election-primary coverage said “No upsets pulled in May primary election.” The page two headline said “Constable’s races full of surprises.”
A jury gave a Manchester man 21 years in prison after his conviction for burglarizing two homes on Burning Springs. “I think the jury is sending a message on burglary and stealing,” the commonwealth’s attorney said.
May 7, 1998
The lead article in this week’s Enterprise described the election campaign for sheriff. The Enterprise printed 10 paragraphs on the front page of favorable comments about incumbent Edd Jordan, whose picture appears in the paper almost every week, and zero paragraphs about any of his five opponents. The material about Edd consisted mostly of quotes from him about himself.
Two local men were arrested after allegedly stealing a new Chevrolet Lumina from the mayor’s dealership. One of them was an employee. The other was arrested after he fled. Police dogs chased him until “he was too tired to keep running,” according to a city police officer. The car was found in his driveway.
April 30, 1998
The editor of The Enterprise said, in an opinion column, that people with HIV and AIDS should be publicly identified because otherwise, a restaurant might hire them and they might “place” bodily fluids such as “blood or something else” on food and serve it to you.
April 16, 1998
A 28-year-old Manchester man was charged on several counts after he went to a local motel and got into an argument with the desk clerk. In retaliation, he kidnapped the clerk’s pet python. Police found the snake in the man’s room. They then charged the clerk with “possession of an exotic animal.”
April 9, 1998
Construction began to replace a decaying bridge at Hatcher. The Enterprise’s felicitous headline: “Hatcher bridge is falling down.”
April 2, 1998
A 23-year-old woman was arrested on a number of charges, including cocaine and prescription drug abuse, after she rammed her pickup truck into a store at Garrard four times just before dawn one day last week. Police have no clue as to a motive.
March 12, 1998
A 31-year-old Coal Hollow man was stabbed to death during what authorities described as a domestic dispute with his wife, who later said she did not remember the incident. “We really can’t elaborate on what may have happened,” said Sheriff Edd Jordan.
Three women were arrested in Bales Creek and charged with cocaine possession after they were caught in a trailer with cocaine-filled syringes and fresh needle marks on their arms.
A 17-year-old boy was charged with hiding a .20-gauge shotgun and a pistol in his truck. A sheriff’s deputy became suspicious when he detected “a strong odor of marijuana” wafting from the vehicle in a parking lot.
February 5, 1998
Half a dozen store windows have been shot out by children brandishing paintball guns, and one school bus was shot at. One high-school student told the newspaper, “Paintball seems to be getting a bad rap in Clay County.”
January 15, 1998
The deputy county executive finally resigned. He had assumed office two years ago on the promise that he didn’t want money and would work for $1 a year. As soon as he was in office, however, he demanded a salary of $36,000 — and sued the county when the legislators didn’t agree. He was a long-time associate of his boss.
January 8, 1998
The area’s state representative, Barbara Colter, proposed a law preventing people under 16 from marrying. She herself was married at 15, the newspaper noted, adding: “The bill would effect Clay County tremendously.”
An anonymous letter to the editor accused the National Education Association of a “relentless” crusade to promote “homosexual studies” in the nation’s public schools.
November 7, 1997
A Beech Creek woman landed in jail after she threw a dog at police while they tried to investigate an alleged burglary at her home. A deputy said she was “very hostile and intoxicated.” The incident occurred less than three months after a man was arrested for throwing chicken, which he robbed from a restaurant, at traffic.
October 23, 1997
A 26-year-old Manchester man was stabbed three times in the back. He refused to tell the sheriff’s department what happened.
A 33-year-old Crane Branch man was found with a bullet in his skull. He told police that he shot himself. He was intoxicated at the time, a sheriff’s deputy said.
September 25, 1997
An article (not written by Mrs. Shoupe) had this headline: “Myrtle Receives Highest Honor of VFW.” The opening paragraph said: “A record crowd turned out for the annual VFW Fall Fish Fry at the VFW building on Greenbriar Road Sunday. Myrtle Shoupe, perhaps the most famous Clay Countian of our time, was the special guest of honor.” According to the news report, speakers described Mrs. Shoupe as “a national celebrity,“ one of the “three best known Clay Countians of this century,” and “another Mother Theresa.” Two hundred pounds of fish were served.
Two women, one of them nicknamed Pickles, pled guilty to spray-painting graffiti.
July 31, 1997
Police are searching for a man with several missing teeth who, the authorities say, forced a couple to perform sex on him while his girlfriend took photos. He then made them mow his lawn.
July 24, 1997
A local dentist pled guilty to massive Medicaid fraud. Medicaid officials caught him after they noticed he was billing 40 hours a day for procedures such as “root canals for people with false teeth.”
July 17, 1997
A 32-year-old man shoplifted a label-maker from the local Wal-Mart. When the police caught him, he told them: “Facts are I did it.”
January 30, 1997
The local anti-poverty agency, already under fire for alleged financial irregularities, stands accused of renting its vans to “better off” vacationers, who used them to go to places like Disney World. The agency even provided them with credit cards to pay for gasoline and tolls. The head of the agency defended the practice, saying the anti-poverty agency’s vehicles are “not just for the poor.” No one knows where the money from the rentals went. (The Enterprise based its report on an article that originally appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal.)
Separately, the head of the agency took an eight-month leave of absence, with pay.
February 6, 1997
Police found a 48-year-old Manchester man hiding “under a cliff with ‘very red eyes and a strong odor of alcoholic beverage on his breath.” He was charged with intoxication and, because he threw two beer cans on the ground, the additional offense of criminal littering.
Two adults and two juveniles were arrested after they were caught having a party in a vacant house.
December 19, 1996
Two men were arrested for poaching. According to the newspaper, a state wildlife official said they used “a decoy deer with a camera inside” to catch the two.
July 20, 1995
The Enterprise quoted a police officer as saying that “heat and severe defamation in the apartment really hampered our investigation.”
Headline, April 6, 1995
Headline, January 16, 1997
City police make 1,110 arrests in
1996;
drunkenness most popular
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