Archive - Oct 2012 - News Article
October 27th
“The only thing that can stop you is yourself.”
This is the motto Chris Madison adopted at the tender age of 10 after an accident on Lake Hamilton left him with a prosthetic leg and an appreciation for life most youth never experience.
Madison, staff attorney for the city of Bryant, explained what happened.
“It was boat versus jet ski. The jet ski and I lost. I was fortunate my head didn’t get in the propeller,” Madison recalled.
Construction cones and torn-up roads are familiar sights for people who have traveled Lower Military Road lately. With the construction comes the associated frustration of residents who do not feel progress is being made.
The inconvenience of drivers is compounded by the impact the construction has on businesses located along the roadway.
Lisa Spencer of Lisa's Bait Shop says the construction has been detrimental for her and her business. "It's killing it," she said.
"People can't even get to me," Spencer said.
Ghosts and goblins and tigers and bears and all things in between will be lining the streets of Downtown Benton on Saturday night.
This is the time for the annual Spook City, a project of the Downtown Benton Association.
"The Wild Side," an entire block filled with animals, will be a highlight of this year's celebration, according to coordinator Lisa Baldwin.Activities will take place from 6 to 8 p.m.
October 25th
Early voting for the Nov. 6 general election, to date, has drawn a total of 5,778 voters in Saline County.
On Wednesday, 1, 917 voters cast their ballots at the three early voting sites. This included 986 in Benton, 514 in Bryant and 417 in the Lonsdale area.
On the first day, a total of 1,860 Saline County residents voted in the initial opportunity to cast ballots in advance of Election Day and 2,001 voted on the second day.
The Bryant Area Chamber of Commerce will host the ninth annual Monster Madness at Mills Park today, starting at 5:30 p.m. and continuing until dark.
"This started as a benefit for the Boys & Girls Club, but it is also a response to people asking for a community celebration for Halloween," said chamber Executive Director Rae Ann Fields. "This way, people don't have to go out into neighborhoods where they don't know anyone."
October 22nd
Trapper Joe Lafont and Trigger Tommy Chauvin traveled from the deep swamps in Louisiana to Benton on Saturday for the 34th annual Boys & Girls Club of Saline County fundraiser.
The stars of the popular History Channel television reality show "Swamp People" were the honored guests of the "Get Swamped"-themed party.
When Caldwell Elementary School's team for the Race for the Cure participates in the annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, this is not simply a group of people supporting a worthy cause.
The team includes three members who have had up-close-and-personal encounters with breast cancer, the disease for which the Komen cause originated. These are cancer survivors Janelle Haley, who taught third grade at the school; Peggy Chennault, a fifth-grade teacher whose specialty was science; and Dot Jones, who was the school librarian. All are now retired and say they are leading healthy lives.
October 19th
In 2004, Dana Mattingly was playing racquet ball with her daughter, when the ball hit her on the side of her breast. The injury bothered her for a while. She started to suspect there was something else going on. Mattingly went to get it checked out, and her physician removed a mass from her breast in January 2005.
Lab results revealed the mass to be a malignant tumor.
Mattingly discovered she had breast cancer a month before she celebrated her 33rd birthday.
Martha Courtney once said that she would rather have a gun pointed at her than have to face cancer. Three months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
"I always feared chemotherapy, the pain, and I always feared getting sick. Every horrible thing that I could imagine, I thought that about cancer," she said. "I said that the biggest fear in anything that could come my way, my biggest fear was getting cancer. And here I was; I got cancer."
October 16th
Candidates for positions on the Benton City Council shared their views on issues facing the city in a political forum jointly sponsored by The Saline Courier and YCAT, the local community access television channel.
Dennis Byrd, chief of the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock, was moderator for the event held Monday night at the Royal Theatre in Downtown Benton. Byrd, a Benton resident, is a former editor of The Saline Courier.
An additional forum featuring Bryant City Council candidates and candidates for Saline County offices will be taking place at 6:30 tonight at the Benton theater.
