Stories from Friday, April 11, 2014

Abbie Marie Criddle, 65, of Leachville, died Wednesday April 9, 2014, at St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro. Born April 20, 1948, at Yazoo City, Miss., she was the daughter of the late Johnny and Hazel Fuller Vinson and was raised in Belzoni, Miss. She had been a Leachville resident for the past 25 years and was a member of the First Baptist Church...

Bobby Dale Pate, 67, of Leachville, died Wednesday, April 9, 2014, at St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro. Born Feb. 2, 1947, in San Luis Obispo, Calif., he was the son of the late Bud and Hazel Sneed Pate and had lived most of his life in Leachville. ...

Ms. Werdna Slaughter, 73, Osceola, died Wednesday, April 9, 2014, in Osceola.

Betty Holland Peel, of Arlington, Texas passed from this life Tuesday, April 8, 2014, just prior to her 83rd birthday at the Springs Memory Care in Mansfield, Texas.

Mr. Bobby Dale Pate, 67, of Leachville, died Wednesday, April 9, 2014, at St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro.

Abbie Marie Criddle, 65, of Leachville, died Wednesday April 9, 2014, at St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro.

Mr. Rupert Martin "Buzz" Crafton died Thursday, April 10, 2014, at the Baptist Hospital in Memphis.

Bonnie J. Boyd, 58, of Gosnell, passed from this life Friday, April 11, 2014, at Great River Medical Center in Blytheville.

Mr. Billy Joe Bagley, 79, of Joiner, died Wednesday, April 9, 2014, at Hospice Home Care in Little Rock.

Let me add a word to the headline above ... college basketball done for the year ... and it was a very entertaining NCAA Tournament with lots of close games and a final with a 7 and an 8 seed playing for the national title.

The Chickasaw Marching Band is teaming up with Ford Motor Co. and Carlock Ford Saturday to raise money for band's 2014 marching band retreat.

The Blytheville City Council's Finance and Purchasing Committee approved three requests Thursday night.

Nearly 700 students and other job seekers participated in ANC's annual Job Fair on Thursday.

Students and volunteers from the Blytheville Public Schools again stood out at the state competition of Odyssey of the Mind, held Saturday in Beebe. And when the World OM competition begins in May, Blytheville Schools will be well represented.

After a lengthy discussion Thursday night, the Blytheville Streets and Drainage Committee agreed to grandfather in a request to rename Ash Street "Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard," exempting it from rules that do not exist yet.

ARMOREL--The Armorel Lady Tigers picked up their ninth win of the season, 11-7, over 3A-3 Harrisburg Thursday. Abigail McCauley allowed three earned runs on seven hits while striking out seven over seven complete innings of work to pick up the win for the Lady Tigers (9-5, 4-0 1A-3 East)...

The Blytheville Lady Chickasaws picked up their first win of the season in a 26-11 romp of the Cooter Lady Wildcats. Blytheville led 4-2 at the end of the first, 11-4 at the end of two, and 18-11 after three before ending the game in the fourth. Maddy Ellis picked up the win for the Lady Chicks. Ellis also went 1-2 at the plate with a double...

ARMOREL--The Armorel Tigers continued their dominance over the 1A-3 East conference with a sweep of Crowley's Ridge Academy Thursday night at Billy Brown and Hugh Don Ashmore Field. With wins of 12-2 and 19-4, both in five innings, the Tigers improved to 6-0 in league play and 8-8 overall. They've outscored their conference foes, 100-10, with no game going the full seven innings...

GOSNELL--The Gosnell Pirates dropped a non-conference showdown against the Jonesboro Hurricane, 13-2, Thursday night. The loss snapped a seven-game winning streak by the Pirates. "We'd been playing real good there," said Pirate head coach Bret Jackson. "We didn't do what we had been doing. We didn't throw strikes, we booted the ball around and made errors in the field. When you play a good team, you can't do that."...

While the Coast Guard's rescue operation has officially been called off, Kinder Morgan representatives say they have not yet given up hopes of recovering the bodies of the two men who were lost in the river during an incident Tuesday afternoon at their dock near Hickman.