LITTLE ROCK — Pea Ridge park
fees to increase
Kevin Eads, acting superintendent at Pea Ridge National Military Park, announced Monday that park admission fees will increase on Jan. 2 to comply with National Park System fee regulations.
The new fee will be $5 per adult or $10 per carload. Annual passes to the park will be available for $20.
Fees in 2009 were $3 per person and $15 for an annual pass.
Fees collected have paid for seasonal park guides, special events, facilities maintenance and the firing of the park’s cannon.
The park commemorates the March 1862 Civil War battle that took place in Pea Ridge, which helped Union forces gain control of Missouri. The park will be closed Jan. 1.
- ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Franklin County
sheriff gets rival
A rancher and consultant has announced he will be a candidate for Franklin County sheriff next year.
Tim O’Neal, 53, who lives south of Etna, owns and operates O/A Genetics. He’s a cattle rancher and embryotransfer livestock consultant.
The election will be held May 18. Sheriff Reed Haynes plans to run for re-election and is the only other candidate so far.
O’Neal served for three years in the late 1980s as a Franklin County sheriff’s deputy. He spent one year on the Charleston Police Department, where he was also a member of the 12th Judicial Drug Task Force.
O’Neal, a Democrat, said he wants to get back into law enforcement to help battle the drug and theft problems in Franklin County.
“Methamphetamine is our main problem here,” he said.
“I want to pursue, arrest and harass all the drug dealers in the county. ... I think our police force has lost touch with the people’s feelings. They’ve lost control of what they’re here to do, protect and serve.”
O’Neal is a Franklin County native, having graduated from County Line High School near Branch in 1974.
O’Neal also served for 23 years as a rural volunteer firefighter.
- ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTEExecution not sought in slaying
PARAGOULD - A prosecutor says he won’t seek the death penalty for a man accused in the beating death of a robbery victim killed at his Paragould home.
Christopher Hitchcock, 20, of Paragould is charged with capital murder and aggravated robbery in the October slaying of Harvey Norman Beasley, 76. He and two other defendants in the case appeared in Greene County Circuit Court on Monday, and trial was set for March 8.
Beasley was found unconscious in his home Oct.
13 and taken to Arkansas Methodist Medical Center in Paragould, where he died the next day.
Deputy prosecutor Andy Fulkerson said at Monday’s hearing that he will not seek the death penalty for Hitchcock or the other two charged in the case.
Jacqueline A. Tomlinson, 36, of Paragould is charged with accomplice to capital murder and accomplice to aggravated robbery, and Earl R. Long, 43, is charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution.
- THE ASSOCIATED PRESSOklahoma school
gets town’s files
MIAMI, Okla. - The dying town of Picher is donating $578,000 to Northeastern Oklahoma A&M.
In exchange the college will preserve Picher’s records for public research. Court records, minutes of City Council meetings, town ordinances, resolutions, maps and police and utility records will be stored at the Miami college.
The town is in an area polluted from years of lead and zinc mining and is threatened with cave-ins.
Residents have been moving out since the federal government began a buyout program, and Picher officially shut down Sept. 1, although a few people remain there.
Picher Mayor Tim Reeves said the gift is possible because the town had money in reserve and received funds from the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
- THE ASSOCIATED PRESSVan crashes, killing 2 men
WALNUT SHADE, Mo. - Two southwest Missouri men are dead following a single-vehicle accident north of Branson.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol identified the victims as 67-year-old Michael J. Craig and his passenger, 72-year-old David A.
Uprichard. Both men were from the Taney County town of Forsyth.
The patrol said the crash happened shortly before 1 p.m. Monday when a minivan driven by Craig ran off U.S.
160 in Walnut Shade and overturned, then struck a tree.
- THE ASSOCIATED PRESSIce pick ends parking spot spat
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - A southwest Missouri teenager is accused of stabbing a man with an ice pick in a dispute over a parking spot.
The Greene County prosecutor on Monday charged Caitlen Watkins, 18, of Springfield with first-degree assault and armed criminal action.
Police said the altercation occurred Sunday afternoon in the parking lot of a shopping center. According to court documents, Watkins and a passenger in her car confronted another driver after he took a parking place Watkins wanted.
Witnesses told police a fight broke out and the other driver was stabbed a halfdozen times with a woodhandled, 5-inch ice pick.
Witnesses helped break up the fight.
The other driver was treated at a hospital. Police said he suffered a punctured kidney.
- THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 12 on 12/23/2009