I have been out sick and trying to play catchup.
Big news today from the El Dorado Police Department: The bones found in an area off of East Main Street near U.S. 167 have been positively identified as belonging to Paul Morgan, an El Dorado man who was reported missing in that area last year.
Look for more in Wednesday’s News-Times.
Alexandra Greer poses with a football she won at the New Orleans competition. (Lemon/News-Times.)Greer, 13, won the NFL’s Punt Pass and Kick national competition (13 and 14-year-old category) Sunday in San Diego. She earned the right to compete in the finals after placing third at the regional event held late last year in New Orleans.
Greer and her mother are currently on their way back home to El Dorado, and I’ll have an interview with them as soon as I can. Look for more in the News-Times in coming days.
In observance of the Marting Luther King Jr. holiday.
Sandy Matheney, executive director of the South Arkansas Chapter of the American Red Cross, said that anyone who wishes to donate to earthquake vicitims in Haiti can bring checks or cash by the El Dorado headquarters, 2710 N. West Ave.
No other donated items will be accepted.
“There is just no way for us to send anything there right now other than cash,” Matheney said. “Clothes and other items are impossible for us to distribute at this time. The only thing that will help right now is cash donations.”
If you are writing a check, make it out to the American Red Cross and be sure to write “Haiti” in the memo line.
Matheney said that as donations are brought in, the money will be forwarded to the ARC international fund designated to help Haitians.
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Barton Library will be closed several more days as cleanup crews continue to tidy the facility after a weekend pipe burst caused water damage.
Library Director Nancy Arn said that although patrons can’t check out books or use the computers, they can pick up tax forms from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
El Dorado Police Chief Ricky Roberts said that bones found Tuesday at a location off of East Main will be sent to the state crime lab for identification. An EPD investigation team spent the day Wednesday at the site collecting evidence.
Along with bones, Roberts said a shirt was also found.
The exact location of the remains is being withheld due to the ongoing investigation.
Police said a man and his grandson made the grisly discovery and called 911. Look for more in Thursday’s News-Times.
A woman lies on the ground as others stand outside a market that collapsed after a powerful earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday Jan. 12, 2010.
(AP Photo/Cris Bierrenbach)
• • •
The magnitude 7 earthquake that rocked Haiti Tuesday has killed scores and destroyed or damaged more than half of the buildings in the nation’s capital, Port Au Prince. The devastation seems complete.
The Haiti Education Foundation, based in El Dorado, has built dozens of schools in the mountains of the country’s southern peninsula (just west of Port Au Prince, near the quake’s epicenter) and foundation members have told the News-Times that they are unable to contact workers there to find out if they (and the schools and children) are all right.
According to a United States Geological Survey Map, the area where the schools are lies in the “extreme” damage section, along with Port Au Prince.
We’re told that there were no El Dorado citizens (at least none affiliated with the foundation) in Haiti at the time of the quake.
A benefit fund has been set up on the foundation’s Web site. Click here to visit. The HEF was founded in 1981 by El Dorado resident Frances Landers. For more on Landers and her crusade to help education impoverished children in Haiti, click here.
Also, the best coverage I have found on the quake can be found here at the Miami Herald.
No word yet on when it may reopen, though officials there say they hope it will be this week. Sunday, a pipe burst caused flooding inside the facility and slight damage.
It appears that today all customers in the El Dorado area have their power restored. Here’s hoping it stays that way.
More on other issues later today.
More than 1,000 customers are without power. No details available at this time. Entergy says they are investigating.
**UPDATE** Most customers have power restored, according to the Entergy outage map online. The map shows that a few customers in Lisbon, Mt. Holly and on Mt. Holly Road and Eighth Street in El Dorado are still without power.
**UPDATE 2** The Entergy online map is now indicating that there are still as many as 1,000 customers without power in El Dorado.
**UPDATE 3** Bill Luther, Entergy spokesman, said that officials replaced a fuse at the west substation, but it blew again. “We are still investigating the problem,” he said.
Click here for the Entergy outage map for the latest.
Little Rock urban planner Jim von Tungeln spoke highly of El Dorado during a recent interview with a state public radio station in Northwest Arkansas. Von Tungeln, who has advised El Dorado in the past, is currently offiering advice to Springdale leaders, who are taking steps to make their own downtown area more pleasing.
Said von Tungeln:
“There are very vibrant cities, downtowns, in Arkansas where the city has not spent a penny. I’m thinking particularly of El Dorado, probably the nicest downtown in the state by most agreement, and it was all done with private money.”
As you well know, El Dorado’s power couple, Richard and Vertis Mason, spearheaded the effort to revitalize our downtown in the 1980s.
Click here to visit the radio station’s site and listen to the interview. There are more glowing remarks about El Dorado.
An eight-point buck stands in the middle of merchandise at the Sears store in the Garden Oaks shopping in Camden after crashing through the storefront’s glass window. After running through the store, the animal found its way out of the establishment. Photo by Janis Walker.
Information and photos courtesy of the Camden News.
Fifty degrees this afternoon seems like a heat wave. I took a walk during lunch and didn’t freeze. It’s a nice change, and to be honest, the frigid temps are depressing.
Tuesday’s high will drop slightly from today’s — to 45 degrees — but we’re expected to see highs in the 50s for the remainder of the week, according to the National Weather Service in Shreveport, La.
There’s a slight chance of rain Thursday and Friday.
Click here for the latest.
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