Stories from Friday, February 8, 2008

In an effort to streamline its operations, Baldwin Piano, Inc. of Trumann laid off 34 employees last week. The company made the announcement of the job cuts on Monday, Jan. 28. Baldwin Piano has been in Trumann for over 30 year building pianos for the United States market. Baldwin was acquired by Gibson Guitar Corporation in 2001...

DAN BRAWNER Saturday afternoon's 2A-3 Junior High District Tournament at Bay got off to a strange and confusing start when both the Marked Tree and Cross County junior girls teams came out with white jerseys on. Marked Tree, who was the ninth seeded team, was forced to use the Lady Yellowjacket's gold practice jerseys as a substitute, but because of the mistake the Lady Indians were assessed a technical foul, sending Cross County's Morgan Cook to the charity stripe to shoot a pair of free throws before the game even began. ...

DAN BRAWNER Tribune Sports Staff Marked Tree and Crowley's Ridge Academy fought tooth and nail throughout Saturday afternoon's 2A-3 District Tournament play-in game at Bay, but when the dust had settled, a free throw by Wade Freer with just seven seconds remaining turned out to be the difference as the Falcons defeated the Indians 36-35 to advance to the quarter-finals...

Tribune Sports Staff Season ending tournament games are meant to reward those with better records by pitting them against a district's more down-trodden teams. Monday night at Harrisburg the #2 seeded EPC Junior Warriors were rewarded for a good season with an easy outing against the scrappy, but hapless Hoxie Junior Mustangs. The result was a 45-16 warm up for their semifinal match against #3 seed Brookland...

Clara B. Atchley Payton, 78, of Marked Tree, died Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008, at St. Bernard Regional Medical Center in Jonesboro. She was a homemaker and a member of the Revival Center of Lepanto. Payton was an avid gardener and loved to fish, sing and cook...

Yearly memberships are available for families and individuals wishing to support the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum and their various activities throughout the year. Members are entitled to discounts on workshops and events, a 10% discount on gift shop items, and the quarterly newsletter, the "Sharecropper's Voice." Membership prices are $10 for students, $10 for senior citizens age 65 and older, $25 for individuals and $40 for families...

The Marked Tree Rotary Club will host its third annual banquet and live auction at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9 at the Marked Tree Elementary School Cafeteria. The event will feature a delicious steak dinner, door prizes including cash drawings and an entertaining auction. All proceeds will benefit the Rotary Club and their community projects including scholarships and other local and international programs...

The Marked Tree Schools Beta Club concluded their "Souperbowl of Caring" drive recently. Held to coincide with the playing of the Super Bowl, the national program, which began in 1990 with a youth group in Columbia, S.C., raises money for local charities...

Poinsett County received $40,045.29 in turnback funds during 2007, according to Commissioner of State Lands Mark Wilcox. The turnback funds totaling over $10 million statewide represent monies collected from the redemption and sale of tax delinquent property during the preceding year. They were released to the counties over a twelve-month period...

Tribune Sports Staff Postponed from Thursday when ice blanketed much of the area, EPC's Lady Warriors and Junior Warriors played the Lady Bobcats at Corning Saturday. Whether the postponement had something to do with it or not no one can tell, but the Lady Warriors managed to just escape with their skin in a 58-54 thriller...