Shelby County Today

January 9, 2015 - If you have medical records at the old Shelby Regional Medical Center (SRMC) that need to be picked up the hours of operation are Monday and Tuesday from 10am until 6pm starting January 12th.

The location to pickup records has been changed to Dr. Hookers old office at the front of the hospital. There also are a large quantity of records from Dr. McMullen's office stored at this location at this time which do contain a lot of children's shot records amongst other records.

March 13, 2015 will be the absolute last day for records to be picked up. All records not claimed will be shredded.

A letter is not necessary to acquire your records, they can now be looked up at the facility by name through a computer system. Personnel records are also available from 2008 - 2013.

December 16, 2014 - It’s time for you to get the credit —capital credits, that is— for helping build, sustain, and grow your local electric cooperative. When you signed up to receive electric service from Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative you became a member of the co-op. An electric cooperative operates on an at-cost basis by annually “allocating” to each member, based on how much electricity you purchased during a year, operating revenue remaining at the end of the year. Each year as financial condition permits, these allocated amounts—capital credits—are retired. Since a cooperative’s members are also the people the co-op serves, capital credits reflect each member’s ownership in, and contribution of capital to, the cooperative.

This year, members of Deep East Texas EC will receive capital credit retirements through a check in the mail, reflecting a portion of their contribution to the ownership of the cooperative. Those funds helped us keep the lid on rates, reduced the amount of money we needed to borrow from outside lenders to build, maintain, and expand a reliable electric distribution system, and covered emergency expenses – now it’s time to return the credit back to you! Over the years, Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative has returned over $20 million to our members and local communities through the retirement of capital credits.

Remember, a member may be eligible for capital credits for several years after they move off our system. If you move, please be sure that we have an accurate forwarding address. Also, if you are an heir of one of our past members, please be sure that we have the proper information to forward the deceased member's future capital credit checks to the heirs. Should you have any questions, please call Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative at 936-229-4000 or 1-866-392-2547.

Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative is a non-profit electricity provider serving 8 counties in Deep East Texas: San Augustine, Shelby, Sabine, Panola, Nacogdoches, Rusk, Jasper and Newton.

(Photo: The City of Center Council (seen above from left) consists of Jerry Lathan, Leigh Porterfield, Howell Howard, Mayor David Chadwick, Jim Forbes, Charles Rushing and Joyce Johnson.)

December 12, 2014 - Newly elected Center City Council members were sworn in at their recent regular scheduled meeting held on Monday, December 8, 2014.

Incumbent council members Leigh Porterfield, Jerry Lathan, Jim Forbes and Charles Rushing were all sworn in by Barbara Boyd, City Secretary, and following the swearing in the council members voted to keep Charles Rushing as the Mayor Pro Tem.

Lathan was the only council member seeking re-election whom had a challenger in the race; however, he retained his seat following the election.

The council approved Ordinance 2014-16 - Water Conservation & Drought Contingency Plan which is mandated by the state for the city to submit to the state. Chad Nehring, City Manager, explained the contingency plan is redone every five years as mandated by state law, "The only significant changes other than the data values for recent water usage consumption does adapt the goals for gallon per capita for daily down slightly, I do think they're achievable and obtainable and quite honestly there's no penalty if our customers don't end up meeting those goals."

According to Nehring, one part of the plan which may be of interest to customers is the drought watering schedule, "We have adjusted and adapted the drought watering schedules several times, the last several years, particularly after the 2011 drought."

Nehring states the plan is as lenient as the state allows. The schedule shows stage 1 of the plan to allow a two day a week watering cycle, stage 2 allows for one day a week and stage 3 would not allow any outdoor watering or excessive usage.

Resolution 2014-32 - Authorizing 2015 CDBG Application was approved by the council. This is the bi-annual application cycle for US HUD funds distributed regionally throughout the state by COG regions for low to moderate income area community development projects.

A benefit of $275,000 in grant funding is possible should the grant be awarded to the city with a required local match of $56,000 in funds. The system Deep East Texas Council of Governments (DETCOG) uses to decide if a project meets specific requirements has been altered and different projects have moved up the ladder.

"Historically water and sewer projects used to score at least one point better than streets, which then subsequently scored at least one point better than parks, other community activities," said Nehring. "This last year they changed the scoring, only in DETCOG, to make parks and other community facilities score one point better than water, sewer and streets."

Nehring stated a plan was drawn up two years ago for work to be done on Perry Sampson Park; however, the funds were not available at that time. According to Nehring, with the changes in the scoring system Perry Sampson Park would have a greater chance of scoring well in the new system.

During January 5 - 19, Nehring reported a biannual water maintenance program will be in progress as the water department as they flush chloramine from the water system with chlorine. He explained residents will take notice of the bleach odor of the water during that time period.

Several 100s of thousands has been returned to DETCOG for re-appropriation within the region for disaster recovery projects not fully funded or were not completed, "We did submit a letter two years ago asking for those funds to be considered for a project that we had to downgrade. One of the generators got cut at our water plant, at the lake actually. We had the mayor go ahead an reiterate a couple of weeks ago the same request to at least attempt to garner those funds that had to be backed off in the first place."

During the meeting recognition was given to Howell Howard for one year of service on the council and to Jim Forbes who was recognized for his 20 years of service on the council.

Items on the agenda receiving approval include:
1) Minutes of the Regular Meeting on November 17, 2014.
2) Elect Charles Rushing as Mayor Pro Tem.
3) Ordinance 2014-16 - Water Conservation & Drought Contingency Plan.
4) Resolution 2014-32 - Authorizing 2015 CDBG Application.
5) Resolution 2014-33 Authorizing Land Acquisition.
6) Resolution 2014-34 Authorizing Agreement for IP Telephony System.
7) Award of bid - Hutcherson Drive - TCF Project: Drewery Construction in the amount of $336,210.50.
8) Award of bid - Utility Treatment Chemicals.
9) Authorization of contract with Terra Renewal for Sludge Lagoon Maintenance.
10) Award Grant Management to Gary Traylor &
11) Associates for 2014 Downtown Revitalization Texas Capital Fund Project.

Photo: Center City Council members are seen being sworn in by Barbara Boyd (in blue jacket), City Secretary.

Pictured above are council members (from left) Jerry Lathan, Jim Forbes, Leigh Porterfield and Charles Rushing.

November 6, 2014 - In the summer of 1960 a tragedy occurred in Center changing the lives of a 15-year-old boy's family for over half a century. Fifty-four years later, James Thorn, who was 13 years old at the time, is on a mission in search of those responsible for the death of his brother, Charles Thorn, on August 9, 1960.

Shelby County Sheriff's Investigator Christopher King is now investigating the cold case and is helping Thorn in his search for what happened to his brother on that day. No investigative file exists as when law enforcement files get to a certain age they are destroyed. Investigator King has searched for any documentation explaining the circumstances that occurred; however, the only traces that remain are a newspaper article written on August 11, 1960, a death certificate and the funeral home hand-out.

Thorn accepts that files are destroyed once they reach a certain age, but that there is no written explanation anywhere leaves him extremely suspicious of the situation. "I suspect there was a cover-up, I suspect the law enforcement was either trying to protect somebody at that time, or my brother walked in on something he saw and potentially, whatever it was, he was stripped and murdered."

James Thorn decided that he would wait until his mother, Maxilene Thorn, had passed on before he would begin the inquiry into his brother's death as it was such a traumatic situation for his family. That is when he contacted the Sheriff's Department.

Thorn described the house where the incident occurred as a house that had a great deal of traffic, from children to adults, the house was playground to children and speakeasy at times to adults as well as rest area for transients. The house was located at the end of Pine Street at the intersection of Terry Street, was known as the Jack Brady home and at the time of the incident was owned by then Sheriff candidate Grady Jarratt.

"I was out on a birthday party, came home on August the 9th, approximately 4:15pm I would imagine, and that's a guess on my part. My mother told me to go get my brother, 'he's down at the old house playing with some friends,'" recalls Thorn. Although he does remember searching through the house for his brother and running home, part of what Thorn recalls at this time is a blur as he doesn't remember everything he saw when he arrived at the house that traumatic day. "I ran back to my house and my mother, I remember her standing sort of in front of the refrigerator, I remember her face, but I can't remember anything else. Dad comes walking down the hall and she told him to go find Charles down at the old house."

Thorn described his father, Travis Thorn, going to the house and locating Charles' body in front of the house, next to the porch, "Charles, according to all statements was found nude and a quote at that time 'his clothes were neatly folded beside his body.' Well it wasn't, because my father had brought them back with him. My mother was crying in his clothes, screaming and so-forth."

The second person to arrive at the scene was Ted Adams who worked with Mangum Funeral Home, and who also happened to be Thorn's first cousin. According to Thorn, Adams described his brother's body and the ligature that was around Charles' neck. This ligature has been described as having been cheese cloth torn from the walls of the house and rolled into an improvised rope. Thorn says that he has heard different accounts of his brother's death such as his brother hung himself, he was hung from a room in the house, he was hung from a tree, "he was in some bushes that has some limbs [about the size of a man's finger]," explained Thorn.

According to Thorn, Sheriff Charlie Christian arrived at his family's house a couple of days following his brother's death. Thorn listened through the wall as Sheriff Christian spoke to his parents and surmised what happened by indicating Charles Thorn hung himself accidentally, was nude and that his neck or back was broken, "Could his neck have been broken? I don't know, but I want to know how the Sheriff knew that."

Investigator King is convinced not everything adds up and is alarmed by indications that Thorn's death may have been more than an accident, "The one thing that really stands out to me is the disrobing. That is consistent with trying to humiliate someone, it's a very personal thing. If he had walked in on say bootleggers why would they go so far as to disrobe him? That's just really odd to me," said Investigator King. "The porch on the front of the residence, which is no longer standing, from what I understand it had a bannister and he was found midway along the porch on the ground, so that means he had to come over the bannister."

Thorn says that Adams related to him what was done when law enforcement arrived at the scene as he was there the entire time. He said they looked around the scene a little bit, no fingerprints were taken and no real investigating was performed. No medical examiner, doctor, or investigator was ever called to the scene. Beyond that, Adams stated to Thorn that no medical examination or doctor was ever at the funeral home either previous to Thorn's preparation for burial.

"Charles walked in on something, now what that was I don't know, but why was he nude? Was he sexually molested? Was he sexually molested and then strangled? Something happened that's out of the norm and it stinks," said Thorn as he continued to question why there was no medical examiner or doctor and why the police didn't do more than they did.

Thorn remarked that Sheriff Willis Blackwell and Investigator King have been "unbelievably cooperative" in helping him to learn the circumstances of the investigation of his brother's death.

A reward has been offered for any information leading to the identification and/or conviction of the parties responsible. Anyone with information is asked to contact Investigator Christopher King at the Shelby County Sheriff's Office by calling 936-598-5600.