I disappeared for a week… well, actually six days. Left town, didn’t check my email, didn’t check Facebook, didn’t watch the news, drove nine hours with two little ones and a husband in tow to put our feet in the sand and leave our worries in Tennessee. We went to Gulf Shores, AL. more

I’m always looking for ways to enhance my storytelling. more

She was small for her age. more

Every mornin he came out of his house and boarded the school bus, his red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks betrayed how homesick he felt the farther he got away from home. more

I was born and raised in a small, rural town in West Tennessee. We could say “aw shucks,” “hankering,” and “bless your heart” with a definite Southern drawl way before we learned to walk. more

On a recent camping trip to Arkansas, a horrific windstorm buffeted our camper the night we arrived. more

I watched my eldest granddaughter march across the football field in front of a makeshift stage and receive her high school diploma with 610 emotions flooding through my bones. They ranged from robust pride to a tad bit of trepidation. more

Singing is part of my DNA. My paternal grandmother sang alto and played the piano by ear. My paternal grandfather played the fiddle and guitar and sang lead. My maternal grandfather was a fine tenor. My mother sang alto, and daddy sang bass. My sister sings alto and both my brothers sing bass. more

One component of President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is the construction of a golden dome. Let’s take a close look at this proposal. more

Wingo Circle resident Bertha Taylor phoned The Banner to issue a complaint about the CSX train blocking both entrances to the neighborhood of Wingo Circle one day last week. more

There is a proposed Bill in the US Congress known as the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’. more

Squatting beside me in the shade of the plum tree in our back yard, my then ten-year-old daughter, Rebekah, watched as I scrubbed my soaked and soaped hunting dog, Susie. more

I try my darndest to write a graduation story every May. For a myriad of reasons. Most all of them revolve around the high school seniors who are marching into the auditorium, gym, football stadium, etc. one last time to the stick-in-your-head-forever-if-you-are-not-careful sounds of “Pomp and Circumstance.” more

PEOPLE WITH AN ADDICTION ARE some of the kindest, meanest, most truthful, most deceitful, gentlest, cruelest, quietest, loudest, hardest working, laziest, most giving, most selfish, most loving, most heartless, most caring, most uncaring, most humble, most prideful people on the planet, which simply means they are the extreme versions of ourselves because we all can have any and all of those traits at any given time. more

Where I live, one of the first questions you’re going to ask a person you’ve just met is, “Where are you from?” sometimes shortened to, “Where you from?” more

I don’t know about you, but there are great universal mysteries that keep me up at night. It can be baffling for sure. And the loss of sleep can wreak havoc on your charming disposition as the sun welcomes the following day. more

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a Lutheran Pastor who lived in Nazi Germany. He opposed the Nazi regime during the late 1930s, and was sent to a concentration camp for his affiliation with the Confessing Church. In 1946 after his release from the concentration camp he published the following statement. more

Recently, while camping, Brenda and I hiked a trail we'd never been on before, but we'd heard about it and seen some beautiful pictures of it. more

I may be the worst yardman in the world. It is not delightful work for me. I’d rather be running a half-marathon. Or playing golf. Or reading a book on General Custer’s last stand. Or teaching grandchildren how to play hopscotch in the driveway. more

As you are well aware, I quit writing these newspaper articles a year ago. At about the same time, I stopped repairing old clocks. Loss of memory, out of ideas, and Leon (my best story source) passing away got me out of the former, and bad eyesight forced me to give up the latter. more