Colbert Heights hit hard this past week

It is with great sadness, I write this column today. Hearts are just broken all over the Shoals area, with news of two teenagers dying this past week on Hwy. 43 near Littleville. The two accidents happened within a mile of each other.

The latest death was that of the young man to the left, 14-year-old, Stephen Hunter Moore, a student at Colbert Heights High School. He was crossing Hwy. 43 with three of his friends, when a car struck and killed Hunter.

I can say this, some local politicians have taken note of the deaths. Two have expressed their grief over these recent deaths.

Five people have died in the past ten years, where, 14-year-old, Dalton Stewart and his mother died, this past Wednesday. There is an obvious lack of a guard rail on that section of Hwy. 43 North. One can only speculate. Would they have died if if the guard rail was in place? If the drainage was better or if the road more level, would they have slid off to their deaths. We will never know.

I think it would be in the public's best interest to fix the road and erect guard rails on that section of road.

We know words could never describe or ease the pain felt after a young person's death. But we will keep these families in our thoughts and prayers and ask that you do too.

Decatur Daily comes to town, T.Wayne not getting on a plane

When we first reported a couple of weeks ago The Decatur Daily was in talks to buy The Times Daily, my first thought was, is it making a profit? Of course, cutting the four senior-most positions must be a large cost saving measure. In all likelihood, more cuts will be necessary. Last I heard, there were over 100 employees at TD. And we are all aware of the plummeting ad sales in print media, hundreds of papers across the nation are going out or under, as we speak.

From media accounts of the transaction, the new owners seem very focused on local news. So I can't see many more cuts in the newsroom. But you better believe they are going to want a return on their multi-million dollar investment. Financial analysts recently estimated the New York Times Regional News Group value to be around $100 million. With the Boston paper accounting for most of that, that leaves just a few million dollar value on the rest of the newsgroups papers, five to ten million a piece. Rest assured, the new owners have close to this invested in the Times Daily.

The new owners have mentioned the high dollar presses at the TD. This will save money on print cost for the Decatur paper.

We at Shoals Insider extend our welcome the new owners and new staff to the Shoals area.

We really hate to see T. Wayne Mitchell leave the TD. I have to admit, I have read several of T. Wayne's columns. I once asked him if T. Wayne was yankee for Dewayne. We both laughed.
In his last column, Mitchell seemed to imply he is sticking around. He can always come work for the Shoals Insider. The check would be the same minus a few zeros.