New Road Supervisor Hits the Ground Running

September 4, 2018
By: Dwayne Page

DeKalb County Road Supervisor Danny Hale hit the ground running on his first official day at work Tuesday.

“We looked at a couple of roads this morning (Tuesday) that we are going to try and re-do before it gets too cold to do any tar and chipping. It gets to a point that you can’t do anything through the winter because of the cold weather. You can’t get any good result from it,” said Hale.

After the mowing season ends, Hale said he plans to keep busy right on through the winter with various projects.

“We’re about to get most of the mowing done as far as the sides of the roads but we have a lot cutting back to do especially with limbs hanging over the roads. This winter we will be bush hogging on the cutting back part. The sides of the roads don’t necessarily need mowing then but we will be cutting back limbs all winter long. We will also be pulling some ditches. You will see us out there so just watch for us and everybody be safe,” he said.

Asked if he plans to be a hands-on working Road Supervisor, Hale said “I plan on it. I have done that (work) all my life. That’s what I like. I like to be involved”.

September 4, 2018
By:

A 21 year old Kentucky man was seriously injured on Labor Day after falling off of the front of a moving pontoon boat on Center Hill Lake, near Mine Lick Creek.

The rental pontoon was carrying 14 vacationing passengers. After falling, the man was struck by the propeller of the moving vessel. He was not wearing a personal floatation device.

TWRA officers responded to the call just after 3:00 p.m. along with DeKalb EMS and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. The man was transported by life flight to Vanderbilt University Medical Center with serious injuries. The incident remains under investigation.

Members of the DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department and Sheriff’s Department set up the helicopter landing zone at the scenic overlook on Highway 56 north near Hurricane Bridge

September 3, 2018
By: Bill Conger

Technology is a useful tool that students need to understand to help them with education and their future work world. On the other hand, it’s a dangerous resource that can destroy the lives of children and teens.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Jonathan Hendrix says kids aren’t mature enough to handle a device that is made for an adult.

“It’s the world’s greatest marketing tool, and we give it to our children,” Hendrix told WJLE after his school presentation to the 6^th-8^th grade classes at DeKalb West School. “If we took all the technology away from them, they’d be left behind, right? It’s one of those things where you have to find this happy medium of how do I educate my child within technology and yet protect my child from making a mistake that can haunt them for the rest of their life online.”

Agent Hendrix will tell parents about the serious pitfalls children encounter when exploring the digital world tomorrow night (Sept. 4) starting at 6 o’clock at the DeKalb County Complex auditorium. The iGuardian parent presentation is free and open to all adults.

Hendrix says sextortion is just one of the scary issues kids face.

“Kids do the sexting, and that is a problem, but sextortion is even worse,” Hendrix said. “It is where a child is talking to someone on some social media platform or in some type of online environment, and they believe that they’re talking to another same age child, and they have a relationship online that can stretch not days, sometimes weeks, then they start to trust each other, which kids are very trusting. They’re just not mature enough to understand what’s occurring.”

“What happens is that person will eventually ask or some way groom that child into sending an inappropriate picture, usually some type of nude photograph, and then turn around and tell the child, ‘Well, guess what? You and I have been friends for weeks. I know everybody you know online. I know where you go to school. I know your parents. I know where you go to church. And I have this picture. If you don’t’ do the things I want you to do, I will send this to everyone you know.’ That’s a really bad day for a 13-year-old child that’s now caught in this world of I’m scared to tell my parents, but now everyone in my school’s going to know. What do I do? Parents need to know that that exists. Most of them don’t, especially children that are middle school kids, and even high school kids. They don’t know that world is out there. That’s one of the worst things that can happen to a child in an online environment is sextortion.”

Hendrix says that many kids naively think that pictures and information they send out on social media is temporary.

“A lot of kids think that when they send something on any social media application people don’t record it, or they don’t keep it,” Hendrix said. “Almost every single predator’s going to keep it. That’s the whole reason he wants it. They [kids] don’t know that that exists, and they don’t understand that permanency of internet.

“On top of that, these kids … even young adults don’t understand the ramifications from having something that you do on the internet that ends up being embarrassing or in some form or fashion being some way that it embarrasses your school system, it embarrasses your work, your job, your family, yourself, whatever it maybe. Then, later in life, there’s tons of these Fortune 500 companies, these Ivy League schools, [and] they’re going to do research on you, on your online environment life as opposed to just here’s my resume and look how good it looks.”

“These things will come back to haunt these kids, and they’ll pay for mistakes they’ve made as a child that they don’t understand won’t happen as an adult. They’re not yet equipped to understand long term the ramifications of the internet and how they use the internet. They need to be the exact same person on the internet that they are in real life, or those two worlds will collide, and it’s usually not for the best.”

Special Agent Hendrix will have a more in-depth iGuardian presentation tomorrow night (Sept. 4) starting at 6 o’clock at the DeKalb County Complex auditorium.

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