Skelton Caught Trespassing at County Dumpster Site

March 19, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

A woman was caught trespassing at a county convenience center (dumpster site) on Sunday when it was closed.

22-year-old Anna Danielle Skelton of Midway Road, Smithville is charged with aggravated criminal trespassing. Her bond is $1,500 and she will be in court April 4.

Sheriff Patrick Ray said that on Sunday March 17 a deputy was summoned to Douglas Road, the site of the county’s convenience center (dumpsters) on McMinnville Highway due to a suspicious vehicle parked there. Upon arrival the officer found a black Chevy S-10 but no one was in the vehicle. After calling out for anyone there to come forward, two people, including Skelton walked out from behind a trash bin inside the convenience center (while it was closed). Both admitted to being on the property without permission. Skelton said she had removed a fence post to gain entry.

38-year-old Melinda Beth Murphy of Wade Street, Smithville is charged with simple possession of a schedule VI drug (marijuana); possession of drug paraphernalia; possession of a controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell, or deliver (heroin); and fabricating or tampering with evidence. Her court date is April 11, and she is under a $20,000 bond.

Sheriff Ray said that on March 16 a deputy pulled over a white Ninja motorcycle for failing to display a turn signal on South Congress Boulevard. After speaking to the operator, Murphy, the deputy asked for a background check through central dispatch and learned that Murphy was wanted in Smith County for failure to appear in court on drug charges. The officer placed Murphy under arrest and met with Smith County Sheriff’s Department deputies. As Murphy got out of the patrol car, the officer noticed that she held two baggies, one of which contained a white powdery substance believed to be heroin which weighed 0.40 grams. The other baggie held a green leafy substance thought to be marijuana which weighed 1.04 grams. Murphy also had in her possession three needles, a spoon with residue, and cotton bits. Later while being served with other active warrants, Murphy was asked if she had taken anything before going to jail. Murphy claimed she had swallowed some fentanyl to avoid being caught with it. After being taken to the hospital’s emergency room, Murphy admitted to staff that she had consumed three grams of fentanyl in powder form.

45-year-old Samuel Wade Walker of Adcock Cemetery Road is charged with driving on a revoked or suspended license and possession of drug paraphernalia. His bond is $6,000 and he will make a court appearance April 4.

Sheriff Ray said that on March 16 a deputy pulled over a black Nissan Frontier on Sparta Highway near Evins Mill Road and spoke with the driver, Walker. A background check revealed that Walker’s driver license was suspended on February 29. While conducting an inventory of Walker’s vehicle, the deputy found a loaded syringe on the driver side sun visor.

38-year-old Joshua Lynn McCowan of Andrew Street, Smithville is charged with bringing contraband into a penal institution. His bond is $2,500 and he will make a court appearance April 11.

Sheriff Ray said that on March 16 while booking McCowan on other charges, a correctional officer found in McCowan’s wallet a small plastic baggie containing a white powdery substance. When asked, McCowan admitted that the substance was “bad meth” that he had scraped off a broken pipe. McCowan added that he had forgotten the substance was still in his wallet.

March 18, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

A car and the body of a woman were found Saturday morning in the water near the Indian Creek Boat Ramp on Center Hill Lake.

Susan Niland, Senior Public Information Officer for TBI released the following statement to WJLE.

“At the request of 13th Judicial District Attorney General Bryant Dunaway, TBI special agents joined investigators with the DeKalb Co Sheriff’s Department, Tennessee State Parks, and the Army Corps of Engineers, in a death investigation at the boat ramp at the end of Indian Creek Road. Crews responded to a 911 call around 6am Saturday that a body and vehicle (Nissan Rogue) were in the water at Center Hill Lake. The woman whose body was recovered has been identified as 61-year-old Terri Lynn Patterson. An autopsy is scheduled to be performed. The investigations remain active and ongoing,” stated Niland.

March 18, 2024
By:

This fall, John Anderson’s unmistakable voice will be permanently sealed into the history books when he’s formally inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. This morning at a CMA-hosted press conference held at the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum in Nashville, Brooks & Dunn formally revealed Anderson as a 2024 inductee into the revered institution.

As part of the Country Music Hall of Fame Class of 2024, Anderson will be inducted in the Veterans Era Artist category, alongside the late Toby Keith in the Modern Era Artist category and James Burton in the Recording and/or Touring Musician category.

“After several days, I am still trying to grasp the reality of being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame,” says Anderson. “It is one of the greatest honors I could ever receive. My love and heartfelt gratitude goes out to the fans who have supported me through the years, everyone at the Country Music Hall of Fame and all of those who made this possible. I am proud and honored beyond words.”

Some singers get the knock of being too country for rock and too rock for country. That was never the case with John Anderson. At his best, Anderson was too rock and too country, as likely to sing songs by Van Morrison or Willie Dixon as he was ones by Lefty Frizzell or Marijohn Wilkin.

Born December 13, 1954, John David Anderson grew up in Apopka, FL, named for the large lake just northwest of Orlando. As a youth, he played in local rock groups like the Living End and the Weed Seeds. He soon turned to country music and counted Merle Haggard as one of his heroes.

He moved to Nashville shortly after graduating high school in the early 1970s, following his older sister Donna, singing with her in a duo. While in Nashville, he performed gigs for a few dollars a night and worked odd jobs. Of those, the one he held the longest, he told the Orlando Sentinel in 1979, was a construction gig where one of his jobs involved helping roof the Grand Ole Opry House prior to its 1974 opening.

Anderson briefly recorded for a small independent label, which quickly folded, but not before he cut a song called “What Did I Promise Her Last Night.” This got the attention of publisher Al Gallico, who got him a publishing deal and signed to Warner Bros. Records. He then moved to Texas to check out the progressive country scene but soon returned to Nashville.

Norro Wilson produced his early records for the label. Each of Anderson’s singles tended to do a little better than the previous one, enough so that Warner Bros. stuck with him, finally releasing his first, self-titled album in 1980. He’d put out seven singles, and with their echoes of Haggard, Frizzell, and Hank Williams, modest early hits like 1979’s “Your Lying Blues” and “She Just Started Liking Cheatin’ Songs” preceded fellow traditionalists Ricky Skaggs, George Strait and Randy Travis. In an era of pop overtures and crossovers, Anderson favored shuffles, waltzes, and heartbreak ballads sung with a back-of-the-throat drawl that could sound like he was choking back tears. His first Top 5 hit — a version of Billy Joe Shaver’s “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But I’m Gonna Be a Diamond Someday)” — came nearly four years after his label debut.

In late 1982, as the title track for Anderson’s fourth album, Wild and Blue, (co-produced by Anderson and Frank Jones) was on a trajectory to become his first No. 1 single, several radio stations began playing another song from the album, one Anderson had written with Lionel Delmore, the son of the Delmore Brothers’ Alton Delmore. The buzz on the other record became so loud that Warner’s promotion team had to encourage programmers to wait until “Wild and Blue” had run its course. Sure enough, three weeks after “Wild and Blue” hit No. 1, “Swingin’” hit the country charts. Ten weeks after that, the mildly suggestive number became Anderson’s second chart-topper. The record became so popular that some rock and pop stations began spinning it.

The Country Music Association recognized “Swingin'” as the Single of the Year at the 1983 CMA Awards, where Anderson also was named the Horizon Award winner.

Anderson and Delmore wrote several other songs together, including the 1995 Top 3 single “Bend Until It Breaks.”

Anderson had five Top 5 singles, including three No. 1s, in two years, but subsequent records peaked farther down the charts as the next wave of young performers arrived.

Following brief stints with MCA Records Nashville and Universal Records, Anderson signed with BNA Records, a subsidiary of RCA, in 1991. When “Straight Tequila Night” came out late that year, Anderson had had just one Top 10 single in seven years.

But “Straight Tequila Night” brought Anderson’s career roaring back, making him one of only a handful of acts who’d begun releasing records in the 1970s who continued to have major successes into the 1990s.

Anderson’s 1990s run equaled what he’d done a decade before as he hit with records like the Dire Straits cover “When It Comes to You,” the chart-topping “Money in the Bank,” and the regret-filled “I Wish I Could Have Been There.”

One of those 90s hits, “Seminole Wind,” had a localized, environmentally conscious theme that did not initially strike BNA executives as particularly commercial. Though Anderson did not write it as such, he knew it was capable of commercial success. Written after a visit with his 95-year-old grandmother in Florida, the song referenced the development of the Everglades in Anderson’s native Florida, flood control efforts that decreased its size by half in a century, and the 19th-century Seminole resistance leader Osceola. Though the record peaked at No. 2, 1992’s “Seminole Wind” sold three million copies and became a career-defining record for Anderson.

After BNA, Anderson recorded for Mercury Records, Columbia Nashville, the Warner imprint Raybaw Records, Country Crossing, and Bayou Boys Music. In 2020, he worked with Johnny Cash collaborator David Ferguson and the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach on his 22nd studio album, Years.

In addition to Anderson’s two 1980s CMA Awards, he participated in the 1994 Album of the Year win for Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles, on which he covered “Heartache Tonight.” That same year, the Academy of Country Music honored him with its Career Achievement Award.

Truly living out his songs, Anderson has lived the Country lifestyle for more than 45 years. When not on the road, Anderson enjoys spending time with his family, hunting, fishing and gardening. Anderson and his wife of more than 40 years, Jamie, share two daughters and their families. “I’ve been very fortunate and blessed to have such a great family life,” he says.

With a discography spanning more than 40 years, Anderson’s career track has had enough peaks and valleys and twists and turns to resemble a rollercoaster. His musical vision hasn’t always aligned with the fashion of the times. But whatever John Anderson decides to sing, as soon as he starts, there’s no mistaking who it is. That voice is timeless, and it has found a forever home in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

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