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WEAKLEY COUNTY INFORMATION

     At its regularly scheduled meeting Monday night, the Weakley County Municipal Electric System Board of Directors accepted an option to purchase land owned by the Weakley Farmers Co-op for a new centralized facility, and to dismiss condemnation proceedings for land owned by the Adams family of Chicago, Illinois.
     According to Weakley County Municipal Electric Service General Manager Farron Collins, this offer, delivered to the system office February 16, is the first and only written option or contract to sell property received by the system. Weakley Farmers Co-op will receive $180,000 for the property, which consists of 30.063 acres of land located at the intersection of State Highway 22 and Adams Chapel Road, between Dresden and Martin, diagonally across the intersection from the Adams property earlier identified as the preferred site for the new WCMES facility.
     Collins states that the Co-op tract is one of the original eleven tracts identified, and one of the first sites that WCMES attempted to purchase, but it was not for sale at the time. A recent change in plans by Weakley Farmers Coop resulted in a decision to offer the property for sale to WCMES. Of those eleven sites considered during the initial search process, only the Adams property received a higher evaluation than the Coop property. It meets all the criteria set by WCMES for a new centralized facility site:
1. The property is centrally located between the geographic and customer centers of the system.
2. The site offers direct four-lane access for customer traffic as well as access through an established intersection for truck traffic.
3. The site has gently rolling topography and can be adapted to the proposed use with a moderate amount of grade work.
4. With reasonable modifications to the power distribution system, the site can receive power from either of the two TVA delivery points operated by WCMES.
     Collins, speaking on behalf of the WCMES board states that this action was brought to a conclusion acceptable to both parties through the hard work of attorney James W. Fisher, Jr. and members of the Adams family.
     WCMES board members are very pleased that Weakley Farmers Co-op made this property available for the construction of a new facility; and now that they have a willing seller of suitable property, WCMES intends to move forward with plans for the new facility, although no timetable for construction has been set.

   A single-vehicle accident, which took place approximately six miles northeast of Dresden on Sunday, February 19, as a result of icy roads, resulted in three members of a local family being transported for treatment of assorted injuries.
According to a report filed by Trooper Mike Ford of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the crash took place on Wesley Chapel Road approximately 1.6 miles east of State Route 89 at approximately 10 a.m., while Roe N. Hughes, Jr. and his wife, Andrea, and their son, Roe Hughes III, were on their way to church. The report states that Mr. Hughes lost control of his 1997 Toyota SUV when it skidded on a patch of icy, causing the vehicle to exit the roadway and strike a tree.
     Members of the Hughes family were transported by ambulance to Volunteer General Community Hospital in Martin. Mr. Hughes was treated for a couple of days at the Martin hospital before being transferred to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville where he remains hospitalized. The medical staff at Vanderbilt is treating him for assorted serious injuries, including several broken bones he suffered in the crash. Fortunately doctors found no internal injuries when evaluating his medical condition.

(Read the rest of the story in this week's print edition of the Dresden Enterprise!)