Welfare check is the term used by local law officials when called and asked to check on an elderly person or family member usually requiring only a short visit to a residence.

Charges were pending against Kenny McMillan and are expected to be made as early as Wednesday after he was placed under arrest according to Sheriff Dennis Darby. McMillan is employed at  Panola Country Club where he works at the golf course according to officials who said he was currently residing at the residence with the elderly man.

Beavers, who lives just across the highway from the site, said a suspicious family member of the 87-year-old who owns the Courtland home called the sheriff’s office asking that deputies drop by and check on the elderly man.

According to Panola County Sheriff Dennis Darby, the daughter had recently gone by the home owned by her recently widowed father and McMillan acted suspiciously, not wanting her to talk to her father.

After questioning, Beavers was told at first that shrubs were being grown in the makeshift greenhouse behind the elderly man’s house and was later told peppers and tomatoes were being grown there. After the homeowner gave permission to look into the structure law officials including the Panola County Drug Task Force found the grow operation with between 400-800 (many of the holes for seedlings had four or five plants each) plants in various stages of growth up to 30 inches high.

A tool used for making holes on golf course greens was found in the structure—apparently used for making holes from which the illegal seedlings could grow and thrive.

Several of the larger plants’ flowers had been topped out or trimmed and were exuding a sticky moisture that indicated to Chief Deputy Chris Franklin their high potency.The area reeked of marijuana as two large industrial size fans and several smaller ones circulated air through the 20’x50′ structure.

Both Beavers and Darby confirmed the suspect had told law officials that the site was an “experiment,” that he was planning to move to Colorado where pot growth and sales are legal.

By mid-morning Tuesday, officials had taken down the structure and loaded and it and its contents  into an enclosed trailer to be saved as evidence.

Sheriff Darby took the opportunity to mention that people who are suspicious of something need to say something to law enforcement, repeating the now common law enforcement mantra, “If you see something, say something,” while noting the structure was so near to an inhabited area within Courtland town limits.