Pictures of the following military men and women were hung on the tree: Thomas "Tommy" Mangrum, Casey Brown of Charley Company, Daniel Umberger, Michael Wick, Ishmael Johnson, James Robertson, Darrell Lewis, Curt Ayers, Clyde Haynes, Willie Harrison, Arthur R. Edward, Rickey Hanson, Walter Lee Sander, and Walter Lee Sander Jr.

Also Corinda Sander Green, Rosaline Kaye Sander Wallace, Angelina M. Sander Paschal, Charles Reed, Clifton Reed, and Anthony Reed.

Names submitted to hang on the tree were as follow: David Dunnigan, Eddie Little, Kelly Wall, John Curtis Jones, Reese Lowe, Reese Lowe Jr., Alvin Williamson, Earl Tucker, Larry Shaw. Larry Young, Joe Alvin Willingham, Thomas Reed, Rodney Fondern, Earl Burdette, and Jacqueline Reed.

After 14 years, the disappearance of a Batesville woman still haunts the Police Department.

An anonymous letter sent to Police Chief Roger Vanlandingham last week was an ominous reminder that the case remains unsolved since the day in January, 1991 when Claire Ales disappeared from her home on quiet Kyle Street.

Vanlandingham told members of the city board of aldermen about the letter at their meeting last week.

"When I opened the envelope, it contained the (newspaper) article on my retirement," he said. "Written across my picture was the name Claire Ales."

Vanlandingham said he does not feel like the mail was a threat in any way.

"I honestly don’t feel like it was a threat," he said. "If anything, I believe it was a reminder that the case still wasn’t solved."

The case of Claire Ales still receives a lot of attention from investigators, according to Vanlandingham.

"As some people may recall, her disappearance was reported to us by a postal worker," he said. "We have been looking for any clues to Mrs. Ales’ whereabouts ever since.

"I would like people to know that I am retiring, but that will not keep me from assisting with the Ales investigation in any way possible," Vanlandingham added.

The chief said the department still has no leads or suspects in the matter.

Thirteen months after being sworn into office, Panola County’s two newest supervisors – both of them first-time public officials – are still feeling their way around the public office.

And both of them, meanwhile, are eyeing a certain critical vote regarding a certain public-owned hospital.

Panola County voters put William "Bubba" Waldrup and James Birge into office in August 2003, choosing the first-time candidates over incumbents.
Birge, who represents District One, won the Democratic primary in August 2003 to win over Supervisor Jesse Lyons.

Waldrup, who represents District Five, survived the primary to beat incumbent Dennis Lott in a late-August run-off.

A big vote coming soon

For Waldrup, the most important issue to date has been the pending sale of the Tri-Lakes Medical Center – "no ifs, ands or buts about it," he said.

When Waldrup came into office 13 months ago, he said, the supervisors had "no control" over the hospital and were disagreeing with the hospital board about the sale of the facility.

Next came a public referendum about the future of the hospital. When Panola Countians went to the polls, 82 percent voted to sell the public-owned hospital.

"What it boiled down to is, of course, the hospital board didn’t want to sell it and we wanted to sell it," Waldrup recalled. "We needed to know what the people wanted, and that was the reason for the referendum."

Five bidders have submitted bids for Tri-Lakes, and voting on the hospital’s next owner will likely be the most important vote this year, Waldrup said.

Birge agreed the pending sale of Tri-Lakes is the "number one" issue he and the other supervisors are facing.

Selling the hospital makes good common sense, Birge said.

"I don’t think the county should be in the hospital business," the District One supervisor said. "I feel a hospital should be owned and operated by people in that line of work."

‘My job is to protect the taxpayers’

Birge, 57, has owned Birge Plumbing Co. since 1971. With that background, he said, he brings years of customer service into public office.

"In business you get a good understanding about pleasing customers, and operating the county should be the same way," Birge said.

As a small business owner, Birge said he’s sympathetic about the tax burden on people and feels that the county should bear the burden of "squeezing" tax dollars.

"I feel like my job is to protect the taxpayers’ money," Birge said. "I feel like we should try to squeeze as much out of every dollar that we can."

‘I didn’t promise a soul a thing’

"Politics is the art of the possible," German chancellor Otto von Bismarck once said, and something akin to that was Waldrup’s motto as he stumped for the supervisor’s seat.

"I told the people that I wanted to represent them and would handle any problem that they had, but one thing I didn’t do is promise anything to anybody," Waldrup said. "I didn’t promise a soul a thing."

Waldrup, 55, works as a supervisor for Cube, Inc., a subcontractor for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

He and his family farmed for a decade and, before that, owned and operated Panola Feed and Seed.

Panola County’s District Five is unusual territory among the county’s five districts. Much of Five lies within Batesville’s city limits, meaning most of those roads are already paved.

According to Waldrup, about seven miles of gravel roads remain to be paved in District Five.

None of those gravel roads are scheduled for paving this summer, he said, which will be the second summer of road paving since he took office.
While some District Five roads will be resurfaced and overlaid this summer, Waldrup says most of the county’s time and equipment should be used on the dozens of miles of unpaved roads in the other four districts.