Pulaski County

Welcome aboard one more time. Once again I shall be your driver today as we tour the world of Pulaski County as seen through the eyes of the Pulaski County sheriff’s deputies. And our world has chaos and turmoil to spare this past week.  Our calls for service/case number count stands at 9,633 as of 11:45am on 11-07-2010. There is no doubt that we are going to set the new all time high record for calls this year. In fact we are probably going to blow away the previous mark by a good margin.

SCHOOL DISTRICTS FIRE DISTRICTS CITIES AND TOWNS SCHOOL BOARDS PLATO R-V (Elect 2) Penny Morrison Tina Routh Mike Friend David Hall GASCONADE C-4 (Elect 2) Amanda Armstrong Sherre Piercy Robert Anthony RICHLAND R-4 (Elect 2) Elizabeth Warren Michael Williams Jerry Pemberton Donald Decker NEWBURG R-II (Elect 2) Chris Crowley Diana Dean Matt Brookshire DIXON R-I (Elect 2)

Welcome aboard for another trip around Pulaski County with the deputies of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office. Once again I shall be your driver today and I hope you enjoy the news. Having said that I must also confess to a lack of planned material for today and I may have to wing this column. That of course is a scary thought. I usually get into trouble when I take shots on the wing. Our calls for service/case number count this morning (8:55am on Oct. 30, 2010) stands at 9,409 and the inmate roster stands at 57. One of those numbers is good, the inmate count a month or so ago was 94 so we have had a very nice reduction in the jail.

Welcome to another column. This column may be a little thin because I played absent from work for a whole three day weekend. Several of our employees are reported to have fainted at the thought I would be absent for three days. But I am happy to say cell phone service was quite nice at my deer stand and even better very few people called. It would have been a great season except for the fact that I tripped and fell head long into a log. The log broke, my face did not. As with all head wounds the bleeding was worse than the scrape deserved.

DIXON, Mo. - Dixon police and Pulaski County Sheriff's Office deputies arrested a woman wanted for passing bad checks after they received a tip as to her whereabouts Sunday. Heather J. Massey, 23, of Arnold, Mo., was arrested and booked into the Pulaski County Jail on a total of eight active felony warrants covering 16 check charge violations -- all in Pulaski County. A press release from the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office did not say how much money the checks totaled. Massey is being held at the jail in Pulaski County and awaits her preliminary appearance in court.

WAYNESVILLE, Mo -- It's a success story in Pulaski County. The Veterans Court launched in July, and it started receiving its first participants in October. The goal of the court is to put more emphasis on treatment and rehabilitation rather than punishment. So far the program is working. "The amount of success and progress that we see during the short period of time," said Veterans Justice Outreach Coordinator Danielle Easter, "a year to 18 month program, is phenomenal. " "We view this court as a partnership with our local communities, with our military, and our veterans administration," said Pulaski County Veterans Court Judge Colin Long.

Welcome to the New Year. As the saying goes the old year went out with a roar. According to the weather folks the roar was an F3 tornado. A tragic event such as the tornado strike on Ft. Wood always taxes the emergency response systems in the surrounding areas. In a case such as this the main burden fell upon the fire and medical services. And mainly the fire service for search and rescue work. If there is ever a silver lining in such an event we had it here for two reasons. Much of the Ft. Wood population was still gone for Exodus and Ft. Wood has the best infrastructure for dealing with a heavy duty strike of any city in Pulaski County.

Welcome aboard one more time as we slip and slide our way around Pulaski County. Yes, it is a great morning in the Ozarks especially if you have a 4X4 vehicle and an Arctic survival suit. We only have two 4X4’s and no Arctic suits. It will be a long day. The lack of 4X4 vehicles will hamper our response this winter but I just could not find a way to come up with any such vehicles. I barely kept the fleet up and running for the rest of the year’s activity. It sure would be nice to receive some money in the budget to address the vehicle issue.

Welcome aboard for one of the most unusual column’s I think I will ever write. As has been my custom for the past six years during the month of January I will once again write about the budget process at length. During the past six budget years the whole budget effort has always reminded me of a line from an old country western show where the cast sang a little song that went something like; “Gloom, despair, and agony on me.” (Hee-Haw) The past six budget years have always ended with me walking out of the Commissioner’s office right after the final budget was approved knowing full well that I would be over budget in several lines at the end of the year because the budget allocation was not equal to the task at hand.

Welcome aboard on a nice spring day with the local temp at 50 degrees and a sun that shines. Baugh! Wait just a day or so and I am told the bottom will fall out of the temp and we will have more white stuff on the ground. If you live in Missouri you just have to love the weather changes. Or at least be able to endure them.  Where do I start for today? How about with the fact that our new prosecutor has been filing old charges from 2010 right and left into circuit court. He has already filed about twenty or so old cases that belonged to us and I am told more will be filed as he locates and reviews old PC statements on file in the office.

Waynesville, MO - On Nov. 20, 2011, a Pulaski County deputy sheriff was standing in the dispatch area of the sheriff's office near the security camera monitors when he noticed that a female inmate in the recreation room of the Pulaski County Jail was standing on top of a vending machine and appeared to be trying to crawl into an A/C & heating vent. A second female inmate appeared to be assisting by watching for the jail staff, spraying a liquid onto the security camera lens to obscure vision, and later by also standing on top of the vending machine to assist in the removal of the vent cover.

CROCKER, Mo. -- Retailing experts predict Americans will spend almost as much on Halloween this year as they will on Christmas: $7 billion.  That means high season runs the next four weeks for costumers and candy makers, haunted houses and pumpkin patches.  One family here in Pulaski County is gearing up for a grand opening despite a rough economy and growing season. Yik the llama and Yak the yak - yes, a real baby yak -- were the only two youngsters on the place on Friday but, starting Saturday, the first of 1,000 kids with reservations are coming to Happy Hollows Pumpkin Patch.  Josh Hall, father of three, was doing some last minute testing on the kid stuff.

WAYNESVILLE, Mo. -- One of two people who was hospitalized after what investigators say was a shootout early Monday was charged on Tuesday afternoon with several crimes.   Everett Fields, 49, is charged with first-degree assault, receiving stolen property, possession of a controlled substance, and armed criminal action.  Fields lives in the home at 21474 Highway Y, near St. Robert, where investigators believe two groups of people -- one inside,...

ST. ROBERT, Mo. --  A shooting near St. Robert sent two people to the hospital early Monday.  Pulaski County Sheriff J.B. King says people inside a home at 21474 Highway Y got into a gun battle with several other people outside the home around 3:40 a.m. A man inside the home was hit in the upper leg.  A woman outside the home was shot in a knee.  Both were taken to hospitals. St. Robert police officers and Pulaski County sheriff's deputies responded to the scene, which turned out to be outside the city.

WAYNESVILLE, Mo.-- A jail inmate in Pulaski County may face charges after the sheriff says he tried to set his mattress on fire early Sunday morning. The mattress did not burn, but the attempt created a large amount of smoke. The inmate initially refused medical treatment, but later complained of trouble breathing and went to the hospital. Sheriff J.B. King says the inmate used a cigarette lighter that was smuggled into the jail, to try to start the fire. No other inmates were hurt.

PULASKI COUNTY -- The Pulaski County Jail had to be evacuated early Sunday morning after an inmate tried to set his mattress on fire. According to the sheriff's office, the inmate attempted to set his flame-retardant mattress on fire using a cigarette lighter.       The mattress didn't ignite, but it did cause a lot of smoke.       Local fire departments were called in to help clear the smoke; the inmates were returned to their cells by 4:15am--a little more than a hour after the incident started.

A Pulaski County man faces drug charges after deputies bust a working meth lab. The sheriff says deputies were performing a spot check at a home in Dixon where they discovered a meth lab and a stolen vehicle. Officers booked 26-year-old Jacob Mason on an outstanding warrant for drug possession.  No word on if Mason was the one operating the meth lab.

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. -- Several law enforcement agencies are investigating two shootings and a brawl that stopped traffic on I-44 on Saturday night. Police say it's unclear, at this point, whether any of the incidents are related. Shortly after 8:00pm, the Pulaski County 911 Communications Center received the first of about 20 calls reporting a group of motorcycles riders in the median of I-44 near the 150 mile marker, or the Rt. 7 overpass. A number of callers described the incident as a traffic accident, because many of the bikers were on the ground.  Other callers, however, reported that approximately 20 men were fighting and gun shots were even fired.   The incident stopped traffic on I-44.

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo --  Mystery still surrounds a hit and run in Pulaski County nearly a month after it happened. Fifty-three year old Arley Campbell was found dead under the Veteran's Bridge on Highway 28 two and a half days after he was run over. The family is now pleading for any information that might help solve this case. Arley Campbell traveled to the After Hours bar on Highway 28 on July 9. Security cameras caught him inside acting happy. He left the bar by himself and started walking down the highway heading north.

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo., -- It was a deadly weekend on the Missouri waterways after a bizarre accident left a young woman from Lebanon dead.       The incident happened Saturday on the Gasconade River. According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Lindsey Smith, 20, and two other people had just gotten out of their canoe when they were hit by lightning.      Smith was pronounced dead at the scene; the two others were taken to a local hospital.      Investigators are not sure if the lightning strike killed Smith or if she fell in the water and drowned.