Local News

Nine-year-old Brody Shelby was honored Saturday by friends, family and a large group of area firefighters and other emergency personnel in a memorial service at Grace Baptist Church west of Gainesville.  Brody, the son of Bobbie Jo Shelby and the stepson of James E. Walley Jr, a firefighter with...

Ozark County Chamber of Commerce member Linda Harlin shows some of the banners to be installed this week on the Gainesville square. Harlin applied on behalf of the Chamber for White River Valley Electric Cooperative Plugged In grants to purchase the banners plus four benches, four planters and a new sound system to be used for community events.
The Gainesville square is getting some decorative updates and additional benches this week, thanks to Ozark County Chamber of Commerce projects using funds from the White River Valley Electric Cooperative Plugged In grant initiative.  Chamber member Linda Harlin applied for the grant funds to...

Tecumseh resident Matthew Weatherman, center, was recently appointed Ozark County Prosecutor to replace retiring Ozark County Prosecutor John Garrabrant, right. They’re shown with 44th Judicial Circuit Judge Craig Carter.
Tecumseh resident Matthew Weatherman has been appointed as the next Ozark County Prosecuting Attorney and is set to begin his duties here Dec. 1. He will fulfill the remaining year left in the term of retiring prosecutor John Garrabrant.  “I’m looking forward to being here and meeting everyone soon...

Times file photo / Abby Milligan Mr. and Mrs. Claus, pictured here during the 2020 Wonders of Christmas event and parade, will be at the event again this year on Dec. 10 to visit with children. Parents should bring a camera or cell phone to take their own photos.
Gainesville’s “Wonders of Christmas” event will be held Friday evening, Dec. 10, on the square. Craft, food or game vendors are welcome to set up on the square free of charge. Booths can operate from 5 p.m. until the end of the festival. To sign up or to request more information about booths,...
Ozark County Wellness Committee member Karen Brantingham, second from right, recently accepted a $20,000 donation from the Ozark County Community Foundation (OCCF) for improvements to the walking trail project the committee started in 2020. The funds will go toward making the trail more accessible...

Gainesville High School ag teacher and FFA adviser Jon Wilson and wife April celebrated their 25th anniversary this year.
Gainesville High School agriculture teacher and FFA adviser Jon Wilson has a signature haircut (or lack thereof) and epic mustache that makes him one of the most recognizable teachers around - but what students really remember about him goes far beyond his appearance. His personable teaching style...
The Ozark County Times reported in its March 1, 1918, edition that about 200 friends and neighbors gathered Saturday, Feb. 23, at the home of “Uncle Carroll Beasley” near Romance to share a dinner in honor of four “boys” about to leave for Army training camp. The Times reported that the four...
These excerpts from soldiers’ letters (and a Navy press release) that were published in the Ozark County Times in decades past, often under the heading, “From our soldier boys,”  remind us of the dedication and heroism of Ozark County’s military men and woman in uniform during wartime.      We are...

Puxico native Skip Payton was drafted into the Army in 1943 and trained at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. He served with the Fifth Army’s 88th Infantry Division as it fought its way up the length of Italy.
Editor’s note: This story about World War II veteran Emmit “Skip” Payton is reprinted from the Oct. 12, 2011, edition of the Times. Payton died June 17, 2017, at age 95. His widow, Margie, now 94, still lives in their house on Rainbow Ridge near Haskins Ford.    In 1943, Emmit “Skip” Payton shipped...

A Vietnam surprise from a fellow Ozark Countian Dick Mahan, left, an Army ammo-truck driver, showed up one day at the marine-repair facility in Dong Tam, Vietnam, to surprise his lifelong friend Dan Morgan, who was posted there with the Navy. The two men, both from Pontiac, had started the same day in the one-room school there, and both graduated from Gainesville High School in 1966. They posed for this photo in front of the four-foot wall of sandbags that protected the “hooch” where Morgan and his fellow sailors slept. Shortly after Morgan’s discharge, Mahan was back in Dong Tam and found that a rocket attack had demolished the sandbagged structure. See Dan Morgan's story, reprinted from the Nov. 10, 2010, edition of the Times, and other military salutes, beginning on page B1.
Editor’s note: This profile of Vietnam veteran Dan Morgan is reprinted, with minor editing, from the Nov. 10, 2010, edition of the Times. Morgan, who lived in Sycamore with his wife, Joyce, died in 2012 at age 63. The story tells of his surprise encounter in Vietnam with Dick Mahan, who had grown...

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Ozark County Times

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