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Ciara Watts, 11, received a flux-welder and welding helmet as birthday gifts from her parents after she learned to weld during Bakersfield’s vocational-based summer school program last summer. Her parents say Ciara has used her own money to purchase all the other materials she’s needed to pursue the hobby. Ciara says she likes welding so much she’s considering it as a future career.
Editor’s note: In the completely vocational summer school program for students in grades 6-8 operated by the Bakersfield R-IV School District, students’ time is split between agriculture, business and family and consumer sciences, says superintendent Amy Britt. During the agriculture portion of...

County Road 830 near Thornfield: Several Ozark County Roads, including County Road 830, shown here, were impacted by high winds and heavy rain in Friday night’s storm as it swept through the area. Ozark County Western Commissioner Greg Donley posted this photo on Facebook Saturday, advising residents to avoid side roads if possible. By Monday afternoon, most, but not all, county roads had been reopened.
High winds in a Friday evening storm caused damage to buildings in some parts of Ozark County and also downed trees that blocked roads and took out power lines while heavy rain filled area streams to overflowing, closing many low-water crossings. The storm-closed roadways prevented the...

Zack Burris
A 21-year-old Gainesville man who struck his pregnant girlfriend in the face with a coffee mug, fracturing her nose and causing a gash that required 13 stitches, will spend the next four months in a drug treatment program within the Missouri Department of Corrections.  Zack Burris, who had pleaded...

Tecumseh mess: Except for a few months last spring, the Tecumseh access has been barricaded to vehicle traffic for nearly two years. The US Army Corps of Engineers says work should begin soon to repair the access, which was heavily damaged during the record April 2017 flood. The Corps said the project, which includes rebuilding the road, parking lot and boat ramp, should be completed in May if there are no complications from high water or winter weather. Times photo/Jessi Dreckman
The work to rebuild the Tecumseh boat ramp and road at the Norfork Lake access on Highway 160 should begin this month, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer project manager Mark Case. The project’s timeline has shifted about a month later than it was original projected, he said.  Case told...

Honored by the Governor: Shawn Shipley, right, supervisor of the Missouri Department of Transportation maintenance shed in Dora, was part of the MoDOT bridge replacement team that was honored last week by Missouri Gov. Mike Parson with the Governor’s Award for Quality and Productivity. The award recognized the MoDOT employees involved with replacing two major Ozark County bridges within six months of their collapse during the historic 2017 floods here. A press release announcing the award said such projects usually take three years to complete.
Shawn Shipley, supervisor of the Missouri Department of Transportation maintenance shed in Dora, had been asleep only a couple of hours when his phone rang sometime between 3 and 4 a.m. that Saturday morning, April 30, 2017.  Answering the phone in an exhausted fog, Shipley couldn’t believe what...
Dora resident Bobby Walker is the first champion of 2020 on the History Channel’s popular show “Forged in Fire.” Walker started making knives about five years ago, and then, last January, Devil’s Backbone Knives and Designs became his full-time business. Now, less than a year later, his skills as a...
The filing period closes Tuesday, Jan. 21, for candidates wishing to run in the April 7 general municipal election for openings on school, city and public boards in Ozark County. Several individuals have filed as candidates for the various boards, but at press time Tuesday no one had filed for some...

Ciara Watts, 11, received a flux-welder and welding helmet as birthday gifts from her parents after she learned to weld during Bakersfield’s vocational-based summer school program last summer. Her parents say Ciara has used her own money to purchase all the other materials she’s needed to pursue the hobby. Ciara says she likes welding so much she’s considering it as a future career.
Editor’s note: In the completely vocational summer school program for students in grades 6-8 operated by the Bakersfield R-IV School District, students’ time is split between agriculture, business and family and consumer sciences, says superintendent Amy Britt. During the agriculture portion of...

County Road 830 near Thornfield: Several Ozark County Roads, including County Road 830, shown here, were impacted by high winds and heavy rain in Friday night’s storm as it swept through the area. Ozark County Western Commissioner Greg Donley posted this photo on Facebook Saturday, advising residents to avoid side roads if possible. By Monday afternoon, most, but not all, county roads had been reopened.
High winds in a Friday evening storm caused damage to buildings in some parts of Ozark County and also downed trees that blocked roads and took out power lines while heavy rain filled area streams to overflowing, closing many low-water crossings. The storm-closed roadways prevented the Theodosia...

Robin Colbert, left, of Bakersfield, recently donated a copy of her first book, Not Forsaken, to the Bakersfield School library, where it was accepted by school librarian Lisa Lester. Not Forsaken was released in March 2019 and is available through online retailers and at Century Bank of the Ozarks locations in Bakersfield and Gainesville.
“Several years ago, God dropped a thought in my head one night.” And thus begins Bakersfield resident Robin Colbert’s foray into writing and publishing her first book. Colbert said a medieval-period adventure story grew out of that thought. “An idea for a scene would come, and I would jot it down...

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Ozark County Times

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PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
Fax: (417) 679-3423