News

An exciting new event at this year’s Hootin an Hollarin festival is a cornhole tournament. It replaces the Hootin an Hollarin horseshoe pitching contest, which has lacked participation in recent years.  The double elimination tournament-style contest will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 17, in the...

Kitty’s mother, Joy Ledbetter, second from left, and her friends are pictured here having a good time with their soldier dates during her time in California in 1944. Kitty suspects the photo was staged as a souvenir photo for tourists at the Mexican border.
Nearly a half million people left California last year, some finding a new home and much different life here in the quiet hills of Ozark County. It’s easy to see why.  If earthquakes, fires, smog and traffic jams didn’t get to them, the cost of living did. The median price of a home in 2022 was...

Ozark County’s school resource officers include Dora’s Jeremy McKee, left, Bakersfield’s Wayne Romans, center, and Jeremy Fowler at Lutie.
As an added measure of student and staff safety this school year, Dora and Lutie school districts have made the investment to each hire a certified sheriff’s deputy to serve as a school resource officer.  The two districts join Bakersfield School, which has had a SRO for several years. Jeremy McKee...

This photo of last year's pull was taken by Gainesville resident Renee Schmucker.
Hold on to your tailpipes, the high-revving truck pulls are coming to Gainesville. WW Promotions will host the wildly popular truck pulls at 7 p.m. Saturday night at the Gainesville Saddle Club Arena. The event was planned for earlier in the year, but was postponed due to heavy rains. Christine...

This photo was taken during the 2019 Bakersfest. Times photo/Bruce Roberts.
The annual fall festival at Bakersfield, Bakersfest, is slated for Saturday, with activities getting started in the morning and continuing throughout the day. Organizers are hoping for good weather. At presstime the forecast for Saturday looks like little to no chance of rain and temperatures in...
The body of a Howell County man who drowned in the North Fork of the White River Sept. 4 has been recovered, according to Missouri State Highway Patrol pubic information officer Sgt. Eddie Young. Ryan McGee, 21, of Moody, was last seen at the fishing access south of the bridge at Hammond/North Fork...

Herman Pierce served as Ozark County Sheriff from 1965 to 1985.
When Herman went in as sheriff in 1965, Virgil Duren had been arrested and was in jail for the murders of Oscar and Ruby Kempe. The Kempes had moved from Chicago to Theodosia where they ran a small dairy with ten-twelve cows. In August of ’64, Oscar and Ruby were found early one morning by their...

The Victory Family Worship Center is one of 14 vendors signed up for this year’s Hootin an Hollarin festival. A longtime favorite at Hootin an Hollarin, it usually has funnel cakes, beans and cornbread, caramel apples and other festival favorites. Here Darlis Vincent hands a funnel cake with cherries to Will and Dee Collins during last year’s festival.
Attendees at this year’s Hootin an Hollarin festival, to be held on the Gainesville square Sept. 15-17, will have their pick from a wide variety of delicious meals, sweet treats, ice-cold drinks and more from 14 different vendors, says Barbara Luna, who helps orchestrate the vendors and booths with...

These bull riders were the main entertainment at last year’s Bull Blast, an event that drew a crowd of 670 people.
Ozark County’s four FFA chapters will sponsor the second annual Bull Blast, a bullriding show, at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16, at the Gainesville Saddle Club arena, located on Main Street less than a half mile off the northwest side of the square. The show is being held during Hootin an Hollarin but is...
The Ozark County Courthouse, Gainesville City Hall, Ozark County Times, Gainesville License office , banks, post offices, most government offices and many other businesses will be closed Monday, Sept. 5, in observance of the Labor Day holiday.  The advertising and news deadline was 4:30 p.m. Friday...

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Ozark County Times

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