News

Absentee voting for the April 2 general municipal election has begun. Registered voters in the Gainesville and Dora school districts, as well as a few Ava School District voters who live in Ozark County,  who are unable to go to the polls on Election Day should contact the Ozark County Clerk’s...

The Lutie school board voted unanimously last week to transition to a four-day school week beginning with the 2019-2020 school year.
During its meeting Thursday night, Feb. 21, the Lutie R-VI Board of Education approved the district’s transition to a four-day school week beginning in August for the 2019-20 school year. The vote was unanimous in favor of altering the district’s schedule to fewer, but longer, days of instruction...

An Air Evac helicopter takes off from Haskins Ford Thursday morning about four hours after a vehicle carrying Ava-area residents Richard Corn, Casey Dawn Shelton and her six-month-old baby Chaseton floated off the crossing in high water about 6 a.m. The victims escaped from the car and then waited, too cold to walk for help. Area resident Dan Donley saw them while checking cattle about 9:30 a.m. and summoned help. Pictured, from left, Tracy Meal, Theodosia Area VFD; Gainesville VFD chief Ed Doiron; Dr. Aaron Newton with Ozark County Search and Rescue, and TAVFD EMS director Allen Edgington. Times photo / Amelia LaMair
Ava-area resident Casey Dawn Shelton says the Ozark County first responders who descended on Haskins Ford Thursday morning to rescue her and her baby, Chaseton, and her rooommate, Richard Corn, were “amazing and caring.” But she wants everyone to know that “God is the real hero. He made it all...

Retiring Ozark County Collector Bill Hambelton (above) works in the basement of the courthouse – below the office where his dad (below), the late Bill Hambelton, worked for 38 years as Ozark County Circuit Clerk and Recorder of Deeds.
Ozark County Collector Bill Hambelton is having a retirement party Thursday – whether or not he wants one.  Deputy Collector Darla Sullivan – who has worked with Hambelton for years and who steps into the job Friday, March 1, having been elected in November – said Bill warned her he didn’t want...

Ida Mae Huse, center, long-time Ozark County teacher and former Gainesville Elementary School principal, was presented with a 50-year membership pin Feb. 13 by Delta Kappa Gamma members Alice Neal of Eminence, left, and Caryl Feiler of Lakeview, Arkansas, who taught kindergarten in Gainesville while Ida Mae was principal. Delta Kappa Gamma is an international professional women educators society; the local Xi Chapter, which Ida Mae served as treasurer for many years, draws from a five-county area, including Ozark County. Photo courtesy of Alice Neal.
Hardenville resident Ida Mae Huse, who turns 90 on Feb. 25, was honored recently with a 50-year membership pin presented by fellow members of Xi Chapter, Delta Kappa Gamma, an international professional women educators society.  After 18 years of classroom teaching, in 1968 Ida Mae was unexpectedly...

OCSD Chief Deputy Winston Collins holds the Barnett Raptor crossbow that will be raffled off April 15.
Friends and local residents have organized some ways to help Karl and Sonya Thaning while Karl recovers from Guillain-Barre syndrome. Here are three different fundraisers aimed at helping the couple through this difficult time.   Barnett Raptor crossbow raffle The Ozark County Sheriff’s Department...
The Gainesville Board of Aldermen will hold a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25, concerning Town & Country Supermarket’s request for a liquor license. All citizens are invited to attend the meeting. The liquor license application, reported in the Jan. 30 edition of the Times, comes in...

Karl Thaning
Gainesville resident Karl Thaning started his day Dec. 14 like any other, totally unaware that by the end of the night he would be unable to move any part of his body from the neck down. The temporary paralysis is a result of a rare neurological disorder, Guillain-Barre syndrome, which Karl...

Kirsten Alvey-Mudd works her way through a tunnel in a Cloud 9 cave where, she said in a Facebook post, "I had my nose under on a sideways head-tilt belly crawl to and from the last room in the water passage."
An intrepid group of spelunkers was at Cloud 9 Ranch last week, venturing into several caves on the property, sometimes crawling on their bellies through low-ceilinged, water-filled, creek-bed passageways they call “ear-dippers” and “nose splashers” to survey the biology of the caves, looking for...

Mike and Gretchen Hatcher moved into their home at Briar Creek Retreat west of Theodosia three weeks ago. Mike says the idea for the retreat for pastors and missionaries and their families came to him as a vision from God in 2005 while he was serving with the Navy in Guam. Eventually the retreat will include seven cabins named for the gifts of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness and Gentleness.
Briar Creek Retreat in Theodosia will host an open house from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23, welcoming the community to see the first stage of a respite retreat for pastors and missionaries that began in 2005 when Navy Sr. Chief Mike Hatcher, while stationed on Guam, received what he...

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Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

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