Tuesday Nov. 1,
2011
50 cents
Daily Corinthian Vol. 115, No. 260
Mostly sunny Today
Tonight
68
43
• Corinth, Mississippi • 16 pages • 1 section
Downtown businesses will offer special sales BY BOBBY J. SMITH bjsmith@dailycorinthian.com
Corinth’s downtown merchants are ringing in the holiday season. Starting on Thursday, downtown businesses will offer special holiday sales and set up shop for extended hours. The holiday kickoff will coincide with Main Street Corinth’s Lighting of Fillmore, an annual treelighting event that signals the beginning of the holiday season. The specials will continue on Saturday with the downtown merchants offering the first of their
Christmas Open Houses. While there isn’t a schedule that applies to all of the downtown businesses, each business is observing the open house weekend in a unique way, with specials continuing on Friday and a day-long open-house planned for Saturday. J. Brown’s Trading Co. will offer new styles and lots of sales — and a trunk show featuring Butterflies and Bumblebees kids’ clothing. The weekend activities will mark the beginning Please see SALES | 2
Staff photo by Mark Boehler
Apartment fire
An unoccupied portion of the Country Lane Apartments on Proper Street was damaged by fire Saturday evening. Corinth Deputy Fire Chief John Wood said it appeared the blaze began in a pull trailer parked alongside the building and spread from there to the roof of the apartments. The fire burned in the attic, affecting three apartment units that were being used for storage. A fire break helped contain the fire, and firemen were able to extinguish the blaze. No one was displaced by the fire.
Exciting new changes Newspaper providing readers with more quality coverage BY BOBBY J. SMITH bjsmith@dailycorinthian.com
The Daily Corinthian is implementing some exciting new changes in an effort to give its readers the highest quality news coverage and content. “This is part of our continuing effort to upgrade the quality of the paper,” said Publisher
Reece Terry. Among the most recent changes is the addition of a variety page featuring an expanded comics section with some of the more popular nationallyknown comics such as “Marvin,” “B.C.” and “Dilbert.” Another addition is the “Ask Ann Landers” advice column.
The newspaper will continue to run the “Dear Abby” advice column on the “Wisdom” page, where the expanded horoscopes will also be located. The upgraded paper will feature daily Sodoku puzzles, and the daily crossword puzzles will be expanded to the same size as the Sunday edition crossword
puzzles. There will be a daily full page of business information which will include funds and other business features. A second business page with local, regional and national business stories will run on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. More local news will be in-
cluded in addition to the page one stories. The television grid has been moved to page six.
Sports These changes come on the Please see CHANGES | 2
Bills for local property taxes heading to residents BY JEBB JOHNSTON jjohnston@dailycorinthian.com
Local property taxes come due in a couple of months, but bills are going out to residents now. Statements were mailed to Corinth residents for city taxes last week, and bills for county taxes will probably go into the mail
on Wednesday, said Tax Collector Greg Younger. Those who pay taxes to Farmington and Rienzi will find those amounts included on their county tax bill. The Corinth tax bill is in a postcard format, while the county statement is mailed in an envelope on
blue letter-sized paper with a return envelope included. The bills are due Jan. 1 and past due after Feb. 1, but payments can be made now. Alcorn County, Corinth, Farmington and Rienzi all held their millage rates at the same level as the
prior year, but there will be some variations in the amount owed due to an update in assessed values and with 1 mill being returned to Corinth residents. “For people who live in the city of Corinth, on Please see BILLS | 2
“For people who live in the city of Corinth, on their county tax bill the millage rate will be 1 mill lower to offset the tax charged in error for the county landfill.” Greg Younger Tax Collector
Sales tax proceeds take step back BY JEBB JOHNSTON jjohnston@dailycorinthian. com
Photo courtesy of Sandy Mitchell
Harvest picking
Patriotic cotton picker Eddie Ray Michaels harvests the cotton crop for the Billy and Trent Eaton Farms. The Eatons farm land in southwestern Alcorn County, Prentiss County and Tippah County. They farm cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat — and also put up hay and raise cattle. Cotton on this particular farm was yielding almost two bales to the acre.
Index Stocks........7 Classified......14 Comics...... 13 Kids Page...... 12
Weather........5 Obituaries........ 3 Opinion........4 Sports........8
Corinth’s sales tax proceeds took a small backward step in the mid-October deposit while cities across the state’s northeast corner were evenly split between gains and losses. The statewide trend, however, was positive, with almost a 4 percent gain as sales tax collections totaled $31.45 million for the month. The funds distributed to municipalities in October reflect business sales activity made during the month of August. Corinth opens fiscal 2012 with a first sales tax deposit of $424,118.19, down 2 percent in yearto-year comparisons. Fiscal 2011 ended with
a minuscule gain of a quarter of 1 percent at $5.34 million for the year, and the city crafted a fiscal 2012 budget that anticipates no significant turnaround in the coming year. The sales tax result again stood in contrast to a strong tourism tax result that saw a 15 percent increase. The state Department of Revenue’s two-year comparison of gross retail sales shows a decrease of 18 percent in Alcorn County. The measure is taken on the state’s fiscal calendar, which differs from the city’s. The county’s secondlargest municipality, Farmington, received $3,715.22 for the month, a hefty 32 percent de-
cline from the same month a year earlier. Farmington ended fiscal 2011 with $52,905.29, almost a 5 percent decline from fiscal 2010’s sales tax tally. Elsewhere in the county, Glen posted a 5 percent decrease for the month while Rienzi was nearly flat and Kossuth enjoyed an 18 percent spike to $3,675.67. Other mid-October sales tax deposits from the region: Booneville — $141,772.52 (+1%); Burnsville — $12,232.87 (-3%); Glen — $1,763.67 (-5%); Iuka — $59,347.04 (-5%); Rienzi —$2,877.45 (+1%); Ripley — $98,095.78 (flat); Tupelo — $1,407,516.44 (+6%); Walnut — $16,965.89 (+10%).
On this day in history 150 years ago The 34-year-old general George B. McClellan gains appointment as U.S. general in chief to succeed the ailing Winfield Scott, who voluntarily resigned the day before. In light of his you, dash and reputation, much is expected of McClellan.