Bits & Pieces

Count On Us Hill, Long awarded Strength and Honor scholarships

OAK RIDGE – Haley Hill and Amber Long, the daughters of two Oak Ridge Fire Department employees, recently received $2,500 Strength and Honor scholarships from a fund established and endowed by the family and friends of Lance Cpl. Andrew David Russoli.

The fund honors the memory of Russoli, a U.S. Marine who died in combat in Iraq. He had hoped to join Oak Ridge Fire Department after ending his military service.

Hill, a student at Western Carolina University, is the daughter of ORFD Capt. Brad Hill. She plans to be a nurse.

Long is the daughter of Gale Long, an administrative assistant with the fire

Haley Hill

Amber Long department. She is enrolled at Appalachian State University and plans to be a physical therapist.

The foundation established in Russoli’s honor has distributed $42,300 over the past decade.

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Summerfi eld author publishes debut novel, ‘Kingdom Come’

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SUMMERFIELD – “Kingdom Come,” Summerfield resident Nora Murray’s debut novel, is set in an underground, self-sustaining society that grows by coercing parents to give up their children, and that is planning the end of the world. Adam is a “Rescuer” who takes children out of what he deems a bad situation by convincing one parent to give the child up; he then brings them to his underground world, where children are welcomed and raised by the Family, under the direction of their leader, “Father.” After his latest mission, Adam learns Father is preparing to leave and begin the end of the outside world. In Father’s absence, Adam begins to doubt his beliefs as he learns what it takes to The Northwest Observer • Totally local since 1996 make their underground utopia thrive. In the end, Adam must decide if the aboveground world is worth saving. “In ‘Kingdom Come,’ Nora Murray combines a parallel universe with brainwashing and shoves it deeply underground in our own world, in our own time,” said Kathie Giorgio, author of “The Home for Wayward Clocks” and “If You Tame Me.” “Readers will run on twisted paths alongside Adam and the well-intentioned followers of ‘Father,’ as their meticulously put-together world falls apart and they are forced to face the reality of what they’ve done.”

“The story is at times chilling in its realism, but that same realism is what makes the characters’ journey so heartwarming,” said Carrie Newberry, author of “Pick Your Teeth with My Bones.”

“Kingdom Come” is available for

Nora Murray