May 2024

Diamond Cougars head to State

Rector’s Diamond Cougars played in one of the best high school baseball games between two conference rivals on Saturday, May 4, the Cougars and the Riverside Rebels playing for conference honors and seeding in the Arkansas State Tournament. Numerous memorable plays such as back-to-back double plays in successive innings highlighted the game. Each blue-clad Cougar stretched farther, ran faster, and made plays in the field to give pitcher Ashton Scott solid back-up during each inning. Scott pitched six scoreless innings, the most of his career. Throws to pick off Riverside runners in the second and third innings gave fans plenty of reason to cheer.

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Stidham shares insight through book

Stories about real people and the similarities with true crime make my head spin. Maybe that’s why I recently recalled the three teens that became known as the West Memphis Three and related their stories to that of Damon Fields of Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize novel “Demon Copperhead”. Set in a rural, poverty- stricken, remote region of the south, the southern Appalachian Mountains between Virginia and Tennessee, the plot and setting of “Demon Copperhead” are reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ classic David Copperfield.

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Graduation set at local schools

The 42 members of the Rector High School Class of 2024 will bid farewell to high school days, taking the first steps toward their lives beyond the familiar hallways and courses when they receive diplomas in graduation ceremonies beginning at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 19, at the school gymnasium.

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