After a career that lasted nearly fifty years, the noted baritone died this morning at Cedar-Sinai hospital. He was there awaiting a lung transplant, caused by a rare form of pulmonary fiibrosis. He was seventy three years old.

Just a quick note to let you know that our local news channel, KAIT in Jonesboro, Arkansas, is running a story on the White River Monster on tonight’s news at ten. For those of you who are interested but can’t tune in, the URL is www.kait8.com. The website is, unfortunately, VERY ad heavy and hard to navigate, and I would NOT normally recomend that people go there, but they probably will have the story on the web site by tomorrow. They aren’t very up to the minute about anything, but it should be there eventually.

On Sunday, October 28, Porter Wagoner passed away from complications of lung cancer at the age of eighty.

Mr. Wagoner was a renowned country singer, noted for his glitzy style and rhinestone laden clothing and sad songs. He was a member of the Grand Ole Opry (since 1955), and a Country Music Hall of Fame 2002 inductee. He is credited with giving Dolly Parton her big break as well.

We will keep our ears open for more information.

The Allen house was built in 1900. It was occupied by the Allen family until sometime in the fifties, at which time it was converted into a set of apartments and rented out. Most of the renters were students from a nearby university who appreciated the low rent and ether didn’t know about or didn’t care about the house’s haunted reputation, which had been a problem since the mid forties, when one of the Allen daughters committed suicide there by drinking cyanide, or an arsenic concoction… reports differ. The hauntings were fairly tame over the years, just a sighting here, a noise there, until the mid eighties when a gift shop was opened on the lower floor of the house, apparently infuriating the ghostly Miss Allen, who apparently didn’t like the shop being in her home. Things began to be destroyed or turn up missing at that point.

Please note that this haunted house is a private propery.

This one is just up the road from where I live. If you drive the ridge road at night, you are supposed to be able to see the light from an old fashioned lantern bobbing alongside the road. It is said that the lantern is being carried by an old pre-civil war miner, who is still waiting for his son to return victoriously from the battle.

The Toltec Mounds, which cover about a hundred acres, lie about twenty minutes from Arkansas’ State Capitol, Little Rock. The mounds were an ancient indian worship place, and a lot of the “magic” mounds still are in existence. This was apparently an extremely holy place to the indians, because they want to stay. Apparitions can be seen on any given day, or so rumor has it, and there are unexplained noises all the time.

Sheridan’s Courthouse Square is an old one, and so are the legends about it. The square was, at one time, used for public hangings. People say that if you look at the courthouse at just the right time, people who aren’t there will be seen peeking back at you. And footsteps without owners can be heard at ANY time, in or out of the courthouse.