Out of control vehicle rolls on Highway 87 near Walmart entrance
A teen driving north into Payson on Highway 87 Friday reportedly lost control of her vehicle after the accelerator got stuck, sending her flying through afternoon traffic, according to police. The 17-year-old was unable to slow down or stop and police did what they could to clear a path for her as she struggled to regain control.
Local news
Trailer park residents face Forest Service closure
After a decade of threats, the Tonto National Forest is moving to shut down a 167-resident mobile home park overlooking Roosevelt Lake. The Forest Service has decided that the decades-long lease of the land for the park filled mostly with trailers owned by vacation homeowners violates its policy barring exclusive private use of public lands. However, the operators of the trailer park say the action will shut down the only sewage treatment operation in the area and could dry up business at the marina that represents one of the few economic enclaves on the southern shore of the lake. The people with mobile homes in the park have until January 2013 to move them, but many of the homes are so old they don’t meet modern standards necessary to relocate to another park, said David Buckmaster, the leaseholder. “It doesn’t surprise anybody. We started having people sign disclosure forms in 2000, but it’s going to have a huge economic impact on local businesses. They’re all scared to death.”
News from our neighbors
Surviving your worst nightmare
With his pelvis shattered, his body paralyzed, his pain nearly unbearable, Mike McIntire watched the helicopter make one final pass before flying off, leaving him alone in impending darkness. He knew somehow he must survive the night. But in his darkest hours, his fate rested on his will to live and the skill of rescuers, risking everything to reach him — for as he lay at the bottom of the canyon, he was not alone. Rescuers and friends would put their lives at risk, climbing down waterfalls, rappelling over shear cliffs and hiking through pitch darkness to reach him and offer some comfort until morning came. In the 18 hours McIntire waited for help, the comfort that someone was coming helped him hold on. While McIntire, a retired Payson dentist, never wanted to come so close to death for a little adventure, he still believes that a life lived to the fullest means risk, whatever the consequence.
Schools
School board discusses superintendent hiring
The Payson Unified District School Board decided Saturday to set up a screening committee to help sort through applications to replace retiring superintendent Casey O’Brien. The board spent nearly three hours talking about the nationwide search with Karen Beckvar, director of leadership for the Arizona School Boards Association, conducting the search. The board settled on a timetable that will close applications on March 12 and screen the applicants by March 20. Board members and people serving on the five-person screening committee will then rank the applications. The board will consider those rankings in winnowing the field down to a group of probably two to five finalists. Those finalists will appear at an open community forum on March 30, followed by interviews with the board on March 31. After a sometimes-stormy tenure dominated by budget woes, O’Brien recently notified the board he’ll retire in June and probably move to southern Arizona to live on pensions from the state and the Navy, where he served as a fighter pilot.
Sports
Lady Horns looking for strong finish
Lady Longhorn basketball players could be on the outside looking in when the Division III, Section III tournament kicks off Feb. 7 in Surprise. The plight exists because only the top eight teams in section power point rankings will be seeded into the tournament and Payson is currently sitting in 10th place. For the Lady Horns to earn a postseason berth, the team will need a boost in power points that could come with victories in the final four games of the regular season. Ninth-ranked Parker and eighth-rated Cortez are the two teams the Lady Horns must pass to advance to the postseason. Highballing past Parker is very attainable because only about a 1.4 difference in power points separates the two. But Cortez, a Glendale school, holds about a 3.1-point lead over the Lady Horns, which means catching the Colts will take a solid effort in which PHS wins out and Cortez struggles down the stretch. Rendering the Payson task of reaching the postseason doubly tough is the team is without the services of leading scorer Teanna Lopez who was injured two weeks ago and is not expected to return this season.
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Question of the week
Are you in favor of the Forest Service shutting down the mobile home park at Roosevelt Lake?
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