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Blanket of snow
Ben sleding3
With traffic at a minimum, Central Church of Christ preacher Ben Bailey takes a trip down College Street on a sled Tuesday.
Lacy Garrison
Updated: Jan 16, 2018, 11:19 PM
Published: Jan 16, 2018, 11:20 PM

After dodging one winter storm over the weekend, Warren County wasn’t as lucky Tuesday morning as snow accompanied by a frigid arctic blast left the Nursery Capital at a standstill.

“The roads are really slick and hazardous,” said Warren County Road Superintendant Levie Glenn after he and his crews began battling the snowy. conditions around 7 a.m. Tuesday.

While the clipper system dumped only around 2 inches of snow over the course of about five hours Tuesday, the dangerously low temperatures that accompanied the event caused terrible driving conditions.

“The salt doesn’t work well when the temperature dips below 20,” Glenn said, noting he expected the roads to freeze over Tuesday night and Wednesday morning despite their best efforts. “It will be slick countywide.
My advice is to keep off the roads except in cases of emergency because they are going to remain slick until it warms up a bit Thursday.”

His advice has apparently been heeded as Valerie Womack of E-911 said calls were minimum during the snow.

“It’s been surprisingly quiet,” Womack said when contacted early Tuesday afternoon, prior to the afternoon rush hour. “We had a few wrecks with property damage but nothing major.”

Director of Schools Bobby Cox says schools will be closed again Wednesday, leaving the school system with four bad weather days left for the year.

“We have an option of taking a educational development day and converting it later if we need it,” Cox said of technically having five days left after Wednesday.

Schools have been closed all week and were also closed Friday due to cold and expected bad weather. The cold caused pipes to break at Hickory Creek Elementary last week, causing major damage to two rooms there.
The fact temperatures are expected to dip into single digits Wednesday is a concern.

“We will be checking the buildings,” Cox said, noting they do not want a repeat of the damage at Hickory Creek.

With the travel advisory in effect through Wednesday evening, forecasters say there will be a break in the weather Thursday when highs are expected to rebound into the 40s.
Local farm partnership brings fresh beef to Warren County Schools
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Published: Apr 2, 2025, 11:31 PM

Warren County Schools has beefed up lunch menus this school year through a new community partnership. Thanks to a collaboration between the district’s School Nutrition Department and Barton Creek Farms, students at Warren County High School, Warren County Middle School, West Elementary, Eastside Elementary, and Dibrell Elementary are enjoying locally sourced, farm-fresh beef in their lunches as part of a pilot program.

The initiative, spearheaded by Terri Mullican, Director of School Nutrition, has already shown great promise in its first few months. The partnership with Barton Creek Farms, located in Rock Island, Tennessee, ensures that the beef served is not only local to Warren County but of the highest quality. Barton Creek Farms specializes in farm-to-fork beef, with grass-fed and grain-finished cattle. Each calf is born and raised in Rock Island and goes through USDA-inspected processing, ensuring it meets the strictest safety and quality standards.

“When the opportunity arose to provide fresh, local beef, we knew it was a no-brainer,” Mullican said. “The fact that it’s a product from right here in our community makes it even more special. We can’t wait to implement it district-wide.”

Barton Creek Farms delivers fresh ground beef to the district monthly, and the nutrition

department incorporates it into homemade recipes such as lasagna, meatloaf, chili, and tacos.

As of now, the beef is being served at five schools, but the ultimate goal is to expand the program to all ten lunch-serving schools in the district.

The pilot program originated from a conversation between Mary Roller of Barton Creek Farms and Mullican. Roller, recognizing the farm’s potential to support local schools, reached out to gauge the district’s interest in serving local beef to students. Around the same time, a Warren County school board member contacted Mullican to share information about a similar partnership in neighboring Dekalb County, which helped push the initiative forward.

The timing worked in the district’s favor, as the nutrition department was able to fund the purchase of the beef using existing resources, eliminating the need for additional funding. Now that the pilot program is enjoying a successful run, the department has budgeted to extend the partnership district-wide for the 2025-26 school year.

Dr. Grant Swallows, Director of Schools, praised the program’s economic approach to student nutrition.

“This pilot is a perfect example of how we can use local resources to continue providing nutritious, healthy meals for our students,” he said. “We are grateful for partnerships like this one that benefit both our students and our local community. We always strive to support our local businesses when we can because our community is so good to us.”

In addition to working with Warren County Schools, Barton Creek Farms also partners with local restaurants to offer farm-fresh beef on their menus. The farm’s offerings include ground beef, steaks, roasts, and custom cuts by the quarter, half, or whole cow, meeting diverse consumer needs.

As the program continues to grow, the district hopes to expand its focus on farm-to-school meals, benefiting students’ health and connecting them to the agricultural roots of the community