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Prominent attorney dies at 83
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Prominent local attorney and church leader Harry Camp died Tuesday at age 83.
He was well known in Warren County for his law firm, which he established here in 1961 with his father. What was first known as Camp and Camp later became Camp and Roney when he partnered with Harold Roney for years. Mr. Camp would retire in 2005.
“One of the things I admired about him was how much he was admired by other attorneys,” said Jean Gilley, who served as his secretary for 40 years. “He was a very smart man and you’d be surprised at how many lawyers came in to ask his advice about a case or a lawsuit, provided he wasn’t going against them. He was known as a lawyer’s lawyer.”
After graduating from Vanderbilt Law School in 1957, Mr. Camp secured his first law-related job with a firm in Memphis. When he moved to McMinnville, his office was first located at the old Badger Arcade. After a short time there, he moved to the Professional Building on Court Square where his office remained until his retirement.
“He was just starting out when I was starting out and we became fast friends,” said attorney and former judge Chuck Haston. “He was the thinking man’s lawyer. You could go to him and ask his opinion on law and he would be glad to give you his interpretation and it would usually be right.”
Mr. Camp was known for his religious devotion as much as legal prowess. He would close his law office on a daily basis in order to squeeze in Bible study.
“We’d lock the front door so nobody could get in and go to a back office for Bible study,” said Gilley. “We did that for years and years until we finally got too busy and it became too difficult to find time every day.”
Mr. Camp was active with his church, First United Methodist, where he was a Sunday school teacher for around 50 years.
“He was a voracious reader when it came to religion and spirituality,” said his son, Scott. “He was a true Southern gentleman, a loving husband and a loving dad. He always found time for us.”
While Mr. Camp never worked as a full-time minister, but he would regularly visit rural churches in Warren County with small congregations and preach there.
At First United Methodist, he worked with the Good Neighbors Food Ministry which distributes food to those in need. He also served with the Methodist Church on a national level as president of the Board of Aldersgate Renewal Ministries.
As a young couple, Mr. Camp and his wife, Jane, made their home in Westwood during a simpler time. They were good friends with Bill and Jean Gilley who lived nearby.
“We had a color TV before they did so they would come over for dinner and we would watch that,” said Jean. “Harry really loved homemade rolls. He’d put three or four on his plate and use a whole stick of butter. He had a dry sense of humor a lot of people didn’t know how to take. But once people got it figured out, they thought he was funny.”
Obitiary information for Mr. Camp is available on 2A.

Local law enforcement on the lookout for distracted driving
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April is National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Distracted Driving Awareness Month and McMinnville Police Department (MPD) is on the roads to educate motorists about appropriate hands-free driving.

The amplified focus of cracking down on distracted driving is a nationwide initiative, with many states taking part. MPD Officer Mark Mara indicated the local department is increasing patrols, funded by overtime grants, to enforce and educate about Tennessee’s Hands Free Law.

“We’re trying to get people to change their habits,” Mara said. “There’s a lot of people that are distracted while driving, whether its their cell phones or not. When driving, there are already so many distractions, so having electronics in your hands while you’re driving down the road is dangerous. We need to focus on getting where we need to go and getting there safely.”

According to its records, NHTSA estimates 3,308 lives were lost in crashes involving distracted drivers in 2022 and 8% of all fatal crashes could be attributed to the same. To illustrate the point on a larger scale, it approximates over 32,000 people have died and nearly 290,000 were left injured from crashes attributed to distracted motorists between 2013 and 2022.

Violation of the Tennessee Hands Free Law is a Class C misdemeanor and traffic citations based on the violation are considered moving traffic violations. A first-time offense is typically $50 with third-time offenses and violations resulting in a crash rising to $100; citations received in a work zone while workers or present or in a marked school zone while flashes are in operation carry a penalty of $200. Three points are also added to a motorist’s driving record for each violation with 12 points leading to license suspension.

While the law specifically mentions hands in its name, it is similarly illegal to prop the phone up with any other part of their body.

“We’re going to be stopping vehicles whose operators are distracted by using their cell phones or other electronic devices,” Mara said. “It is against the law for a motorist to be holding their electronic device or having it on their body, so if you’re holding it to your ear or with your shoulder, it’s against the law all the same.”

When using GPS technology, Mara recommends investing in windshield-, vent- or dash-mounted mobile device holder to support the phone while using it for those purposes so your hands can remain on the wheel without compromising your ability to navigate to a destination.

“I understand that your cell phones are a lifeline and we get that — we use them ourselves for GPS. If you have an important phone call that’s coming in and you really need to focus on talking to that person, just pull over to the side of the road and turn on your emergency lights,” Mara said. “When you’re on a phone call, you’re not paying attention to all of the things you need to. You’re going to be concentrating on that conversation and you’re going to find yourself drifting in your lane, going through a stop sign or not stopping properly before a red light.”

Mara additionally recommended drivers sync their phones to their vehicles in models with Bluetooth capabilities and to use phone mounts that do not obstruct vision of the roadways through the windshield.

“The greatest danger of distracted driving is ending up in a crash that was absolutely avoidable, which might hurt yourself or someone else,” Mara said. “You’ve got a lot in front of you when you’re driving and a vehicle is a piece of machinery. We want all motorists to be driving safely on the roads and getting to their destinations without misadventure.”

Warnings and citations will be rendered at officers’ discretion during the increased patrols.