Baxter Bulletin from Mountain Home, Arkansas • 1

insiDE FIVE-TIME TIGER Tiger Woods wins Deutsche Bank Championship for his fifth straight PGA victory Sports, 6A WEATHER PARTLY CLOUDY: North wind 10 mph LAKES: Bull Shoals 650.12, Norfork 545.65 SUNRISE: 6:45 SUNSET: 7:30 Up-to-the-minute weather www.baxterbulletin.com 8252 I MOUNTAiMj-IE, ARKANSAS TUESDAY, September 5, 2006 www.baxterbulletin.com 350 Early voting starts today By ARMANDO RIOS Bulletin Staff Writer Today is the first day of early voting in area school districts, and voters in Mountain Home and Yellville-Summit are looking at contested races. Election day is Sept. 19. In Mountain Home, voters will choose between Collette Dillard and Jim Brown to replace Mark Hollingsworth, who is not running for re-election on the Mountain Home School Board. Hollingsworth initially filed for re-election but later withdrew his name.

Also filing for the seat but later withdrawing was school resource officer Tom Canta. In the other race, retired Mountain Home Band director Robert Nelson faces school resource officer Eddie Helmert to fill the seat currently held by Roger Morgan. Morgan was appointed to replace James Madison who resigned earlier this summer. Morgan is not running for election. In the Yellville-Summit School District race, incumbent Janie Pugsley faces two challengers, Eve Smith-West and Doug Keeter.

Yellville-Summit voters also will decide a 2.9 millage rate increase proposal to pay for $8.2 million in school building renovations armandorbaxterbulletin.com Bulletin Photo by Bruce Roberts Sun on the shell A turtle soaks up some late-summer sun Monday at Cooper Park. Cooler temperatures recently have made it more comfortable for ail critters to spend time outdoors. ADEQ gets few comments on permit changes iveteam Comment period ends today Want more info? Want to comment? For more information about the proposed changes to the permit process, call the ADEQ stormwater program at (501) 682- 0623 or visit the Web site www.adeq.state.ar.uswater branchnpdesstormwaterdefault.htm. Written comments can be e-mailed to shafii adeq.state.ar.us and must 1 be received by 4:30 p.m. today.

called out From staff reports The Baxter County Sheriff's Office Dive Team was called out early Monday morning to Heber Springs for a possible drowning victim at Greers Ferry Lake and the victim's body was discovered just as the dive team arrived at the location. Lt. Rick Lucy said he, Lt. Randy Weaver and Sgt. Lee Sanders started for Heber Springs at around 4:30 a.m.

Monday. The 41-year-old man was believed to have drowned around 6 p.m. Sunday. The Baxter County deputies arrived around 7:45 a.m. Monday, in time to get a boat in the water and recover the body.

By JOANNE BRATTON Bulletin Staff Writer. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has received few comments about proposed changes to a construction permit process that would require developers to follow stiffer rules. So far, the agency has received about three comments regarding the changes, said Mo Shafii, ADEQ.permits section chief. The comment period ends 4:30 p.m. today.

If approved as presented, the most drastic change would require developers to sell all their lots in a subdivision before the stormwater permit could be terminated with the ADEQ. The proposed rules also would require each lot owner to sign off on the permit before it would be ended. Currently, the agency requires developers who are disturbing more than 1 acre of ground to make a stormwater pollution pre- vention plan and receive a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. The NPDES permit regulations stipulate that a developer inspect the construction site every 14 days and renew the permit, which can cost $200, every year 'until it is terminated. Those who do not comply could be subject to fines and penalties from the ADEQ, if they find the site is not in compliance.

One proposed change would require developers to inspect the site every seven days, instead of every two weeks. Other changes could include receiving a permit for the entire development property even if all the lots have not been platted. The proposed changes were developed by a task force that worked to clarify the permit rules. In an August public meeting, ADEQ officials said they wanted feedback and alternate ideas about the proposed changes. After comments are reviewed, the ADEQshould make a decision by October, Shafii said.

jobrattonbaxterbulletin.com 'Crocodile Hunter' killed by stingray's barb I Parents ask for help in solving daughter's death DUMAS (AP) The parents of a teenage girl who called home a week ago to say she was walking to a gas station after her car ran out of gas are urging the public to help authorities find the person responsible for their daughter's death. Marty and Melinda Crowder of Pine Bluff said in an interview Sunday with KLRT television station that they would not want anyone else to go through what they did when their daughter, 17-year-old Casey Crowder, disappeared Aug. 27 on her way home from visiting her boyfriend in Pickens. Volunteers searched for clues to her disappearance and National Guard members found the body of a female Saturday afternoon in woods east of Dumas, about six miles from where the Crowders found Casey's car the day after she called home. Before canceling a missing person's alert, state police said Casey's body was found.

But Desha County Sheriff-elect Jim Snyder said the body has not yet been positively identified. "I talked to the medical examiner's office today, and. they said it would possibly be Tuesday afternoon before we had an ID and cause of death," Snyder said Sunday. Snyder said the investigation into the girl's disappearance, though, has turned into a criminal investigation. And the girl's father called for the death penalty for the person responsible.

"I know that my daughter's dead, 17, just starting out," Marty Crowder said. "They need to be executed." Snyder said authorities have no suspects. Casey Crowder, a senior at Watson Chapel High School, told her mother in the 6:08 a.m. call Aug. 27 that she ran out of gas and would call a friend to help her.

She was traveling on U.S. 65. and big arm gestures. "I am shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden, untimely and freakish death," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said. "It's a huge loss to Australia." Conservationists said all the world would feel the loss of Irwin, who turned a childhood love of snakes and lizards and knowledge learned at his parents' side into a message of wildlife preservation that reached a television audience that reportedly exceeded 200 million.

"He was probably one of the most knowledgeable reptile people in the entire world," Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio, told ABC's "Good Morning America." In high-energy programs from Africa, the Americas and Asia, but especially his beloved Australia, Irwin dressed always in khaki shorts, shirt and heavy boots crept up on lions, chased and was chased by komodo dragons, and went eye-to-eye with poisonous snakes. Often, his trademark big finish was to hunt down one of the huge saltwater crocodiles that inhabit the rivers and beaches of the Outback in See CROCODILEPage 10A CAIRNS, Australia (AP) He stalked lions. He faced off with poisonous snakes. He wrestled with crocodiles. When the end came for television's beloved "Crocodile Hunter," it was in an encounter with a stingray and its venomous tail barb.

Perhaps it wasn't surprising. Steve Irwin died doing what he loved best, getting too close to one of the dangerous animals he dedicated his life to protecting with an irrepressible, effervescent personality that propelled him to global fame. The 44-year-old Irwin's heart was pierced by the serrated, poisonous spine of a stingray as he swam with the creature Monday while shooting a new TV show on the Great Barrier Reef, his manager and producer John Stainton said. News of Irwin's death reverberated around the world, where he won popularity with millions as the man who regularly leaped on the back of huge crocodiles and grabbed deadly snakes by the tail. "Crikey!" was his catch phrase, repeated whenever there was a close call or just about any other event during his TV programs, delivered with a broad Australian twang, mile-a-minute delivery AP File Photo Steve Irwin, aka The Crocodile Hunter, is pictured during a photocall at London Zoo to promote Steve and Terri's movie "The Crocodile Hunter" in this July 16, 2002 photo.

Irwin was killed Monday by a stingray barb during a diving expedition, media, reports said. CONTACT US Visit our online edition: INSIDE THE BULLETIN MAIN 508-8000 NEWS 508-8050 5-8B OBITUARIES 3A CLASSIFIEDS baxterbulletin.com A Gannett Newspaper Vol. 105 No. 221 2006 Baxter County Newspapers, Inc. HOME DELIVERY 508-8010 SPORTS 508-8060 CLASSIFIED 508-8080 FAX 508-8020 4A COMICS 4B OPINIONS "40901" 1360C 4B SPORTS 6-7A TOLL FREE 866-483-9005 DEAR ABBY Printed on 100 Recycled Paper.