Honoring the Fallen: Maury County Marks Memorial Day as America Nears 250 Years

A wreath-laying ceremony Monday at the John H. Willis Memorial calls the community to remember those who never came home.

COLUMBIA, Memorial Day has always meant something particular in Middle Tennessee. In a region where military service runs through family trees like the Duck River runs through the county, the last Monday of May is not merely a long weekend. It is a reckoning with sacrifice, a moment to stand still and acknowledge that the freedoms we take for granted were purchased at a price that some families are still paying.

This Monday, May 25, the Maury County Veterans Services Office will host a Memorial Day Wreath Laying Ceremony at the John H. Willis Memorial, located at 100 Nashville Highway in Columbia. The ceremony begins at 9:00 a.m. and will include a wreath laying, a live rendition of Taps, and words of remembrance from Veterans Service staff. The public is welcome and encouraged to attend. It is a brief ceremony, but brevity does not diminish its weight. Few sounds carry the grief and gratitude of a nation quite like Taps played on a still May morning.

This year's observance arrives with an added layer of meaning. The nation is in the opening stretch of America 250, the multi-year commemoration of the United States' semiquincentennial. Next year, on July 4, 2026, America marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the document that set in motion the War for Independence and, eventually, the grand and imperfect experiment of self-governance that generations of Maury County sons and daughters have died defending. From the fields of France to the jungles of Vietnam to the streets of Fallujah, this county has sent its best and brightest. Memorial Day is the day we account for the ones who did not return.

Maury County's connection to American military history is long and layered. The county seat of Columbia was home to James K. Polk, the 11th President of the United States, who led the nation through the Mexican-American War. The county's agricultural backbone has always produced tough, self-reliant people who answered when called. The Willis Memorial stands as a permanent reminder that those calls have come many times, and many have answered at the ultimate cost. This Monday morning, at 9:00 a.m. on Nashville Highway, Maury County will do what it has always done: show up, stand at attention, and say thank you.

The Muletown Journal encourages every family in the county to make the short drive to the ceremony, bring your children, and let them watch their community honor its heroes. We remember. We honor. We will never forget.

Faith, Family, and Pasture: Southern Ridge Farm Brings Honest Food to Maury County Tables

The Cannon family's multi-generational farm and Ridge butcher shop offer something increasingly rare: food you can trace from pasture to counter.

COLUMBIA, The smell hits you first when you walk into The Ridge butcher shop. That clean, cold scent of a properly run meat counter, mingling with the faint sweetness of hickory smoke. Behind the glass case, cuts of beef and pork are arranged with the kind of care that only comes from people who raised the animals themselves, who know every pasture and feed ration that went into producing what's now wrapped in white paper and ready for your Sunday table. This isn't just a butcher shop. It's the retail face of Southern Ridge Farm, a multi-generational operation where the Cannon family has been working the land and living out their faith in Maury County, proving that Christian values and quality agriculture aren't relics of the past. They're a blueprint for the future.

Southern Ridge Farm represents something increasingly rare in American agriculture: a family business where grandparents, parents, and children work side by side, each generation teaching the next not just how to raise livestock and tend the land, but why it matters. The farm operates on principles that predate industrial agriculture, rotational grazing, careful animal husbandry, and the belief that stewardship of God's creation means doing things right even when shortcuts are available. When the family opened The Ridge butcher shop, it was a natural extension of their mission: to provide Maury County families with meat they could trust, processed with transparency and sold by people who will answer any question about where it came from. It is the kind of traceability that used to be normal and is now remarkable.

What sets Southern Ridge apart isn't only their pasture-raised beef and pork, though locals will tell you the difference in flavor is undeniable. It's the way they've woven themselves into the fabric of Columbia and the surrounding community, treating every transaction as an opportunity to love their neighbor in the most practical way possible. The Ridge offers custom butchering, a variety of cuts that rival any specialty grocer in Nashville, and the kind of personal attention where staff remember your family's preferences and might even share a recipe. Whether you're picking up ground beef for a weeknight meal or a special roast for a holiday gathering, you are not simply a customer. You are part of a community that believes in supporting those who work the land with integrity.

In a county where farming heritage runs deep but family farms grow scarcer each year, Southern Ridge Farm and The Ridge butcher shop stand as a testament to what happens when faith meets hard work, when a work ethic is passed down like a family recipe. The Cannons aren't just selling meat. They're preserving a way of life, one where knowing your farmer isn't a luxury but a return to common sense. For Maury County residents who want to know their food came from good soil, good people, and good intentions, Southern Ridge Farm is proof that the best things in life are still grown close to home.

Columbia's Young Leaders Graduate from Mayor's Youth Council

Twenty-five students completed the 2026 program, gaining firsthand experience alongside City of Columbia departments.

COLUMBIA, Twenty-five young people from across Columbia crossed a meaningful threshold this week, completing the 2026 Columbia Mayor's Youth Council and earning recognition from the city they are being prepared to lead. The City of Columbia announced the graduating class on May 19, celebrating a group of students who spent the program year embedded in municipal government, learning how the decisions made in City Hall ripple out into everyday life across Maury County.

The program was established in 2019 by Mayor Chaz Molder with the goal of giving local students a genuine, hands-on introduction to public service. Participants worked alongside City departments throughout the year, gaining insight into everything from infrastructure planning to community outreach. Mayor Molder praised the graduates for their enthusiasm and engagement, calling the Youth Council one of the most meaningful investments the city can make in its future. He noted that the students demonstrated curiosity, leadership, and a real commitment to understanding how local government serves the public.

The 2026 graduating class includes Brylie Blade, Gabrielle Booker, Ava Codling, Jay Coleman, Sarah Ann Crichton, Avery Daniels, Marilla Dale, Emily DuBose, Wyatt Duke, Jacey Dugger, Maci Dunn, Savannah Dunn, Callie Ervin, Aleia Fletcher, Sam Fuller, Amiya Gardenhire, Addelyn Harrison, Andrew Jefferson, Phynlee Keeling, Charlotte Recknagel, Emma Rhinehart, Tony Somsanith, Caleb Wallbrech, Lyli Whitfield, and Kylie Wood. Each of them earned their place in this program by showing up, asking questions, and taking the work seriously.

Columbia is a city navigating real and complex growth. The pressures of new development, infrastructure demands, and a rapidly changing population make civic engagement not a luxury but a necessity. Programs like the Mayor's Youth Council matter precisely because the students sitting in those City Hall orientation sessions today are the commissioners, administrators, and community leaders of tomorrow. Maury County should be proud of every one of these graduates.

Columbia State Student Wins National Fiction Prize for Story Rooted in Real Life

Olivia Ferrara took first place in short fiction in the national Sigma Kappa Delta journal with a story drawn from her work as a caregiver.

COLUMBIA, Olivia Ferrara, a student at Columbia State Community College, has earned national recognition for her short fiction, taking first place in the Short Fiction category of the Sigma Kappa Delta Honor Society's national journal, Hedera helix. The journal draws submissions from community college students across the country, featuring short stories, poetry, photography, and essays. Ferrara's win also came with a $500 award for her piece, titled "Ears to Hear, and Eyes to See."

The story centers on a caregiver named Emily and a four-year-old girl named Elizabeth, who has cerebral palsy and is nonspeaking. Written in first person from Emily's perspective, the story describes the quiet, patient work of genuine human connection across the barrier of words. While others around Elizabeth focus on what she cannot do, Emily seeks only to understand her. Ferrara drew the story directly from her own life. She works as a nanny for a nonspeaking child with cerebral palsy, and she has said that her young charge is the reason the story exists at all.

Dr. Jessica Evans, Columbia State's associate professor of English and Sigma Kappa Delta faculty sponsor, said she was overjoyed when Ferrara ran to her office with the news. Evans described Ferrara as an active and delightful addition to the chapter. Ferrara herself said she hoped readers would take away one simple message: seek a better understanding of each other. It is a sentiment that sounds plain on paper but runs quietly against the grain of a culture that too often moves too fast to listen.

Columbia State's Hampshire Pike campus has long been a place where students from across Maury County find their footing, develop their voices, and go on to contribute to this community and beyond. Ferrara's achievement is a reminder of the genuine talent that walks those halls every semester. Congratulations to her on a well-earned honor.

200 Years of Faith: A Tennessee Country Church That Time Could Not Scatter

The Bagdad Church of Christ in Pleasant Shade recently marked two centuries of unbroken worship with a homecoming that drew generations back to the same wooden pews.

PLEASANT SHADE, On a warm Sunday morning not long ago, a church elder pulled a 32-foot farm trailer in front of a small country church in Smith County's Pleasant Shade community, loaded it with tablecloths, and waited. He did not wait long. The food arrived in waves: cakes, casseroles, barbecue, and everything in between. By the time the service began, every pew was filled and the congregation had tripled in size, swelling to 155 people for a 200th anniversary homecoming at the Bagdad Church of Christ, a congregation that has met under the same name, in the same community, without interruption since 1825.

The celebration brought former minister Edward Anderson back to deliver the sermon, a man who had preached for the congregation in the 1960s. He also led a gospel meeting that stretched from Sunday through Wednesday. For a church that typically draws around 50 on an ordinary Sunday morning, gray-haired members sitting alongside young families and a bouncing baby boy in the same pew, the homecoming was both a reunion and a renewal. Longtime member and elder Tim Agee recalled earlier homecomings where stretched wire served as the table frame for an outdoor spread so large that people could barely walk between the dishes. "There would be so much food," he said. "It was a great meeting, good lessons and good fellowship."

What makes the Bagdad Church of Christ remarkable is not simply its age, though 200 years is no small thing for any institution, let alone a country congregation in rural Tennessee. It is the continuity. The building has changed, rebuilt after a fire and expanded with a fellowship hall, but the congregation has not scattered. As Agee put it, same congregation, same name, through two centuries of change. Pleasant Shade itself has shrunk over the generations as families left for cities, but the church has held, drawing back its own each year and welcoming those who find their way to its wooden doors.

Middle Tennessee is dotted with churches like Bagdad, small congregations anchored in communities that the broader world has largely stopped noticing. They are not flashy. They do not trend on social media. But they have outlasted empires and economic cycles and everything else that has come and gone. In a season when Americans are thinking hard about the foundations of this republic, the 200-year witness of a country church in Pleasant Shade is its own kind of testimony. The love, as one longtime member put it simply, is honest. "People see it and they feel it."

Spring Hill Sets Memorial Day Closures; Trash Pickup Delayed One Day for Holiday Week

City Hall will be closed Monday, May 25, with all waste services pushed back by a day and the Planning Commission meeting rescheduled to Tuesday evening.

SPRING HILL, Spring Hill city offices will be closed Monday, May 25, in observance of Memorial Day, the city announced this week. City Hall will reopen Tuesday, May 26, at 8 a.m. Residents with business at City Hall or other municipal offices should plan accordingly and note that a full slate of services will resume Tuesday morning.

Waste Management will not collect trash or recycling on Monday due to the holiday. All pickups for the week will shift back by one day, running Tuesday through Saturday instead of the usual Monday through Friday schedule. Residents who have signed up for bulky waste pickup should have their items at the curb no later than 7 a.m. Tuesday, May 26, to ensure collection.

The city's regularly scheduled Planning Commission meeting, which would normally fall on Monday, will instead be held at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 26, in the City Hall Boardroom. Residents interested in attending or following commission business should mark the Tuesday date on their calendars.

Spring Hill has grown faster than nearly any city in Tennessee over the past two decades, and the steady demand on city services that comes with that growth makes clear communication around holiday schedules especially important. With more than 60,000 residents now calling Spring Hill home, even a one-day shift in trash pickup affects thousands of households. The city's proactive notice gives residents time to prepare, and The Muletown Journal passes it along so no one is left with bins at the curb on the wrong morning.

Neighbor County Scores 20 Jobs: Old South Wood Preserving Expands in Lawrence County

The Summertown-based lumber company will invest $1.3 million to grow its operations, marking its first expansion since opening in 2021.

SUMMERTOWN, Just across the county line in Lawrence County, a Tennessee-grown business is making a significant vote of confidence in Southern Middle Tennessee's workforce. Old South Wood Preserving, a lumber manufacturer and wholesaler based in Summertown, announced this week that it will invest $1.3 million to expand its operations and create 20 new jobs, in a deal announced alongside Gov. Bill Lee and state Economic and Community Development Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter.

The company opened in 2021 with just five employees and has since grown to more than 60. The expansion will build on existing facilities that already include office space, a treatment plant, a planer mill, a post mill, a kiln, and lumber storage barns. General Manager Mark Jent said the investment reflects gratitude to the state and local partners who supported the company from the beginning, and a commitment to continuing to grow the operation and the opportunities it provides in the region.

Gov. Lee called Old South Wood Preserving an example of the strength of Tennessee's homegrown business community, and praised the company's commitment to quality jobs for Tennesseans. Commissioner McWhorter noted the state had supported the company at its launch and was pleased to see it expanding again so soon.

While Lawrence County is a separate jurisdiction from Maury County, the economic geography of Southern Middle Tennessee is deeply interconnected. Workers commute across these county lines daily, and a strengthening job market in Lawrence County contributes to the broader regional economy that Maury County families participate in. The timber and wood products industry has deep roots in this part of Tennessee, and an expanding, homegrown operation that pays living wages is good news for the whole area.