(RAINBOW CITY, AL - August 1, 2011)The new owners of Gadsden's oldest radio station, WJBY will bereplacing one of the four 264 foot towers located off of Sutton Bridge Road in Rainbow City.

The station was recently purchased by GadsdenRadio Media. WJBY General Manager David Ford says the station isundergoing some extensive improvements, including a new transmitter,new paint jobs on towers and new tower lights. While re-painting the four towers last month, a technician on thesecond tower found it has been rusted from the inside out and was notin a stable enough condition to repair.

Ford says "a tower company willremove the wires that hold the tower up and let it fall" on Monday,August 1st. He says there is plenty of space surrounding the tower forthe tower to fall in any direction.The tower was erected in the early 1980's when WJBY's owners at thetime, Kerry Rich, made the station a full-time operation. Ford says the other three towers have withstood all of the weather elements for the past three decades, and he expects they will make it another 10 to 20 years.

The new tower will be erected to replace the damaged one nextweek. The four towers will enable WJBY to broadcast both day and nightat AM 930.WJBY is expected to be back on the air broadcasting inlate August. The station will also broadcast on the FM frequency at 99.3 within days of the station becoming fully operational again. AM-930 went off the air due to an ownership change and technical repairs in September of last year.

(CENTRE, AL - August 1, 2011) A special-called meeting of the Cherokee County Board of Education, will be taking place at the Central Board Office beginning at 6:00 this evening with Item #2 on the agenda being ‘Personnel and other Action Necessary to put Agreement with the County Commission into Effect’.

Last week the County Commission passed a one-cent sales tax for education in Cherokee County The commission’s attorney outlined the stipulations of the agreement that he had negotiated with the board of education’s attorney – which included the following:

The Career & Tech Center will remain open for 2011 – 2012 school year – with all classes which were taught during the previous year being part of the teaching curriculum – which will include cosmetology, carpentry & auto collision repair with the only exception being the art class.

That tax would serve to be sufficient, for expenses of both the Superintendent, and his assistants.

At least 10 teachers’ system-wide would be restored.

The commission would be relieved from all monetary claims which had been previously claimed by the board of education and dismissal of all suits against the commission.

The board of education would meet at each individual school – at least once – during the coming school year.

The school board will be required to quickly act, on all requests from schools, for funding of any special projects.

Commissioner Kimball Parker, requested that the board of education, restore those contracts with teachers who had their contracts reduced by one month. Superintendent Brian Johnson said if the money from the tax was sufficient to meet the obligations, he would not have a problem in doing that.

Commissioner Wade Sprouse, made the motion to pass the one-cent sales tax for one year which will be from October 1st, 2011 to September 30th, 2012 – with a stipulation that the voters of the county have the opportunity to extend the tax or end the tax with a vote in June of 2012.

Commissioner Sprouse later made an amendment to his original motion – suggesting instead that the vote be placed on the March 2012 Primary Ballot – thereby saving the taxpayers a substantial amount of money – Sprouse stated that he had spoken with the school board, and they agreed.

Tonight’s board of education meeting is open to the public.