Today's Features

Simpsonville Scouts from Webelos Pack 470 worked to install a Purple Martin birdhouse in Long Run Park in Louisville. The birdhouse should foster habitation and yearly migration for breeding martins. By providing a house for martins and with proper management, martins will continue to return year after year. Scouts participating were (back row from left) Aaron Yonker, Ben Heger, David Janes, Daniel Dischinger; (front row) Chane Evans and Cole Ruetinger.

Matthew Armstrong and Toni Benskin of St. Charles, Mo.,announce the birth of their first child, a son, on April 12, 2013, at St. Joseph Health Care in St. Charles Mo. Lucas Matthew Armstrongwas born at 9:47 p.m., weighing 9 pounds and three ounces, and was 21.5 inches long.

Grandparents are Greg and Christina Benskin of St Charles, Mo., Todd and Christal Armstrong of Shelbyville.

Great-grandparents are Donnie Armstrong of Louisville, the late Norris Armstrong and the late Mary Lamb.

The cover of Tracy Coffee Gayle’s second novel gives clues to its content. It’s a collage of pictures and mementos from the lives of her characters as they travel through life and down memory lane, unearthing family stories.

Valerie, Jean & Me tells the story of three sisters, their mother, stepfather and baby brother. But these are not just characters on a page or merely stories in a book. These characters come to life in the text, as they do in Gayle’s creative imagination.

Art to meet death in mortuary seminar

Shelby Artists on Main will be hosting a presentation regarding art in the mortuary service field, featuring Angie Walters, an artist who is studying the mortuary.

He presentation will be 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at The Gallery at 617 Main St. in Shelbyville.