WJLE Radio

10/27/2026

A freshman at DeKalb County High School has won the award for “Student of the Month” for September.

Levi Reynolds, was presented Friday with a certificate and a gift card for a meal from Kilgore’s Restaurant. He is the 14 year old son of Monica Reynolds of Alexandria and the late David Reynolds. He has a younger sister, Molly, a seventh grader at DeKalb West School

“The teacher that nominated Levi said that no matter what is going on, you can count on him to do the right thing. He is an outstanding student with character and integrity and deserves to be highlighted for that,” said Assistant DCHS Principal Seth Willoughby.

“I’m glad that I got it,” said Levi after being presented the award. “I try to be the best I can”.

Levi said he is enjoying his high school experience as a freshman and his elective agriculture class is perhaps his favorite although he likes them all and the teachers are nice.

Reynolds is a member of the FFA and BETA clubs and he is on the high school tennis and fishing teams.

Although he hasn’t yet decided on a career path after high school or what college he might attend to further his education, Levi said he has an interest in aviation and might pursue that field.

In his spare time, Levi said he enjoys hanging out with friends and he likes to hunt and fish and work on his truck.

10/26/2026

10/26/2026

Daylight Saving Time ends Sunday, November 1 and while you are changing your clocks, the DeKalb County Fire Department, Smithville Fire Department, and Alexandria Fire Department want to also remind you to change batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. The message is simple and it’s easy to do. Please take a few minutes to make sure life-saving alarms have fresh batteries so you, your family, and your home are protected. And if your home is without any smoke alarms, the time is now to get them because the life of you and your family may depend on it.

In a recently recorded WJLE video program, DeKalb Fire Chief Donny Green, Smithville Fire Chief Charlie Parker, and Alexandria Fire Chief John Partridge talked about smoke alarms. All three departments can help you obtain and install smoke alarms in your home.

View video below

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

10/25/2026

DeKalb County High School Friday awarded its Teacher of the Month for September.

Becky Miller was called to the office for the award presentation by DCHS Principal Bruce Curtis and Assistant Principals Jenny Norris and Seth Willoughby.

For receiving the honor. Miller got a certificate and a gift card for a meal at Kilgore’s Restaurant.

Mrs Miller is our graduation coach, as well as our adult high school coordinator, said Assistant Principal Willoughby. “Our graduation rate not only relies on our teachers, but also Mrs Becky as well. If students are falling a little bit behind, she’s sending emails out and contacting parents. She’s great at building relationships all throughout the community just to help us all be successful here and we’re so grateful to have her,” said Willoughby.

“It’s nice and surprising,” said Miller went told she was getting this honor. “ I’m just very thankful that they do see value. I have so much respect for our administration and they make my job even easier because they’re so supportive. I’m just very thankful for them. They should be getting an award too,” she said.

After high school, Miller furthered her education at MTSU. “I went to MTSU and graduated with my teaching degree from there, and then I got a couple of endorsements from Tennessee Tech,” she said.

Miller has been an educator for 14 years at DCHS. For 10 years Miller served as a classroom teacher in the family and consumer science department but has been the graduation coach mainly working with juniors and seniors the last four years, She is also over a new online adult education program since it began with to date more than 1,700 graduates through which Tennessee adults, whether they are from DeKalb County or not, who have not graduated from high school get the opportunity to earn a diploma, not a GED, for free. The DeKalb School District gets $1.1 million a year in revenue through the partnership to administer the program.

“I did love the classroom, but I have to say, this position I’m in, I think is a perfect fit for my personality. I love it, and I’m grateful every day. that I get to do it,” said Miller. “I build relationships with students, and I meet with them on a regular basis, just to identify some problem areas. We talk about what they need to do in order to be ready to graduate in May and we work on things one on one in the guidance office that we need to work on. I do a lot of communicating with home too. It’s a group effort. Everybody here is involved in helping these kids be successful. I’m just one part.,” she said.

Miller and her husband Brandon reside and are natives of Smithville and they attend Elizabeth Chapel Baptist Church.

10/23/2026

The county commission is being given other options to consider by its architect on where to build a new jail, other than the Smith Road site.

View Video below

https://youtu.be/NAR2IqJdaRU?si=_pFhHqpxwmXnHuRj

Last month commissioner Steven Cantrell wanted to know if the county’s architect, Treanor could take another look at the existing jail location downtown as a suitable site for new jail construction while commissioner Judith Hale asked if county owned property at the solid waste transfer station near the industrial park on east broad street might be an alternative.

During a monthly commission workshop meeting Thursday night, John Eisenlau of Treanor Architects presented the findings of his study based on those requests and concluded that the current jail design at Smith Road, could fit at both locations, although he estimated it might cost from 10-15% more downtown. Eisenlau explained that with the downtown option, the current design would not be on one level, as in the case at Smith Road, but stacked as a two-story building with a mezzanine level and that the adjoining two parcels of property by the existing jail, which the county currently does not own, would have to be acquired to make it fit.

According to Eisenlau, while the current jail design for Smith Road, would also fit at the transfer station, it would have to set where the actual transfer station is now, because it’s the most suitable spot there.

Should the county choose to build a jail at the transfer station, it may be faced with the costly option of relocating the existing transfer station.

“I don’t care where you put it (jail) but if you put it there (transfer station) you’re going to have to put the transfer station somewhere,” said County Mayor Patrick Ray.

“When former County Mayor Mike Foster was here, that (transfer station) was the last thing he did before he went out and the transfer station at that time cost over one million dollars and the driveway itself was over half a million dollars to get that paved. They have expanded down there now, and the push wall is too small for the amount of garbage going through. You have to consider there’s more expense than just building a jail there. You have to do something with the other (transfer station) and I don’t know what a new transfer station would cost,” he said.

Eisenlau explained “As it's designed right now, we took that (Smith Road) square footage, and we basically tried to fit it onto the downtown site. If you look at the first drawing, which illustrates where the proposed jail could be, and should be, in our opinion, the future expansion will fit on the site, and a future courthouse could be accommodated if you demolished the existing jail, as we know it, that sits on the site right now. It's a different type of building (from Smith Road), but it would fit on the site. That would require the purchase of two parcels, one along First Street and a small triangular parcel on the corner of East Webb and First Street,” he said.

“On the first floor of the building (basement) it would require the kitchen and laundry at that level, and the booking intake area. Why? Because those are typically on the ground at the lowest point in the building. There's a lot of inmates coming and going in the booking area. There's deliveries into the kitchen and laundry. If you created a service yard in the back, you could easily access those areas on the first floor of the building along with a vehicular sally port to drive a van or a law enforcement vehicle into,” he said.

“The second floor of the building would be where the public lobby would be because now you're at the street level, and the sheriff’s admin is positioned to theoretically be between the future courthouse, if there was one built there, and the housing. If you look at the housing, this is the exact housing configuration that we have in the facility (Smith Road) design and it does fit. If you want to have one more level, you’d have another level of housing. Basically, the housing (Smith Road design) is setting on the ground and all we've done is put one housing building, or pod, on top of the other (downtown) and it becomes a multi-story building on the site. Future expansion, once again, interestingly enough, does fit in a limited way, but it does fit in the back corner of the site. Its essentially a two and a half story building. Why? Because mezzanines are a little taller than normal structures, but it's essentially, by code, a two- story building, with a mezzanine. This is by no means, meant to be a finished work product, but I can report to you that it theoretically could fit the site,” said Eisenlau.

As for the transfer station location, Eisenlau said “We basically took the site plan of the building as designed on Smith Road right now, and we kind of picked it up, and we put it on the transfer station site. We put it (designed it) on top of all of the equipment that's currently on the transfer station site. That’s the ideal location for a building because the rest of the site actually slopes away, but if you just look at it from a diagram or a drawing, it fits fairly well and limited modifications would be necessary. Now, civil engineering of the site would need to be considered but the building as designed could theoretically be moved and re-engineered” he said.

“The downtown site is complicated,” said Eisenlau. The site costs will be more expensive. You'll want to architecturally make the building look compatible with downtown, in my opinion so the skin of the building may be a little more expensive, but programmatically, stacking it on top of one another, it could theoretically fit on the site”.

The former county commission adopted a 12 year $35 million capital outlay note for construction of a 182 bed jail and sheriff’s department complex on the 71.5 acre property the county purchased for $1.8 million on Smith Road. The county last month made its first loan payment of more than $745,000. While bids have not yet been obtained, Bell Construction has put the pre-bid estimate for the project on Smith Road at up to $44 million.

Commissioner Greg Matthews asked Eisenlau how much more expensive would it be to build downtown versus Smith Road.

“To directly answer your question, I think it would be at least 10%. I don't think it would be much more than 15%, but it depends on the soil conditions and what's in the ground, and things like that and to what degree would you want the building looking more attractive now if it's downtown. The only difference is the complexity of the site. When you stack buildings on top of each other you need staircases and elevators and safety requirements in the building change. Bell Construction would be better equipped to answer that question” he said.

County Mayor Patrick Ray is urging the county commission to make its decision soon on which direction to take. He said if the commission is not willing to wait on the actual bids to gauge the price of construction on Smith Road, it should at least have the property at the existing jail site core drilled now to determine if it's suitable for new construction.

“We’re going to know what the (bid) price is on Smith Road by November but if you are dead set on putting it (new jail) where it is (downtown) my suggestion is get the (core drilling) done now and see if its even there (suitable for construction) and not waste any more time. I would hate to keep on (delaying) for months waiting on something (core drilling) we should have done in the very beginning with the county now making interest payments on the loan and penalties soon to come,” said County Mayor Ray

If the commission wants to build downtown, the adjoining landowners by the existing jail will also have to be consulted on the possibility of selling th

10/22/2026

John Anderson and his band performed a benefit concert at the DCHS gymnasium in April 1983 (shown here) to raise funds for the Tiger football program's first fieldhouse. The concert came just as his hit song “Swingin’” topped the country music charts and he performed it not once, but twice during the show to a packed house. Former WJLE manager Ralph Vaughn emceed the program. Tucker Hendrix was DCHS Principal at the time. John Anderson passed away Wednesday at his Smithville home.

10/22/2026

Beloved Country Music Hall of Fame member John Anderson of Smithville died peacefully in his sleep at home Wednesday, October 21. The neotraditional pioneer, known for songs including “Swingin’,” “Straight Tequila Night,” and “Seminole Wind,” was 71 years old. Born December 13, 1954, and raised in Apopka, Florida, Anderson died about seven weeks before his 72nd birthday.

His family released the following statement:

“It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather, and best friend. To the world, he was a gifted country music singer whose voice and songs touched countless lives. To us, he was so much more. He was the heart of our family, the one who made us laugh, loved us fiercely, and made every ordinary moment feel special. We are completely heartbroken. His music will live on, but for us, his greatest legacy will always be the love he gave his family and the memories we will carry with us forever. Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers as we grieve this unimaginable loss.”

-The Anderson Family

Two years ago, Anderson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Four years ago, the City of Smithville and Chamber of Commerce held a dedication ceremony and ribbon cutting for the John Anderson Alley, formerly known as Walnut Alley downtown Smithville. The alley is between buildings extending from Walnut to West Main Street. Anderson and his family were on hand for the dedication along with several fans and friends.

Tony Luna, downtown businessman and friend of Anderson had the idea for renaming the alley for John and requested the mayor and aldermen to make it official, which they did. Luna also had a permanent mural painting of Anderson done on a wall in the alley.

Anderson expressed his appreciation for the honor and spoke about his love for Smithville and what attracted him to come live here. (View video here)

https://youtu.be/xmLzOb7SPug?si=vdpmZ7woDnPJqH4R

“I moved up here to Smithville and DeKalb County about 44 years ago, said Anderson at the dedication in November 2022. “I decided to move here after traveling around and looking for a few different places in middle Tennessee to live. I always loved the all-American atmosphere that is here. I love this part of the country. It is indeed one of the most beautiful parts of the country in the United States. No matter where I have always been on the road in some of the most exotic and beautiful places, after just a short time I find myself wanting to come home to Jamie and my family right here in DeKalb County and Smithville Tennessee. Its been a wonderful place for me to write the music that I write. In fact, that is one of the reasons I settled here too. I decided many years ago to be a country music singer and songwriter and while living in Nashville trying to make it I kept thinking if I ever get a deal good enough to get out of here I’m going somewhere where I can indeed live a country life and be a country music songwriter and singer. Thanks to the treatment of you folks and just being in this environment, it has worked out really well for me. I am very appreciative. This has been a wonderful place to raise a family and I would wish the same for each and every one of you. Thank you all so much”, said Anderson.

John Anderson spent nearly five decades building one of country music’s most distinctive bodies of work, pairing an unmistakable voice with a deep commitment to the genre’s traditions.

However, he began his music career playing in garage rock bands, but hearing Merle Haggard and George Jones converted him to country music and Nashville. After finishing high school, Anderson moved to Music City and soon began performing in Nashville clubs. With the support of music publisher Al Gallico, Anderson signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1976.

Anderson’s devotion to traditional country music quickly earned the respect of the artists who had inspired him. Haggard, Jones and Willie Nelson invited him to open shows on their national tours, introducing Anderson to audiences who shared his affection for country music’s roots. His sixth Warner Bros. single, “Your Lying Blue Eyes,” became his first Top 20 hit. It was followed by a string of songs including “1959,” “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal,” “Chicken Truck,” “I Just Came Home to Count the Memories” and “Would You Catch a Falling Star.”

By the early 1980s, Anderson had become one of the artists helping lead country music back toward its traditional foundations. His million-selling “Swingin’” became one of his signature songs, and in 1983, he earned both the CMA Horizon Award and Single of the Year for the hit. “Wild and Blue” further cemented his place among the era’s defining country voices.

Anderson experienced another major career resurgence in the 1990s with “Straight Tequila Night” and “Seminole Wind.” The hits continued with “When It Comes to You,” “Money in the Bank,” and “I Wish I Could Have Been There,” returning Anderson to the top of the country charts and concert circuit. Over his career, Anderson earned 20 Top 10 country hits, including five No. 1s. He received the Academy of Country Music Career Achievement Award in 1993 and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2014.

His influence extended far beyond his own recordings. Later generations of artists who admired Anderson sought opportunities to work with him. John Rich produced Anderson’s 2007 album Easy Money, while Dan Auerbach and Dave Ferguson worked with him on 2020’s Years. The album included “Tuesday I’ll Be Gone,” a duet with longtime fan Blake Shelton. Auerbach later assembled the Anderson tribute album Something Borrowed, Something New, featuring artists including Luke Combs, Ashley McBryde, and Eric Church.

In 2024, Anderson received one of country music’s highest honors when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame alongside Toby Keith and James Burton.

“This is an institution that preserves greatness,” Anderson said of his election to the Hall of Fame, reflecting on the friends and heroes whose names were already enshrined there. “That I get the chance to be amongst this kind of greatness, words can’t explain.”

After his induction, Anderson thanked the fans who had stood by him throughout his career.

“As always, I thank the fans who have supported the music and the shows for the last 50 years,” he said. “I could never have done it if it weren’t for you. I’m proud to have a spot in a place that preserves such greatness. I will proudly carry this honor for the rest of my life.”

For generations of country artists and fans, Anderson’s voice was unmistakable — weathered, soulful and entirely his own. But as his family shared following his unexpected passing, the public legacy represented only one part of the man they knew.

To them, his greatest legacy was the love he gave his family and the memories they will carry forever.