By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
With the onset of war Wednesday, area drivers can expect to see a change in gasoline prices, but maybe not the one they expect.
Thursday morning, many service stations recorded the first drops in record high gas prices in close to two weeks. According to Mallory Nimocks, president of Nimocks Oil Company, consumers could see the price of gas dip dramatically in the coming weeks after more possible increases early in the war.
"Right now anything is really just a guess, but I would foresee a short term increase of a day or two and at the most a week or two, but then I see prices falling dramatically. If you remember, after the original Gulf War and then again after Sept. 11, there was an immediate increase in prices but then near record drops in prices. I think that most refiners have built in some cushions to offset any shortages, but they were forced to do that after the Venezuelan strikes last month. That strike probably had more of an effect on prices than the war will," Nimocks said.
While consumers have felt the impact of the increased prices, many government entities have been able to avoid the higher prices due to bulk purchasing. According to Forrest City Mayor Larry Braynt, the higher prices may also be offset by funding that the city is receiving from the recently reinstituted county 1-mill road tax.
"We haven't really seen any problems because we do buy our gas in bulk and we built some surpluses into the budget that would take care of it unless the price doubled. If that we to happen then we still would be OK because of the road tax that we are getting that we didn't figure into the budget," Bryant said.
St. Francis County Judge Carl Cisco said that the county had been able to avoid the higher prices but much of that was due to the inability of road crews to operate during rough winter weather.
The increased fuel prices did hurt the Forrest City School District, but according to Lee Vent it wasn't the gas tank that felt the crunch, but the heating bills.
"Our fuel for buses is done on a per tanker basis so we really haven't been adversely affected there, but last month the fuel increases hit us hard in our gas bill. The bill for the district for last month was $24,000 and that is an increase of about $14,000 more than normal. We're hoping that warmer weather will help take some of that burden off of us because we didn't budget for those types of increases.
Gasoline prices hit all-time high's last week at a nationwide average of $1.73 per gallon. Prices in Forrest City this morning were close to $.05 lower than Wednesday afternoon.
The Forrest City Cyber Cafe will present a Spring Fling Wednesday, March 26, at che Cyber Cafe, located at 500 S. Rosser.
The time will be from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. There will be activities and snacks.
Two overnight shootings left three people injured, according to Forrest City Police reports.
At about 11:50 p.m. Thursday, two policemen were standing outside the back door of the Police Department when a vehicle came in the parking lot at a high rate of speed. The driver was screaming that someone had been shot at Manuel Bail Bonding.
Officers went to Manuel Bail Bonding, 622 S. Washington, and found that the glass in the top half of the security door was broken. The officers found a shooting victim, identified as James Mayo, 31.
The incident is under investigation, Mayo was flown to the Med in Memphis. The Med had no report on his condition this morning, saying only that Mayo was in surgery.
The second shooting incident took place early this morning, when a report came in of a shooting at 930 East Garland. The officers were met by two people described as having blood all over them from being shot.
The shooting victims were Markita Williamson, 18, of 930 East Garland and Derick Humphrey, 23, of 105 Gregory, Forrest City. The police were given a description of the suspects.
Two men were later taken into custody. They are Tommy Martez Barber, 19, of 401 W. Buford, Forrest City and Benson Buchanan, 20, of the same address. Barber was charged with two counts of attempted murder and possession of a firearm by a certain person. Buchanan was charged with possession of a firearm by a certain person.
Williamson and Humphrey were both taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Forrest City, where Williamson was treated and released. Humphrey was transported to the Med in Memphis, where he was listed in critical condition this morning.