Hawkins Teague, Murray Ledger & Times

Almost 12 years after liquor by the drink was legalized in Murray, the city’s voters decided to go wet on Tuesday. A total of 3,931 voted in Tuesday’s local option election, with 2,109 – or about 53.65 percent – answering “yes” to the question, “Are you in favor of the sale of alcoholic beverages in the City of Murray, Kentucky?” No votes totaled 1,822, which amounted to about 46.35 percent. The results obtained from the Calloway County Clerk’s Office are still unofficial and will have to be certified.

The National Weather Service in Paducah has confirmed that an EF1 tornado touched down near Hazel in Calloway County Sunday night. NWS surveyors Rick Shanklin and Ken Ludington were on site Monday, and found that the tornado touched down at 11:03 p.m. Sunday at Hazel and traveled 5.6 miles to northeast of New Providence. Surveyors measured the average width of the tornado’s path to be 100 yards.

For the second year in a row, Chuck and Sarah Jones have made the biggest donation to the Murray-Calloway County United Way in the organization’s history – only this time, the amount is close to triple last year’s amount. The Joneses set the previous record for the United Way’s largest individual donation last December when they contributed $50,000 to the fundraising campaign. This week, they topped that considerably with a donation of $140,000 – half of the overall goal of $280,000 for the 2011 campaign.

The Murray State University professor who was suspended last spring for allegedly making a racial comment to a black student has been hired by the university on a part-time basis to teach online courses, officials say. In February, it was reported that one of Mark Wattier’s former students had filed a complaint against him with MSU’s Office of Equal Opportunity.

The remnants of the storm that devastated Joplin, Mo., on Sunday caused moderate damage in Calloway County early Monday morning and Monday afternoon. A Murray-based weather observer said the system that came through early Monday was a weakening straight-line wind storm left over from the same system that hit Missouri on Sunday. He said the highest winds were 48 mph. High winds knocked down trees and power lines.