An elderly man died on Tuesday, August 21, when the lawn tractor he was operating went over a bluff.

John Maggard, 70, a resident of Hickory Point, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident by Deputy Coroner’s Anthony Vaughn and Gordon Hicks.

According to the Wayne County Coroner’s Office, Maggard was operating his lawn tractor when he lost control of the machine and fell from a bluff on the edge of his property overlooking the lake.

The accident occurred at approximately 6:50 p.m. The exact cause of the accident is unclear and is still under investigation.

Other agencies involved were the Wayne County EMS and Wayne County Rescue Squad.

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Property tax rates for the Wayne County School District will remain the same for 2012-13. The board opted to follow Superintendent John Dalton’s recommendation to keep tax rates the same as last year, during a meeting held Monday, August 20.

The tax rate for real and personal property was set at 38.9 cents per hundred dollars of assessed value. The motor vehicle tax rate was set at 52.8 cents per hundred dollars of assessed value and the utility tax was set at three percent.

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Monticello City Council met in special session on Thursday, August 23 and took care of some routine business regarding the wastewater treatment plant project.

Council members approved the second reading of the bond ordinance, authorizing approximately $4.9 million in bonds for the project. They also approved a resolution for interim financing for the project until the bond sale is completed.

The council approved the bid on the bonds by USDA. The bid came in at 2.5 percent for 40 years.

Following the special meeting, a pre-construction meeting was held with Smith Contracting, which was awarded the bid for the project. Officials said the state date for the project was September 4.

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Wayne County lost a well-known businessman and community leader on Monday, August 20, with the death of Paul Dunnington. Dunnington was 74.

He most recently served as a member of the Wayne County Board of Education, representing Division Three. Dunnington had recently resigned that position because of illness.

“Wayne County Schools will greatly miss Mr. Paul Dunnington as a board member. Mr. Dunnington believed strongly in serving and he applied that part of his life to serving the students and staff at Wayne County Schools,” said Wayne Superintendent John Dalton. “He was always very interested in making sure students had opportunities to succeed and was always thinking to the future as to how we can improve. No matter if it was a building project or rigorous instructional program work, he always encouraged planning and creativity to provide the best for Wayne County students. He cared deeply about our students and he is already greatly missed. We thank him for his service to the precious students of Wayne County Schools.”

Dunnington was very interested in the progress of this community. He was a past president of the Monticello-Wayne County Industrial Foundation and was a charter member of the Southeast Kentucky Economic Development Corporation. He was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, served 41 years with the Monticello Kiwanis Club and was involved with the local Habitat for Humanity.

Dunnington was very involved with establishing the Wayne County Museum and served on the museum committee for five years. He was a board member for the Empowerment Zone for 16 years and helped to establish the first Oxford House in Wayne County.

“Wayne County is going to miss Paul Dunnington…I wish we had more like him,” said Wayne County Judge-Executive Greg Rankin. “He was very community minded, always working to do something good for somebody. He was just a great guy.”

He was a member of the First Baptist Church, where he served as a deacon for more than 30 years and sang in the choir for over 40 years. He represented First Baptist Church as a member of the Executive Board of the Wayne County Association of Southern Baptists. Dunnington was a member of the Monticello Camp of Gideons International where he was active in the jail ministry. He worked with the Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief and traveled abroad on 12 mission trips to Russia, Poland, Brazil, Switzerland, Nicaragua and Haiti.

Dunnington is survived by his wife, Katherine Bryant Dunnington, two daughters, Mischa Brainard and Stephanie Montrose, and four grandchildren.

Services were held Wednesday, August 22 at First Baptist Church.