The Nooz: Crooks steal entire church

PRICHARD, Ala. — Four years of fundraisers and contributions from the congregation are down the drain after thieves stole all the building materials — steel beams, tin sheets and everything else — for what was to have been a new church.

“I’m mad, I’m frustrated, I’m angry. I’m upset,” the Rev. Richard Nichols said after learning that the materials had disappeared.

Nichols said the contractor called and said, “Reverend, we’re out here to put your building up, but there's no building here for you to put up.”

“So I come over and I look and I said, ‘Wow, everything is gone,’” he said.

Nichols estimated that it would cost $90,000 to start over on building Destiny Vision Christian Center. He said he doesn’t know how the church will raise the money, but it will be built.

“We’re going to holler out loud, like John the Baptist. We’re going to cry out, ‘It just ain’t right, it ain’t right, it ain’t right,’” Nichols said.

Police said no arrests had been made.

— WPMI, Mobile, Ala.

Ohio man plans to eat road-kill bear
WEST LIBERTY, Ohio — Dan Vargo better have a hearty appetite.

Vargo, of West Liberty, was driving down Washington Pike on Sunday night when a 200-pound black bear jumped in front of his car. Unable to avoid the bear, Vargo ended up hitting and killing it.

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Brooke County Sheriff Richard Ferguson said that if someone hits a bear over 100 pounds, he or she can keep it, and that is exactly what Vargo plans to do.

“Kept it, have it cleaned up — in the cooler already,” Vargo said. “I might mount it, but we are definitely going to eat it.”

— WTOV, Steubenville, Ohio

Step on it, driver ... no, really, step on it!
GREENVILLE, S.C. — A Greenville man was arrested Monday after officers said he used a cab to get to and from a bank robbery.

Tellers at BB&T Bank said the man came into the bank and presented a note demanding money. After he was given an undisclosed amount of cash, the man got into a Yellow Deluxe taxicab that was waiting outside, police said.

The cab company was able to tell officers where the man was dropped off. Moments later, officers found the suspect, identified as Donald Wesley West, 31, walking along Allen Avenue.

Investigators said the cab driver was not involved in the robbery.

— WYFF, Greenville, S.C.

Couple prays for rain on wedding day
LUBBOCK, Texas — High school sweethearts Brian and Loren Kuebler got married in Arlington, Texas, last month. What was already one of the happiest days of their lives got even better just a few hours before the wedding.

“We were all getting ready, and I called the weather service here in Lubbock and the guy told me, so yup. That’s when we knew,” Brian Kuebler said.

Calling the weather service in another city isn’t something most people do on their wedding day, but the call told the couple that it had rained more than an inch in Lubbock that day.

That meant they were getting their $5,000 wedding ring set free. They bought the rings more than a year ago from Myers and Farrar Jewelers in Lubbock, who run a Pray for Rain promotion.

“I signed the contract not thinking it would ever happen for the Pray for Rain, and then it did,” Kuebler said.

The promotion says if it rains more than an inch in Lubbock on your wedding day, you get your wedding rings free, and no one was more surprised than the owner of the store, Richard Scudder.

“Oh, my God. I’m going to have to write some big checks, because two of my best customers are getting married,” he said last week.

Scudder has run the promotion at multiple stores for the past six years, and this is the first time he’s ever had to pay up. The two ring sets he paid for totaled almost $14,000. He didn’t have an insurance policy on the promotion, so it’s all coming out of his pocket.

Scudder says he’s happy to do it, as long as it doesn’t happen too often.

“Pray for rain. Come on in guys. I need the money now, for sure,” he said.

— KCBD, Lubbock, Texas

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