ROME, GA — Redmond Regional Medical Center announces Ken Metteauer as the new Chief Financial Officer effective May 1, 2013. Metteauer replaces Danny Smith who retired from Redmond on March 31, 2013. Metteauer holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. Most recently, Metteauer held the role of Chief Financial Officer at HCA’s Parkridge East Hospital in Chattanooga. Metteauer had been with the Parkridge Health System since 2004 serving as Controller for Parkridge Medical Center and Parkridge Valley and then as the system’s Assistant Vice President of Finance. Prior to joining the Parkridge Health System, Metteauer served as Controller for HCA facilities in both Atlanta and Nashville. He began his health care accounting career at Laurel Heights Hospital in Atlanta. “We’re delighted to welcome Ken to our Redmond family” said John Quinlivan, Redmond Chief Executive Officer. “As a native Georgian who spent his high school years in Calhoun, he is quite familiar with the area and is a perfect fit for Redmond. Ken has a great reputation in our company and is a great addition to our leadership team.” Metteauer, his wife Darla, and their young sons are in the process of relocating to Rome. “I’m honored to be joining the dedicated team at Redmond,” said Metteauer. “Redmond has a great reputation in the company for quality patient care and a family atmosphere among their employees. My family and I are looking forward to moving back to Georgia.”

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — One loved the spotlight. Another was nicknamed "The Wall" because of the force he brought to the soccer field. When a top-of-the-scale EF5 tornado ripped through Moore, Okla., it took with it 24 lives. Seven of them were children at Plaza Towers Elementary school; two were only babies. These are the victim's stories. ___ JaNae Hornsby, 9 One of seven children killed inside the Plaza Towers Elementary School, JaNae loved to draw and sing. She loved being the center of attention, her father said. JaNae's house, just three blocks from the school, also was destroyed by the tornado. Her father wanted to go back to the property to see if he could find a few of JaNae's things to keep. "JaNae was the life of the party. If JaNae was there you were having a good time. She liked to sing, be a big sister, be a big cousin. She liked to draw," he said, smiling, as he remembered his little girl. As family gathered to make funeral arrangements and comfort one another, Hornsby looked behind him into the house. "If she was here she would just have everybody laughing and she would be in the midst of everything. She loved the spotlight," he said. ___ Karrina Vargyas, 4 Karrina was not quite old enough to be at school like her two older siblings. So she was at home huddled in a bathtub with her mother, younger sister and grandmother. The tornado threw the women and children in different directions. Her parents could not find Karrina that night. It was only later that they learned that searchers had found Karrina's body in the rubble of what had been a neighbor's house. Her father, Phillip Vargyas, said Karrina "had a smile that would light up the room." And whenever he fells the pain of her loss, her father said he likes to think of Karrina giving him a little hug. "She was something else," Phillip Vargyas told The Oklahoman newspaper. "She wanted to figure skate. That was her dream in life." ___ Sydnee Vargyas, 7 months Just 7 months old, Sydnee had crawled for the first time on Sunday. But she never really got to enjoy her newfound freedom. Sydnee was huddled in the bathtub of her south Oklahoma City home with her older sister, mother and grandmother as a tornado bore down on them. The strong winds pulled Sydnee out of her mother's grasp. When the debris stopped swirling, Laurinda Vargyas said she found Sydnee on a driveway. "She was just laying there helpless. All I could do was sit there and hold her. She was already gone," Laurinda Vargyas told The Oklahoman newspaper. "They say she didn't suffer. So I've got to find peace with that." ___ Terri Long, 49 Long, a mother of three, was driving home from her job as a registrar at the Federal Aviation Administration when she stopped at a 7-Eleven store about 2 miles from her home. That's where she died when the tornado hit. "I have no idea why she stopped there; I'm still trying to figure that out," said her husband of 10 years, Ken Long, his voice cracking with sorrow. But he has a guess: "She was probably trying to get away" from the tornado. For several hours after the tornado, Long didn't know of his wife's fate — not until her brother called her cellphone, and a police officer answered by saying her purse had been found at the convenience store. Terri Long may have fared no better had she made it home. Her husband, who was at work at the time of the tornado, said their house was destroyed, too. A couple of days after the tornado, Long still didn't even have any pictures of his wife in his possession. He had only memories. "She was just a happy person that loved her kids and family, loved Harleys and loved to be outside," Ken Long said. A funeral was planned Friday for Terri Long. She would have turned 50 on Monday. ___ Kyle Davis, 8 He was known to his friends as "The Wall." It was a tribute to the ferocity Kyle brought to his beloved sport, soccer, and the way other players seemed to bounce off him as they went for the ball, said his grandfather, Marvin Dixon. Kyle was among six 9-year-olds who died in the Plaza Towers Elementary School. Kyle had taken shelter in the school's gymnasium with dozens of other students. "He was in the position that the teacher told them to be in —crouched down with their hands over their heads," Dixon said. "The medical examiner said either some big rock or beam or something fell right on the back of his neck. He said he died instantly." It would take a sizeable force to bring down Kyle's large but playful personality. "He was a pretty big kid," Dixon said. "Whenever he had the ball, other kids would just bounce off of him. That's why they called him that. ... He was just the kindest, most giving kid you would ever meet. He had a grin from ear to ear." ___ Christopher Legg, 9 Christopher's years were defined by courage in the face of daunting illness. Diagnosed with skin cancer and Osgood-Schlatter disease — an illness which can cause painful inflammation in the knees of young athletes — Christopher nevertheless loved to play sports and "roughhouse and wrestle with his Daddy" and his brother and sister, according to a statement issued by the family. He was among the children inside Plaza Towers when the tornado hit. "He is not in pain, but in joy with our Lord," the statement said. "He was greatly loved by all who knew him," the family said. "He never met a stranger. You were always a friend in his eyes. Just last Sunday, his grandfather remarked that Christopher was going to play center for the University of Oklahoma someday."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Three days of congressional hearings about the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative political groups have lawmakers looking for ways to widen an investigation that has so far been largely contained within the tax collection agency. More than 11 hours of testimony and an inspector general's report have revealed plenty of wrongdoing within the IRS. But so far, investigators have not produced evidence that anyone outside the IRS authorized the targeting, or even knew about it before a few weeks ago. They will keep trying. Three congressional committees are investigating the matter, and the leaders of those committees say they are just getting started. The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation, and the new acting head of the IRS says he is conducting an internal review. "The long and short of the situation is this: The public doesn't know the full story yet," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Thursday. Thursday morning, new acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel met with Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. During the meeting, Hatch told Werfel he expects the IRS to fully cooperate with committee's investigation, a Hatch spokeswoman said. President Barack Obama appointed Werfel last week; he started Wednesday. In an email to agency employees, Werfel sounded the same theme. "The first step in this effort must be to get to the bottom of the recent allegations regarding the criteria to determine eligibility for tax-exempt status," Werfel wrote. "The missteps uncovered in the recent inspector general report are inexcusable and cannot be tolerated by any of us," he said. "That is why we must work together with the inspector general, the Justice Department and Congress to ensure that responsible parties are held accountable for the inappropriate activities that occurred and that we correct the breakdowns in process and oversight that allowed them to occur." The White House has not been unscathed. Obama's top spokesman said Wednesday the White House was facing "legitimate criticisms" for its shifting accounts about who knew, and when they knew, about the IRS targeting of conservative political groups. Press secretary Jay Carney first said that only Obama's top lawyer knew the IRS was being investigated in the weeks before the inspector general's report was released. Later, he said the chief of staff and other top officials also knew. "There have been some legitimate criticisms about how we're handling this," Carney said. "And I say 'legitimate' because I mean it." The inspector general's report, which was released last week, said IRS agents in a Cincinnati office targeted tea party and other conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. They started targeting these groups in March or April of 2010. By August 2010, "tea party" became part of a "be on the lookout," or "BOLO," list of terms to flag for additional screening. Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, learned in June 2011 that agents were singling out groups with "Tea Party" and "Patriots" in their applications for tax-exempt status, the report said. She ordered agents to scrap the criteria immediately, but later they evolved to include groups that promoted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It finally stopped in May 2012, when top agency officials say they found out and ordered agents to adopt appropriate criteria for determining whether tax-exempt groups were overly political. Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told two congressional committees this week that he first learned in the spring of 2012 that conservative groups had been improperly singled out for additional scrutiny. However, after learning that the practice had stopped and that the inspector general was investigating, Shulman said he didn't tell anyone in the Treasury Department or the White House about it. The IRS is part of the Treasury Department. Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, left office in November, when his five-year term expired. Lerner was subpoenaed to testify Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Her appearance was brief. She read an opening statement in which she denied any wrongdoing. Then she refused to answer questions, invoking her constitutional right against self-incrimination. "I have not done anything wrong," Lerner said. "I have not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee." Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said he might recall her. He and other Republicans say they believe she forfeited her Fifth Amendment privilege not to testify by giving an opening statement in which she proclaimed her innocence, but several law professors were skeptical lawmakers could make that stick. Issa later said he would consult with others — including her lawyer and House attorneys — before determining whether to summon her again, hopefully deciding by the time Congress returns early next month from an upcoming recess. "She's a fact witness with a tremendous amount that she could tell us," Issa said. Lerner, a career civil servant, is still in her position at the IRS. She was the IRS official who first publicly disclosed the matter at a legal conference on May 10. J. Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration, has blamed ineffective management for allowing agents to improperly target conservative groups for so long. On Wednesday, he hinted there may be more revelations to come. He told the oversight committee that his office has since uncovered other questionable criteria used by agents to screen applications for tax-exempt status. But he refused to elaborate. "As we continue our review of this matter, we have recently identified some other BOLOs that raised concerns about political factors," George said. "I can't get into more detail at this time as to the information that is there because it's still incomplete." ___ Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Julie Pace contributed to this report.