Search continues for MCHS football player

A Macon County High School junior apparently drowned when he fell from a small boat in which he was a passenger late Monday afternoon, March 27th.

Reports from the scene say Jonathan Hudson, 16, of Lafayette was among a group of high school students enjoying Spring Break on Dale Hollow Lake when he fell from a small boat carrying Hudson and its operator out to a houseboat owned by one of the students' parents, R. Swindle.

Putnam and Clay County Rescue Squads, along with many privately owned motor craft equipped with depth finders, have been searching the area where young Hudson was last seen. Beginning Monday night, the recovery operations resumed Tuesday morning with infared cameras being used in an attempt to locate the body in water approximately 100 ft. deep, according to the Clay County Rescue Squad director Butch Burnette.

The driver of the small boat (a juvenile whose name has not been released) told Clay County TWRA Officer Bill Moulten that he and Jonathan Hudson were on board a small boat in the Indian Creek area of Dale Hollow Lake at about 5 p.m. Monday, having left from the Dale Hollow Marina. The two were making their way out to the houseboat on which they were staying. The boat's driver said Hudson fell over the front of the boat, and that he felt or heard a “thump” against the bottom of the boat after his friend fell overboard.

The young man never reappeared from the waters of the lake, whose temperature is near 50 degrees.

The Lafayette high school students enjoying the houseboat outing were doing so with parental permission.