• Health and fitness industry sales and marketing professional Eddie Tock has launched a new company, Eddie Tock Health Club Sales and Marketing Consulting. For the past 21 years, Tock had been a partner in consulting company Sales Makers, where he worked with more than 850 clubs in 39 states and six countries. He has been a speaker at Club Industry and the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association trade shows. His new company will provide health and fitness clubs with sales, marketing and management strategies and tools.

• A 7-year-old boy died last month in an apparent drowning after going down a curling water slide at the Donelson-Hermitage YMCA in Nashville, TN. An autopsy report ruled the death accidental, but the Y, as of press time, was still working closely with The Redwoods Group, its risk and insurance partner, to investigate the incident. Per Y policy, the two lifeguards who were on duty at the time of the drowning were put on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation, and one of the two lifeguards resigned, says Phil Newman, vice president of communications for the Y of Middle Tennessee, the umbrella organization of the Donelson-Hermitage Y.

  Also last month, a 4-year-old boy died at an Austin, TX, hospital after he drowned at a Life Time Fitness swimming pool in Austin. The drowning death is the first at a Life Time Fitness club in the state of Texas and the second drowning death at a Life Time club.

• The owner of Klamath Boxing and Fitness in Klamath Falls, OR, died from an apparent suicide June 9, the same day he was to report to jail on sex charges involving a 15-year-old girl, according to multiple media reports. Edward G. Clarke was found hanging by a rope in the club, which was shut down in November due to code enforcement.

  Clarke had been charged with rape and sexual assault. He was arrested May 23 after witnesses told police that Clarke and the girl engaged in a sex act in a vehicle outside a Medford, OR, movie theater. Under Oregon law, a person is charged with third-degree rape if they have sex with a person under 16 years old.

• A nearly 12-hour SWAT standoff in Round Rock, TX, ended peacefully on June 25 as the owner of Lifestyles Health and Fitness Club, who was barricaded inside the club, surrendered to police, according to FOX 7 in Austin, TX. Police had evacuated several people from the gym and the shopping center that houses the gym. According to the TV report, the owner called police and threatened to kill himself. The landlord of the shopping center described the owner as being short-tempered.

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