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Vol. 5, No. 9 • February 28, 2011 • www.ShopperNewsNow.com • 10512 Lexington Drive, Suite 500 37932 • 218-WEST (9378)
B.T. Pelkey lines up youth hockey participants after a match at the Ice Chalet. The rink offers hockey for ages 4 through adults as well as figure skating for all ages. Photo by Wendy Smith
For the joy of skating
still fill up the rink on Friday and Saturday nights. Even some of the pipes that were purchased from Chicago’s Copa Cabana Club to build the rink are the same, though they will soon be By Wendy Smith The Ice Chalet looks much the replaced. The used pipes arrived same as it did when it opened in in tractor trailer trucks and were August 1962. The Alpine décor tangled like shoe laces, says Ice and the cozy fireplace in the cor- Chalet Manager Larry LaBorde. ner are the same, and teenagers Chambliss Pierce spearheaded
Ice Chalet has provided fun on the ice for 49 years
the effort to build Knoxville’s first ice skating rink. He approached some of the city’s most affluent citizens, including Pilot Oil Corporation founder Jim Haslam, to buy shares in the operation. Robert Unger was the Ice Chalet’s first skating instructor, and he established the Robert Unger School of Ice Skating in Knoxville and in Huntsville, Ala. Competi-
tions between the schools were the first to be endorsed by the Ice Skating Institute (ISI). When the rink fell upon hard times in the mid-1960s, Unger used his own money to pay off debts and got the business back on track. LaBorde, a self-described “rink rat,” got his first job sweeping floors at the Ice Chalet when he was 11. He could fi x things, which
made him valuable at the rink. He also helped with hockey classes and spent some time playing for a Junior B team in Canada. When he realized that hockey wasn’t his passion, he bought a pair of figure skates and returned to Knoxville. He worked at the Ice Chalet and attended UT until he had the opportunity to join an ice show. He To page A-3
Ladies of Charity take good works to new headquarters By Anne Hart Erika Fuhr is one of those remarkable people who can always find something good in even the worst of situations. But that admirable characteristic has been tested mightily over the last year or so. Fuhr has been the major force – they call her “the building guru” – behind the remodeling of a 25 ,000 - squa re foot building soon to be the new home of the Ladies of Charity. It will allow the organization to move its operations from Erika Fuhr cramped, outdated headquarters in two different locations to the new site and eventually expand its charitable programs. After months of effort, work on the new headquarters – the former Royal Beauty Supply building on Baxter Avenue – was nearing completion when a five inch highpressure water pipe froze and burst overnight in January 2010, flooding the entire building.
“Those who love the poor during life will have nothing to fear at the hour of their death.” – St. Vincent de Paul “Everything was ruined,” Fuhr says. “All the ceilings had to be ripped out to the rafters, the walls taken back to the studs, all the flooring pulled up. We lost the furnace, the electrical, everything. It was a nightmare. It cost us $80,000 just to get the water out, but we got right back to work the very next day.” So what good could she possibly find in all that? “We learned a lot was wrong with the building that we hadn’t known about. Now we have been able to take care of those things. It will save us money over the long run.” For example, there were large holes in the walls along roof lines that would have resulted in enormous heating and cooling bills. The building has many large windows, none of which was double-paned or insulated. Much of the structure
is concrete block, and the chinking was crumbling between the blocks. But now, everything that was old and outdated and worn out and not working the way it should has been replaced. “We now have a solid, tight building,” Fuhr says. “It’s almost a new building.” Help has come from many sources. A $33,500 grant from the Timken Foundation, an Ohio manufacturing firm with a facility in Mascot, replaced the large windows with new double-paned ones. A large part of the cost of the building was made possible by a bequest from a former member. In her will, Helen Marx left the Ladies of Charity $384,000. Funding sources for the organization include the United Way, private gifts, donations from the churches and the Angel Tree program. A volunteer writes grants applications. Paid staff is the equivalent of 3 1/2 fulltime positions, and the remaining work is performed by more than 100 volunteers who donated about 25,000 hours last year. Ladies of Charity operates both a thrift shop, where furni-
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ture, clothing and other items are available, and a food pantry, where supplies to prepare more than 3,000 meals a week are provided. In addition, vouchers are available for kerosene for heating in the wintertime, and layettes for newborns are provided to indigent women. Some 33,000 individuals received services from the charity last year. Founded in France in 1617 under the direction of St. Vincent de Paul, Ladies of Charity is the oldest lay organization in the Catholic Church. The local organization
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The new Ladies of Charity headquarters on Baxter Avenue. Photos by Ruth White
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was founded in 1942 by the women of Holy Ghost and Immaculate Conception churches and has long played an active role in helping primarily the working poor. As Fuhr puts it: “Many people hit rough spots in life, and our goal is to get them through that.” The doors to the new facility will open to the public on March 21.There will be a special mass at Holy Ghost Church at 10 a.m. March 18, and afterwards Bishop Richard Stika will cut the ribbon at the new facility. It will be dedicated to Mother Teresa.