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VOL. 5, NO. 41
OCTOBER 10, 2011
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West High fights to keep ROTC By Betty Bean
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In support of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Bearden seniors waiting Six Bearden High seniors made the semi-finalist cut as National Merit Scholars. They’ll find out next February if they made the finals. See Natalie Lester’s story on page A-8
When West High School junior Macie Gardner heard that the U.S. Navy wants to shut down her school’s Junior ROTC program, she was stunned. She has taken ROTC since she was a freshman and plans to join the Navy when she finishes college. Gardner ROTC is an important piece of her high school life and her future plans. “I was shocked. I actually almost cried,” she said. “If I don’t have it my senior year, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” The problem, says Senior Naval Science instructor Kevin Smathers, a retired Navy commander who is in his first year at West, is that ROTC enrollment dropped to 63 students last year, far below the required 100-student minimum. He says that happened because of a glitch in the system that was exposed when West dropped block scheduling last fall. “A list came out the first of July that slated 29 units across the U.S. to be closed for low enrollment. This was one of the 29, and we are still on the list,” Smathers said.
Freshman cadet Brandon Grimes and Senior Naval Science instructor Kevin Smathers with the 3-ton boat anchor outside the West High School ROTC building. Photos by Betty Bean
Meanwhile, Macie started a petition drive to keep ROTC at West. This helped spark a schoolwide campaign, and on Oct. 1, the 100th student cadet signed up. “We were so happy,” Macie said. “Everybody started cheering. Since then people will come up to me and say ‘I know you have your numbers, but I still want to join.’ ” “It was a herculean effort on the part of the cadets, guidance counsel-
ors and the administration,” Smathers said. “It really was a schoolwide effort and everybody pitched in. There was a great deal of pride when we got that hundredth cadet. I call him Number One Hundred.” Smathers said that West High School has a 41-year tradition and the best facilities of any ROTC program in the area. “It’s important that people know that we’re not a recruiting program
He knew he had chosen the right career when a professor invited him to tag along as he identified the remains of a woman killed in a fiery truck crash. That was Bass’ “Aha!” moment, and the only case that has ever made him sick. He taught at the University of Kansas for more than
10 years before UT hired him in 1971. Anthropology offices were located in former student dorms under Neyland Stadium, and shortly after Bass arrived, a body was sent to him by the state medical examiner. Lacking an appropriate space for storing the body, he put it in a shower stall in the men’s room that served as the janitor’s closet. “The best chewing out I ever had came from that janitor,” he recalls. Not long after that, Bass approached UT Dean Alvin Nielsen to ask for some property for storing bodies. He was given space at a sow barn at UT’s Holston Farm, a 45-minute drive from campus. He was later given three acres behind UT Medical Center. “That’s when we really began to do research on dead bodies,” he said. His notion of a facility dedicated to studying decomposition began when he was
asked to help ranchers who were losing cattle in the late 1960s. Thieves would butcher cattle in the fields and leave the carcasses behind. The ranchers thought the culprits might be tracked through the sale of the meat if Bass could determine how long the cows had been dead. Bass said he could if he had four dead cows to track the rate of decomposition in each of the four seasons. The ranchers didn’t comply. The Body Farm was unprecedented, aside from research done in 13th century China, Bass says. In the past five years, several similar sites have been established in the U.S. He knows his 40 years of work in East Tennessee have paid off when he gets a call from a law enforcement officer who was able to determine the race and sex of a body because of the training received from Bass. “It makes you feel good, really,” he says.
co.” The “Padgett Plan,” a 28-page document released by his campaign the day after the primary, includes a flowchart illustrating the workings of TNIvestco. However, only in the broadest sense does Padgett’s plan resemble TNInvestco, which provides tax credits to venture capitalists who then sell the tax credits to insurance companies and use the proceeds to invest in businesses. Ideally, these businesses produce new tax revenue which is cycled back into the state’s tax credit fund, resulting in something like a perpetual
fur farm with dollars rather than skins. Padgett’s concept for Knoxville is simpler. The city puts up $1 for every $3 from a private investor. Padgett says the “angel investors” will be selected through competitive bidding and only businesses in the city of Knoxville would be eligible for a capital infusion. There’s another significant difference in the state’s plan and what Padgett envisions for Knoxville. The state allocated $200 million in tax credits as seed money for TNInvestco. Padgett won’t say how much the city
will set aside until he determines what can be trimmed from the budget. He believes at least 10 percent (about $17 million) of the city’s roughly $170 million general fund budget could be pared off. Padgett concedes that’s a sizeable cut but bases his optimism on his experience working with former Gov. Phil Bredesen. Nominally a Democrat in a nonpartisan race, Padgett’s major themes would be at home in any Republican’s campaign literature: cut bureaucratic red tape; remove
Body of work We’re for the women! The Democratic Women of Knox County voted with their dollars last week. See Betty Bean’s column on page A-4
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Bass says teaching is highlight By Wendy Smith Dr. Bill Bass has several claims to fame. As head of UT’s anthropology department, he founded the Body Farm, the nation’s first research facility dedicated to studying how the human body decays. He has helped identify remains in over 700 cases in Tennessee and has co-written seven books, including six fictional works about Dr. Bill Brockton, a character based on Bass. But his foremost contribution has been as a teacher, he says. Bass treats each case he investigates as an opportunity to educate both students and law
Capital a la capitol Padgett plan has Nashville flavor
by banks, Padgett says, and it’s up to K nox v ille (and private By Larry Van Guilder i n v e s t o r s) to go where How are you going to keep bankers fear them down on the farm, to tread. once they’ve seen Paree? Padget t So goes the song, and so says his goes Knoxville mayoral candidate Mark Padgett’s plan Mark Padgett plan to give st a r t-ups to bring Nashville’s ideas to Knoxville, the capitol’s a leg up is modeled on the less sophisticated cousin in Tennessee Small Business the hills. Small businesses Investment Company Credit are being shown the door Act, shorthand “TNInvest-
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enforcement officers. Education is in his blood. His grandfather and mother were teachers, and his father was chair of the Stephens City, Va., school board for 35 years. When the William M. Bass Forensic Anthropology Building at UT was dedicated recently, he became the third member of his family to have an educational facility named after him. Bass stumbled upon the field that would become his passion almost by accident. As an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, he took an anthropology class. He’s not sure he even knew what anthropology was at the time. He first planned to get a master’s degree in counseling at the University of Kentucky but quickly changed his major to anthropology.
for the military. What our students are getting is citizenship and selfdiscipline. We really focus on graduation. One hundred percent of our cadets graduated last year and most students won’t join the military. And that’s perfectly fine with us.” Brandon Grimes is a freshman who is interested in attending the Air Force Academy. He says losing ROTC will put a serious crimp in his plans. “It’s a really good program. It teaches you a lot of self-discipline, attention to detail. Where else is a kid going to get this experience?” Smathers sets the odds of having ROTC at West next year at 50/50. “I’ve been told that the decision won’t change, but we’re asking for a reconsideration. … It’s in the hands of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and we hope that he will look at the length of time we’ve been here and the fact that this was just one time that we missed our enrollment and give us a reversal on that decision.” Brandon agrees: “If I had a chance to talk to the Undersecretary of the Navy, I would have to tell him that he shouldn’t take ROTC out, and that I don’t believe I know anyone who would prefer for him to take it out. I’ve been looking forward to this since I was in middle school.”
Bill Bass enjoys a break from book signings with his pooch, Trey, at his West Knoxville home. Photo by Wendy Smith
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