VOL. 11 NO. 17
FIRST WORDS
Dividing the pie By Lauren Hopson A wise teacher from Bearden High School once said (actually just last week), “Parents don’t withhold food from one of their children, and then blame the other undernourished Hopson child for greedily demanding too much.� That is exactly the situation we have in Knox County, however. Last week, the primary headline floating around the local media outlets involved how teachers were getting raises, but an entire special education department, that of Assistive Technology, which aids some of our most vulnerable students, was getting cut. In regard to a budget with pages of line items, nothing else was mentioned in relation to the AT program’s demise, just the issue of teacher raises. Knox County ranks third in the state in fiscal capacity to pay for its school system, but 39th in average teacher pay. That is actually a step up from 45th last year. Thanks to a 3 percent raise, there are only 18 other districts just in East Tennessee that pay better this year, instead of 19. Three years ago, the Knox County Board of Education made a commitment to the educators of Knox County to make their pay competitive with other school districts in Tennessee. Through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Knox County Education Association, KCS agreed to raise teacher pay by 4 percent a year, on just the portion of salary funded locally, until 2020. This was agreed upon by both negotiating parties as an attempt to bring pay in line with the top 20 districts in the state and attract and retain the very best teachers for our students. How many times has Knox County Schools met this financial obligation in the last three years? None. Zero. Zilch. Granted, our previous superintendent took great liberty with the “if funds are available� clause and decided that money for consultants, six-figure-making Broad Academy Fellows for Central Office, funds for the Leadership Academy, layers of supervisors, laptops for 9-year-olds, and his own car allowance and raise were important enough to ignore the plan outlined in a legal document. To page A-3
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Kitchen 919 to replace The Orangery By Kelly Norrell Kitchen 919, a restaurant that celebrates Knoxville’s southern foothills cuisine, will soon launch at the 5412 Kingston Pike building once occupied by The Orangery, which closed last June. Knoxville chef Deron Little, proprietor, said the name of the new restaurant reflects everyone’s favorite part of home and the ZIP code of the neighborhood. The proprietor of Seasons Innovative Bar and Grill, Little and his son, Drake Little, will run Kitchen 919. “Our vision is to create a restaurant that celebrates Knoxville’s unique southern foothills cuisine and the local products that are available farm to table. Through classic culinary preparation and current artistic plating techniques, the guests will enjoy the cuisine with their taste buds, their eyes and their hearts,� he said. Signature features will include local food bought from 10 to 20 area farms, a menu that is adaptable to use foods that are fresh and in season, a craft cocktail bar serving favorites like Old Fashioned, Manhattans and Aviators using premium ingredients, and a Great Gatsby ambience with soft leather chairs and marble coffee tables. Little said the restaurant would be mid- Kitchen 919 partner Drake Little; Tim Hill of Hatcher-Hill Properties, purchaser of the building; and proprietor Deron Little at the iconic stairway of the old Orangery. range in price. It is expected to open by September.
Progressive city development firm has Bearden roots By Kelly Norrell
When Hatcher-Hill Properties LLC became the driving force behind key revitalization projects in downtown Knoxville, it was soaring from Bearden roots. And Bearden continues to grow and develop under Hatcher-Hill projects also, spearheaded
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by founders Mike Hatcher and Tim Hill. A recent example was the company’s decision to purchase the Orangery when that respected restaurant closed its doors last June. Hatcher-Hill is now gutting and renovating the building at 5412 Kingston Pike with plans to open a new restaurant, Kitchen 919,
in September. “We have a concept headed by Deron Little, who is proprietor of Seasons Innovative Bar and Grill in Turkey Creek,� Hill said. The 20,000-square-foot restaurant complex will include the 11,000-square-foot restaurant and To page A-3
With the Tuskegee Airmen
Local man looks back at changing times By Betty Bean One of the things Chester Bragg remembers about Dec. 7, 1941, was wondering what was happening to his brother Raymond. Chester was only 15, and had no clue that Pearl Harbor would begin something so big that it would swoop him up three years later and land him with one of the most famous fighting units in American history. “I didn’t think it would last long enough to get me,� said Chester Bragg, who is 90. “But I got drafted. The Army turned me down, the Navy turned me down, the Marines. Everybody wanted big men, and I was a little man, 130 pounds. That left me to the Air Force.� The family finally heard from Raymond, who survived but was never able to leave Pearl Harbor behind. “Raymond suffered,� Chester said. “He never did get over that, he never did. He was shell shocked, seeing all that killing; some of his buddies got killed. He drew disability from the Veterans
Administration and never did really get back to himself.â€? He was a student at Nelson Merry High School in Jefferson County in 1941, and moved to Knoxville the following year. Everybody was worried about Adolf Hitler. “I heard he was going to conquer the world – the whole world, the United States and all. He and Japan got together and they were going to whip us. He’d done whipped everybody in Europe except Russia, and that’s where he made his mistake. He overran his supply line because he was moving too fast‌â€? After basic training at Fort Benning, Chester was sent to Texas and then to Tuskegee, Ala. No draftee had many choices, and Chester’s were limited by his race. “You didn’t have no options. You went to where all the Blacks were stationed, and that was Tuskegee, where they had an Air Force base. We got there in a group and they put us all in barracks‌â€? Chester was assigned to be a supply clerk for the Tuskegee Air-
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men, the first African-American fighter pilots. He remembers the sharp buzz of single and twoseater fighter planes taking off and landing at the air field – P39s, P37s P40s, P51 Mustangs. His biggest adjustment to military life was being in Alabama. “You still had to get in the back of the bus in Knoxville, but it wasn’t
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Chester Bragg holds a photograph of himself in his military uniform. Photo by Ruth White too bad here. Where I was at in Alabama, you was a n‌.. everywhere you went, except for being a soldier. And they still called you a n‌.. soldier. It was rough. Worse than it was here in Knoxville. They were still hanging people. They hanged To page A-3
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