VOL. 7 NO. 18
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IN THIS ISSUE
Fresh addition
Kids
May 6, 2013
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Farmers Market adds Turkey Creek to growers’ community
Looking for a safe and educational place to take your kids this summer? Want to groom them to become money-savvy entrepreneurs? Don’t miss these stories and more in My Kids.
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See the special section inside
Miracle Maker Travis Parker is 93, but he still enjoys going to school. He’s volunteered at A.L. Lotts Elementary School for 18 years, and he doesn’t plan to quit anytime soon. He has an agreement with 2nd grade teacher Rebecca Tipton that he will continue to read to students in her classroom until she retires after 40 years of teaching. He’ll fulfill his end of the bargain at age 101.
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See Wendy Smith’s story on A-9
Fun at Chamber dinner Farragut West Knoxville Chamber of Commerce CEO and president Bettye Sisco had a very simple wish for the chamber’s annual auction and dinner. “I wanted people to have fun and for the room to be filled with laughter!” said Sisco.
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Chris Arnold with The Herb and Plow talks with Jonathan Clow, who was shopping with his Logan Wells shows off the day lilies from Champion Day mother on the first day of the Dixie Lee Farmers Market at Pinnacle at Turkey Creek. Photos by Lilies in Farragut to Farmers Market customer Kari Rogers. Sherri Gardner Howell
By Betsy Pickle Fresh produce and handmade goods aren’t the only things drawing people to the Dixie Lee Farmers Market from 9 a.m. till noon on Saturdays from the end of April through the end of October. “It’s a great community atmosphere,” says Jeff Cannon, who runs the market at Renaissance Farragut along with his wife, Ginger. “It’s a great place to mingle and meet with your neighbors
and friends on a Saturday morning, just shopping. “It’s a very laidback atmosphere, and everybody just enjoys themselves.” The Cannons have now brought the Saturdaymorning vibe to weekdays. They just launched a new farmers market at the Pinnacle at Turkey Creek; it is open 3-6 p.m. each Tuesday. The seed for the Turkey Creek market was planted last summer, when the property management team
contacted Cannon. “They sent me an email saying they were interested in starting a farmers’ market over there; would I be interested in helping them out with that?” recalls Cannon. “I had been kicking around the idea of trying to start a weekday market somewhere, and so when they approached me about that it seemed like a good fit.” Cannon didn’t start out in farming or in sales. His background is in horticul-
See Farragut Faces on page A-3
By Sherri Gardner Howell
Knoxville Christian Arts Ministry (KnoxCam) is a multi-generational, community-wide outreach ministry that takes the Gospel beyond the walls of church, using dance, music and drama. See Ashley Baker’s story on A-7
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“When it first occurred to me that I should try to start a market, it was just kind of a fantasy idea I had in my head. I talked to the right people at the right time, and a couple of months later we had a market going.” That was in 2008, when the economy was in the dumps. But it was also when the farmers market movement was picking up steam, Cannon says. More on A-7
Dreaming big for the Ford farm
Going beyond the church walls
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ture; for his “day job,” he works for Nature by Design, a Lenoir City landscaping company. “I have always enjoyed gardening and saw the need for a market in West Knoxville,” he says. “There wasn’t one. I was thinking to myself, ‘How hard could it be?’ Little did I know. It was nothing near as easy as I thought.” Fortunately for Cannon, imagination and reality intersected perfectly.
Property owned by Eddy and Linda Ford features 68-plus acres of land that is positioned to be very important to the development of a “town center” in Farragut. Photo submitted
On the national level, we’ve been told that megabanks “cannot be allowed to fail.” For the town of Farragut, the same should be said for a major piece of property that has just come on the market. Known locally as the Ford farm, 68-plus acres of prime land is being offered for sale by owners Linda and Eddy Ford, former Farragut mayor,
through Michael Bates with Gables & Gates Real Estate. The Ford property is perfectly located to move the town of Farragut toward a “real” town feel, with Farragut Town Hall, the post office, a bank, restaurant and residential homes already just to the property’s east. Zoning is in place for a multi-use plan. The land has strong historical significance, not More on A-3
Caravan rolls on Contrary to reports elsewhere, Marvin West is very much alive and writes this week that “the Big Orange Caravan includes food and other refreshments but comes with a price tag – Germantown this week, Chattanooga next week, Kingsport, Atlanta and Franklin to follow. “If all those stops are standing room only, you can believe that Tennessee fans believe better days are coming.”
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Let’s give Dream Academy a chance By Wendy Smith If someone is drowning, it’s easier to rescue them with a kayak than an ocean liner. That’s the analogy Russ Smith uses to explain why charter schools are better-equipped to rescue failing inner-city students than Knox County Schools. As the founder of SOAR Youth Ministries in Lonsdale, he knows the challenges that inner-city students face. And he knows that what works in Powell doesn’t necessarily work in Lonsdale. “The disparity between the education provided for some kids, compared to others in the same district, is inconceivable,” he says. Smith is director of Genesis Rock, a nonprofit applying to operate a charter school called the Dream Academy. The school would be part of the nonprofit New Tech Network, which currently supports
120 schools in 18 states. The New Tech model emphasizes projectbased learning, one-to-one technology and a culture of trust, respect and responsibility. No one would say that Knox County hasn’t tried to reach inner city kids. But almost everybody would agree that it hasn’t worked. According to the state report card, only 16 percent of Vine Middle School students tested proficient or advanced in 2012. The district average is 52.10 percent. At West Valley Middle School, 78 percent of students tested proficient or advanced.
Analysis Amy Crawford, founder of “Reach Them to Teach Them” and a teacher at West Valley, has seen the needs of inner-city students firsthand. She
taught at Sarah Moore Greene Elementary School for two years while participating in the federally-funded Talent Transfer Initiative. “Generally, students in suburban schools have a head start on innercity students. Because urban students start off disadvantaged, they have to work harder to catch up, without altering their circumstances,” she says. “We can’t do one size fits all.” Crawford was part of a group that included Superintendent Dr. Jim McIntyre, Knox County School Board member Doug Harris and tnAchieves founder Randy Boyd on a tour of New Tech East High School in Cleveland, Ohio, in April. She reports seeing a culture of empowerment and meeting teachers who refuse to let kids fail. Harris, who has studied different charter school models, thinks that the project-based learning (PBL)
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approach supported by New Tech lends itself to better results in urban schools. PBL encourages students to think creatively and work collaboratively to solve problems. “They know how to change the culture, to get kids to work harder and stay focused.” Knox County needs to be shown how to run an effective school in an urban setting, Harris says. “I’m not an expert in education, but I’m good at seeing something that works and implementing it. The New Tech model works.” The Dream Academy would target underachieving students from Vine, Whittle Springs and Northwest middle schools. Knox County Schools is datsdriven, and the data show that we are failing these children. It’s a sign of strength, rather than weakness, to look for help when it’s needed, and we need help with guiding these students to a successful future. Let’s try something different to see if we can get a different outcome.
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