VOL. 7 NO. 42
www.ShopperNewsNow.com |
IN THIS ISSUE
Gibbs invades Farragut High
Pink and green at Fox Den
They stopped short of dyeing the golf greens, but everything else at Fox Den Country Club has been coming up pink during October. Fox Den for a Cure has been rolling since the June Swim for a Cure kickoff.
➤
Schools Insight Session yields interesting results
See Farragut Faces on A-3
Catching up with Oliver Smith
By Jake Mabe Farragut residents had to be surprised last Tuesday when the No. 1 priority for the next five years chosen by the first four discussion groups during the Knox Schools 2020 Insight Session at Farragut High was building a Gibbs Middle School. Gibbs did a great job of mobilizing community members at the meeting, in which participants are asked to answer three questions: What’s good? What’s not? What’s next? Other No. 1 picks were identifying and challenging academicallyadvanced students, and having a better balance of more technology at all schools while giving principals, teachers and parents more autonomy to make decisions at the school level. The sessions are being organized by Knox County Schools director of strategic planning Morgan Camu. They are designed to seek feedback as the school system prepares its next five-year plan. Participants are split into small discussion groups to vote on priorities, elect a spokesperson and meet again as a large group to hear results. Discussion Group 8’s two other priorities (its No. 1 was balancing equitable technology and giving schools more autonomy) were creating a year-round school calendar, and creating a vision and finding adequate funding for recruiting and retaining teachers and principals. “We had a mass exit of teachers and administrators over the summer,” said Farragut Middle principal Danny Trent. “How long are we going to let it happen?” Trent also supports making
While Oliver Smith Jr. is credited with the development of both East Towne and West Town malls, it is under the direction of Oliver Smith IV that the company has seen dramatic growth and expansion. It has brought more than 125 restaurants to this area, representing more than 60 franchises. It has also developed more than 20 hotels totaling more than 3,000 units from Florida to Michigan and is responsible for about the same number of apartment units, for more than 65 bank locations and in excess of 40 convenient stores.
➤
Read Anne Hart on A-12
Baptist reunion Forget Disneyland. The Happiest Place on Earth – at least for one afternoon – was Tennova South, as former employees of Baptist Hospital of East Tennessee reunited five years after the hospital’s closing.
➤
Read Betsy Pickle on A-2
Striking the band Seldom does the University of Tennessee create what has become a food fight between top leaders on campus but that is what has happened with the exchange of comments between Pride of the Southland Marching Band director Gary Sousa (now on paid administrative leave) and UT Chancellor Jimmy Cheek.
➤
Farragut High School senior Ethan Young speaks for his discussion group at the Knox Schools 2020 Insight Session at Farragut High last week. Photos by Jake Mabe
transportation and nutrition, and inadequate compensation. This week, insight sessions will be held at 6 p.m. tonight (Monday, Oct, 21) at Karns High and ThursRandy Ford fills out a feedback survey. Ford, who has a son at Farragut High, day, Oct. 24, at Halls Elementary. was the spokesperson for Group 8 during the insight session. Read more info or take a survey at knoxschools2020.org. school technology equitable and college-bound students. Camu said a list of insights balanced. “Although I do understand that from each session will be posted “We’re in one of the best-per- I’m signing the waivers to say I on the school system’s website at forming schools in the nation and won’t (later) sue the school.” www.knoxschools.org. What’s good? Group 8 memit has less technology than several bers said the decrease in the other schools.” dropout rate, the 1:1 technology Randy Ford, initiative, human capital, a high who owns 49 per- number of college scholarships, The town of Farragut will host cent of his own the TEAM evaluation and using dentistry school technology to communicate with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Community Heritage Trail at and is a landlord, parents. “I wouldn’t even be here if I Campbell Station Park at 11 a.m. said he would like parents to have hadn’t (received) a message about Tuesday, Oct. 29. The Trail feaDanny Trent tures 11 signs throughout Campmore flexibility to the meeting,” Ford said. What’s bad? Not enough bell Station Park which highlight opt their children out of graduation requirements. He said he had technology, TAP program not the historical milestones of the to sign several waivers to opt his being utilized to its potential, Farragut and Concord areas from son, who is planning to pursue a shifting the influence of big busi- the earliest native inhabitants to career in the military, out of a fine ness on technology (i.e. the Gates the founding of the town of Farraarts class currently required for Foundation grant), inadequate gut. Info: 966-7057.
Town to host Community Heritage Trail opening
Read Victor Ashe on A-4
Booker promises ‘dazzle’ at Beck
Coppock on adoption She is cited in Tennessee courts anytime an adoption case is being heard. Dawn Coppock didn’t start out to become adoption attorney, but was set on that course when she took on an interstate adoption early in her career, even though she wasn’t sure how to proceed because Tennessee’s adoption statues were not clear.
➤
October 21, 2013
www.facebook.com/ShopperNewsNow
By Sandra Clark Robert Booker is back at the Beck Cultural Exchange Center and he promises to “dazzle.” Booker has been involved with the center since its founding in 1975 in the home of the late James and Ethel Beck. A student leader at Knoxville College and later a 3-term state representative, Booker is a historian and general man about town. Booker calls going back as executive director at Beck “a labor of love.” The center is a repository of African-American history and lore, much of it compiled by Booker himself. “We can compete with anybody (in the African-American Museum Association). I want Knoxville to be proud of that,” Booker said. The Becks were fierce competitors, he said. Mr. Beck was a Republican; she was a Democrat who often bragged of canceling his
Read Betty Bean on A- 6
10512 Lexington Dr., Ste. 500 37932 (865) 218-WEST (9378) NEWS news@ShopperNewsNow.com Sherri Gardner Howell ADVERTISING SALES ads@ShopperNewsNow.com Shannon Carey Jim Brannon | Tony Cranmore Brandi Davis | Patty Fecco
WATCH BATTERY COUPON W
5 Foster' s
$
votes. He was a fee-grabber (sort of an adjunct law enforcement job) and a baseball player; she was state president for the Colored PTA. Both worked hard and had rental property and a working farm. Get him started and Booker will talk about Ethel Beck and Evelyn Hazen, a white woman who lived just up the street (and once sued a lover who jilted her for breach of promise. She won.) “They were from two different worlds, but were a lot alike,” says Booker. After serving in the Legislature from 1966 to 1971, Booker came home to work as administrative assistant to then-Mayor Kyle Testerman, a job he remembers as being “everything he didn’t want to do.” Booker was executive director of the Beck Center for 16 years, leaving in 1998. He filled in for 10 months as a member of City Council when Mark Brown be-
came a magistrate and before Daniel Brown was elected. The Beck Center has had some recent negative publicity and Mayor Tim Burchett cut its counBooker ty funding. Booker says that’s in the past. He’s looking to fulfill Beck’s mission to research and exhibit local black history. He wants 5,000 members generating $75,000 annually. He wants to join with Visit Knoxville to drive tourism, and he plans publicity in national magazines. The current exhibit features pictures from James and Ethel Beck. An upcoming exhibit will highlight the life and times of former U.S. District Judge William H. Hastie, who was born in Knoxville and became the first Afri-
can-American federal judge, appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Judge Hastie earned his law degree from Harvard University. He later was assistant solicitor of the Department of the Interior and a professor at Howard University Law School. Booker will invite his children to Knoxville to launch the exhibit. “The Beck Center is in a beautiful and spacious new building with its valuable collections in boxes and hidden away from visitors and researchers alike,” Booker said. “People who visit here should be dazzled by what the center has to offer. That includes those who come for a reception, a dance or a meeting of any kind. The Beck mission should always be at the forefront of any activity held on these premises.” Beck is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Info: (865) 524-8461 or beckcenter.net.
GET STARTED ON YOUR CHRISTMAS HR SHOPPING!
Preserve those old Pr reels, slides & vhs tapes today!
Includes battery tery & installation n
* *1.5v only (G Gasket not included)
Fine Jewelry
Expires 11/30/13 Must present coupon
7023 Kingston Pike In the West Hills Center
584-3966
www.fostersjewelry.com
$15 OFF Entire Order Over $65
Bring your VHS, slides, Cannot be combined with any other discounts or offers. film and more into Coupon must be presented at time order is dropped off. Discount will the digital age.
not be applied to previous orders or orders that are being processed. Expires 10/26/13 SN102113
Audio & Video Conversion
686-5756
www.DigitizeItNow.com 12752 Kingston Pike, Renaissance Farragut, Ste 103, Bldg E