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Jake, Marvin, Lynn, Bob, oh my!
PTO honors computer lab donors
SEE PAGES A-6 and A-7
SCHOOLS, A-12
HALLS/FOUNTAIN CITY
Vol. 50, No. 6 • February 7, 2011 • www.ShopperNewsNow.com • 4509 Doris Circle, Knoxville 37918 • 922-4136
AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD ‘Barbarosa’ coming to Bijou
Changing of the guard
Go! Contemporary Dance Works invites the community to “The Barbarosa,” 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 12, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 13, at the Bijou Theatre. Tickets are $21.50 ($16.50 for students/seniors) in advance; By Betty Bean $26.50/$21.50 at the door. The official story is that CenInfo: Studio Arts, 539-2475; tral High School football coach box office, 684-1200; or www. Joel Helton has retired from gocontemporarydance.com/. coaching because of his longterm health problems and volunAARP driver tarily submitted his resignation. He will be assigned to teach at safety class Farragut High School. Helton For registration info about was suspended with pay Nov. 12. this and all other AARP driver A press release from Superintensafety classes, call Barbara dent Dr. James McIntyre the folManis, 922-5648. lowing Monday said he had been ■ Monday and Tuesday, accused of intimidating a student Feb. 7-8, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Cedar with a stick. Springs Presbyterian Church, His daughter, Alison, says nei9132 Kingston Pike. ther the allegation nor the “official ■ Thursday and Friday, Feb. story” is true. 17-18, noon to 4 p.m., Halls SeIn an account given exclusively nior Center, 4410 Crippen Road. to the Shopper-News, Alison Helton tells her father’s story for the ■ Thursday and Friday, Feb. first time. (Her account is published 17-18, noon to 4 p.m., Sevier in full at www.ShopperNewsNow. County Senior Center, 1220 W. com/.) Main St., Sevierville. Alison, 24, a graduate of Cen■ Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 21-22, 12:30 to 4:30 p.m., Church tral High School, said her dad is Street United Methodist Church, a victim of age discrimination and his unwillingness to pass un900 Church St. deserving students just to keep Grants for nonprofits up the school’s graduation rate. To assign him to another school The city of Knoxville is to teach while restricting him accepting applications from from coaching is unfair, she said. nonprofit organizations for “Clearly they do not believe he is a city community agency grants. terror to students or they wouldn’t Deadline to apply is 5 p.m. put him back into a school.” Friday, Feb. 18. Organizations Helton will “not be considered applying must operate within for future coaching positions with the city of Knoxville and must Knox County Schools,” McIntyre have been in operation for at wrote in a reprimand dated Feb. 3. least five years. The long-time coach will be Priority in awarding the allowed to say good-bye to his grants will be given to proposals football players in a meeting to that contribute to the goals and be organized by school princimission of the city of Knoxville. pal Danny Trent. McIntyre said Info: www.cityofknoxville.org/ the original allegation was not citygrants/ or contact Cathy proven, and a charge that Helton Chesney, 215-2831 or e-mail maintained a football account in cchesney@cityofknoxville.org. violation of school board policy
Joel Helton out as Central football coach
Joel Helton with his daughter, Alison, at the Joel Helton Field at Central High. Helton has resigned as head coach and will teach at Farragut. Alison’s defense of her dad is published at www.ShopperNewsNow.com/. Photo submitted
“Clearly they do not believe he is a terror to students or they wouldn’t put him back into a school.” was proven, although “there is no reason to believe you misappropriated funds.” Helton’s undoing was charges that he had hit football players with a stick. Helton’s attorney wrote that “Coach Helton continues to deny that he at any time maliciously struck any child.” Lawyer James A.H. Bell responded to McIntyre’s reprimand. Both letters were made available to media late Friday. Bell said the charges of hitting football players were made by individuals with self-serving motivation; by members of the staff who want Helton’s job as head coach.
Alison Helton believes her father, who is 62, is a victim of age discrimination and has been deprived of his constitutional rights. She is angry that the locks to the fieldhouse and even the Joel Helton Field were changed immediately after Helton’s suspension. His personal belongings were locked inside and he was never allowed an opportunity to retrieve such things such as clothes, medications, heart monitors and blood glucose checkers. Alison says that the day Joel was suspended was one of the worst in her life. She called her mom who said, “Your Dad has been suspended, he will probably lose his job.” Alison was in shock. “Everything I knew in my 24 years of existence was wrapped around Central High School. How on earth could this be possible?” “Well, they said he hit a girl with a stick,” her mom said. As to the maneuvering to re-
place Helton as head coach, Alison said assistant principal Charles Sheets forced her father to hire an assistant coach, Jason Phillips, at the beginning of the season. She believes Phillips has been promised the head coaching job. Last Thursday, this newspaper asked Superintendent McIntyre in writing: To what school will Joel Helton be assigned and when? Why is Helton worthy to teach but not to coach? Is there substance to the charge about pressure to give nonperformers a passing grade? What is the process for filling his coaching position? Spokesperson Melissa Copelan said a visit to the Andrew Johnson office building at 3 p.m. Friday to review Helton’s personnel file would provide answers to these questions. The visit and review did not. We will continue to pursue the answers.
Donna Young drives greenway expansion By Betty Bean When Donna Young came to Knoxville in 1994, the city had fewer than five miles of greenways. This year, as she prepares to retire as greenways coordinator, Knoxville boasts 50 miles of trails, all of which are paved except the one down the middle of Cherokee Boulevard. Young has met and exceeded all but one of her ambitious goals. Her vaulting aspirations are limitless and unquenchable and stretch like the trail she hopes will one day run from here to the Smokies and beyond. When asked to name her proudest achievement, she thinks a quick minute and then answers with no hesitation: “My two goals when I started the job, and they were arbitrary, were to complete 50 miles of greenways and to create connections. The Project for Public
Spaces says there’s only one city, and that’s in Colorado, that started with parks in disparate places and worked from the outside-in, like we have done.” Will Skelton credits Young with being “the consistent face of greenways development in the city. If you met her in a grocery store, she would start talking to you about greenways. She was also really good at the visionary thing – the best example of that is the Forks of the River to Ijams Wildlife Management Center. She suggested that and Bo Townsend, the director, agreed that we could go through Ijams. That happened because of her. Donna’s been a real credit to the city and greenway development.” Young worked closely with former mayor Victor Ashe, whose parks and recreation chief Sam Anderson hired her. Ashe is proud Donna Young volunteers at Knoxville Green’s free bulb giveaway. Photo by S. Clark of her successes. Enjoy a full body Spa ls ROYALhotSPOIL stone massage, exfoliating a i and purifying masque Spec $100 treatment to your hands and feet.
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“I may be the only Republican Donna ever placed a bumper sticker for and I love her for it. She is dedicated. She is passionate. She lives, eats and breathes greenways. She could drive some city higher-ups nuts in the pursuit of more greenways, but I was always thankful she was there and worked hard each day to make my vision of connecting greenways across Knoxville a reality.” When asked if she has a biggest failure, Young doesn’t hesitate: “Fort Dickerson. I’m still sad that we couldn’t put a greenway around that beautiful park. We spent more money dynamiting the back of the Gateway Center (in the city-owned space near Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse), where they put in fake rock. I hate fake rock.” To page A-3
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