VOL. 8 NO. 50 NEIGHBORHOOD BUZZ IN THIS ISSUE
Lights fantastic at Chilhowee Park
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December 17, 2014
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A home for the holidays
Take a minute to tour Chilhowee Park after dark to see a forest of lighted trees floating on the lake. You never leave your car. The exhibit will continue until Jan. 1. It’s sponsored by Xfinity, WVLT Channel 8, Knoxville News Sentinel, 93.1 WNOX, Krispy Kreme, Cheerwine, and The Muse Knoxville.
Tour de Lights On Friday, Dec. 19, bring a bike to Market Square to enjoy Tour de Lights – a fun, free, casual 5-mile bike ride that starts from Market Square and tours downtown, 4th and Gill and Old North Knoxville. Ride starts at 7 p.m. but judging begins at 6 p.m. and prizes are awarded after the ride in several categories, including Best-Decorated Bike, Best Decorated Person, and Best Group Theme. Mast General Store and Three Rivers Market will provide hot cocoa and cookies for participants. Helmets, white front light, and red rear reflector are required and all ages and skill levels are welcome. Info at www.knoxtrans.org/.
Legacy Parks lists outdoor adventures Join your friends for some outdoor activities. In addition to Tour de Lights, Trek South is sponsoring a Fort Dickerson Hike at 1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 21, at the Augusta Street entrance. Walk around Concord Park to see the Knox County Festival of Lights, running from 6-9 p.m. through Dec. 30. It’s sponsored by the county’s Parks and Recreation Department. Come for a bike ride Saturday, Dec. 27, at 9 a.m. as the Knoxville Bicycle Company sponsors the Saturday Dam Road Ride. Meet at 10657 Hardin Valley Road.
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P.E. is not for all
If you like your ShopperNews, you might also enjoy the other seven papers we produce weekly for Knox and Union counties. Each paper contains unique writing. Where to look? Go online to www. ShopperNewsNow.com/. We post each Tuesday at 6 p.m. This week’s Union County edition, for instance, has a story from Ronnie Mincey about his time in high school physical education: P.E. to Ronnie meant “personal embarrassment.”
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Cynthia and Ron Branch enjoy decorating their house for the holidays. Photos by S. Barrett
By Sara Barrett “When I was a kid, decorating for Christmas was a family thing,” says holiday enthusiast Cynthia Branch. “We would fi x popcorn and put up the tree together. Dad would repair any lights that had gone out, and I always wanted to watch. Then I got good at it, and I wanted to be the one to fi x it.” Now, Branch and her husband, Ron, carry on the tradition in a really big way. The Branch residence, 929 Oak Haven Road in the Crest Haven subdivision, beckons folks to cel-
ebrate the season with thousands of multicolored, twinkling lights covering the yard, trees and anything else on the property including silly animals and Christmas characters. A bright blue and purple peacock stands gracefully by the curb while Geoffrey the giraffe and Garfield hold lights as if they’re decorating a nearby tree. “She’s the artist,” says Ron. “I just provide the technical help.” His work as an electrical engineer comes in handy. Even while they were dating, Cynthia asked to decorate Ron’s
condo. “I just brought the penguins over and set them up in his yard,” says Cynthia. “If you’ve got penguins in your yard, you’ve got a girlfriend,” says Ron. Cynthia begins setting up their nine indoor Christmas trees the week before Thanksgiving. Each one is different, but the standout is a 7.5-foot-tall rotating tree that has both colored and white lights, depending on your mood. “I try to be good and wait on the outside decorations until the day after Thanksgiving,” says Cynthia,
but she says it is hard when she watches TV shows about extreme Christmas decorating and people who start months in advance. Her goal is to be on one of those shows someday. New for the Branches this year is a video loop of Santa that plays from an upstairs window. He appears to be working in the room setting out toys and checking his list of Naughty and Nice. An outdoor film projector has also just arrived from Germany, allowing
Trees by the numbers By Betsy Pickle The city of Knoxville’s urban forester, Kasey Krouse, held the floor for the lion’s share of the December Tree Board meeting. Reporting on the activities of the Urban Forestry Division in 2014 during the meeting at Ijams Nature Center, Krouse shared some impressive numbers. As of mid-November, Urban Forestry had: ■ Removed 726 trees –
381 high-risk tree removals and 345 trees downed by storms ■ Pruned 1,407 trees and picked up 1.5 million pounds of brush ■ Planted more than 600 trees from the 201314 planting contract ■ Watered 2,141 trees during the 2014 growing season ■ Inventoried more than 5,000 trees ■ Developed and exe- Joanne Logan and Louise Gorenflo visit the Knoxville Tree cuted a plan to save the six Board. Photo by Betsy Pickle
Midway on back burner By Betty Bean This fall, the Knox County Development Corporation (TDC) loaded a bunch of county officials and business leaders onto a bus and took them on a tour of four of the county’s eight industrial/business parks. WestBridge, Hardin, Eastbridge and the Pellissippi Corporate Center were on the itinerary. Midway Road wasn’t. Nor was it included in an industrial land inventory conducted earlier in the year by TDC and the Knoxville Chamber, an odd omission in light of the nearly 20-year battle that has been waged over the county-owned parcel at the Midway Road intersection of I-40. The Development Corporation has been
desperately seeking a large parcel of developable land; residents of Thorn Grove and Mike Edwards surrounding communities have fought to preserve the area’s rural character. Chamber CEO Mike Edwards, a major player in the last round of negotiations (in 2010), said he’s no longer directly involved (the chamber has spun off TDC to become a stand-alone body) but said although Midway hasn’t been part of recent discussions, it’s now more developable because TVA has installed “a
big, huge transfer station” on the parcel and KUB also has built a substation there. “We weren’t crazy about TVA wanting to flop its footprint on Midway, but it was an easement they’d owned for a long, long time. So now the utilities are out there, and I think a sewer system is in place, too.” Elaine Clark, president of the French Broad Preservation Association, is reluctant to talk about Midway (perhaps observing the “don’t trouble trouble till trouble troubles you” admonition), except for expressing some skepticism of Edwards’ claim about the availability of sewer for the park site, which she described as “a two-acre drip field.” She said she’d like to
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see the task force county Mayor Tim Burchett put together early in his first term under the leadership of former tourism head Gloria Ray resurrected. (The task force dissolved in 2012 when Ray resigned as CEO of the Sports and Tourism Corp.) “We were making real progress,” Clark said. “That’s something that should be revived.” Todd Napier, CEO of TDC, said there was no reason to include Midway on the bus tour, which they were trying to conduct in four hours. He said there’s really nothing to see on the parcel, which is now on the books as a $6.4 million investment, down from the original $10 million after the write-down of the TVA acquisition. Midway is in Com-
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sawtooth oaks on Market Square The Urban Forestry Division ensures proper planting and maintenance of public trees. It is responsible for more than 20,000 public trees in maintained areas and hundreds of thousands of other trees in natural areas and along city rights-of-way. Krouse has been working to simplify and revise the city’s tree policies. He expects to present a final
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missioner Dave Wright’s Eighth District. He’s also on TDC board and was interviewed just hours after its December meeting. He said he had “the latest, greatest, most breaking news” about what’s going on with Midway. “Nothing. “But it’s going to be something someday. We’ve got kids graduating from Carter and the Career Magnet Academy who’ll be looking for a job. I’d rather see them on the Midway Road exit as opposed to Hardin Valley.” Bill Emmert, whose back porch is a stone’s throw from the boundary of the proposed business park, said neighbors remain vigilant. “It’s as quiet as a mouse, but I’m sure they’re doing something,” he said. “We’re watching.”