VOL. 1 NO. 14
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In four days, it will be official – the South-Doyle Middle School outdoor classroom will be formally introduced by school and government officials in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, Nov. 22. But for 7th-grade science teacher Dave Gorman and South-Doyle students, especially the members of the Outdoor Classroom Club, it’s already a reality. They’ve been planning and planting and dreaming for months.
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Read Betsy Pickle on page 3
Road to recovery On Tuesday, Nov. 12, Knoxville’s City Council passed a resolution urging the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) to re-evaluate the functionality of the East Towne Area exit from I-640 (Exit 8). Forty years have passed and the road system has grown long in the tooth and, frankly, it’s a bit confusing to motorists.
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Read Nicky D. on page 7
Don’t count on politicians ... City elections produced the usual record low participation leaving one wondering why bother? This is not a new development. Every city election when the mayor is not running sees another record low turnout. This time it was serious. Fewer than 10 percent of registered voters voted. Every incumbent was returned and three did not even have an opponent. One opponent did not campaign.
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Read Victor Ashe on page 4
Live and on the air If you weren’t at the East Tennessee History Center on Nov. 1, you missed a heck of a historic show.
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See Jake Mabe’s story on page 5
Not about money If Bill Haslam, Jim McIntyre and Knox County school board members have heard what teachers are telling them, they know it’s not all about the money. Teachers have been slow to speak out, but it started with Halls Elementary School teacher Lauren Hopson, who addressed the school board in October about the pressures of endless cycles of student testing and teacher evaluation. Somebody put the speech online, and it went viral.
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Read Betty Bean on page 4
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November 18,, 2013
Welcome to Alice’s Garden
IN THIS ISSUE
Planting and dreaming
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By B Betsy etsy et sy P Pickle ickl ic kle e Ijams Nature Center just can’t escape its past – and that’s a good thing. But it also keeps looking forward, and that’s a great thing. Ijams officially opened Alice’s Greenhouse, a working and teaching space just up the hill from the main building, with several of Alice Yoe Ijams’ descendants in attendance: George Kern, Martha Kern, Stuart Ijams Cassell, Alexis Niceley and Josephine Ijams Niceley. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Nov. 9, Ijams senior naturalist Peg Beute noted that park manager Ed Yost and assistant park manager Ben Nanny managed to incorporate some of Alice Ijams’ own property into the greenhouse. “We were lucky enough to have the frames from Mrs. Ijams’ original greenhouse that George and his wife (Ellen) had saved for years in their barn,” said Beute. “Ed and Ben managed to figure out a design so we could incorporate those into the greenhouse.” Executive director Paul James told the crowd that the nature center leans on its history on purpose. “If there’s one thing that we’ve learned over the last several years it’s to look to the past to help us guide our future through the history and ongoing legacy of the Ijams family,” said James. The greenhouse certainly carries on that legacy. “Alice Ijams was really an extraordinary woman,” said James. “She was both the founder and leader of the Knox County Council of Garden Clubs and also the Knoxville Garden Club. She was a pioneering horticulturalist. “Many of our senior members … still talk about some of those days and how inspiring she was to them. They also remember Alice’s commercial greenhouses. “She was … a very respected teacher and a witty writer. And she was fanatical about plants and preserving wildflowers. So we intend to use this space just for that: to teach people of all ages to connect with the outdoors and learn how to grow a slice of it in their own backyards and gardens.” Beute said Ijams will be offering gardening classes at Alice’s Greenhouse.
Ellen Kern, George Kern, Martha Kern, Stuart Ijams Cassell and Alexis Niceley, holding Josephine Ijams Niceley, stand in front of Alice’s Greenhouse, which is partly constructed from 100-plusyear-old wood left from a greenhouse that belonged to their ancestor. Photo
by Betsy Pickle
“We’re going to be getting our hands dirty,” she said. Many volunteers have already done so – the greenhouse represents about 600 hours’ worth of volunteer work. The project was funded through a grant from the Alcoa Foundation. Two South Knoxville businesses played key roles in the design and construction. Rainwater Resources set up a 1,500-gallon rainwater-harvesting system to be used in watering plants in the greenhouse and the surrounding beds. Sustainable Future installed a 160-block solar panel to power the pump for the harvester. Ironically, the greenhouse is right next to two solar-power arrays that feed into the Green Power Switch grid and can’t be used for Ijams. Denis Rochat, president of Rainwater Resources, and David Bolt, founder of Sustainable Future, explained and demonstrated their devices. Rochat praised the Ijams team as being “visionary” for incorporating rainwater harvesting in the project. “This is the best water that exists for growing plants,” he said. Bolt echoed Rochat’s praise, noting that using a solar panel showed forward thinking. “It will provide decades of power to this rainwater harvester.”
Toms family, neighbors reach resolution By Betty Bean A contentious meeting in October over a Habitat for Humanity house to be built on Brooks Avenue was followed by a friendlier second neighborhood meeting in November. The second meeting at the Beck Cultural Center was far less contentious than the first meeting had been. Representatives of Habitat for Humanity and the Metropolitan Planning Commission attended at the request of City Council member Nick Della Volpe. “It went 95 percent better than the other one,” said homeowner Tammy Toms. “In fact, we started building last Saturday.”
She and her husband, Anthony, hope to move in by the end of January. The house will take longer to complete than the usual Habitat project because of the holidays. Anthony’s father, William Toms, a master brick mason who taught building trades at Austin-East for 24 years, plans to brick the house before they move in. Neighbors had complained at an earlier meeting about lack of notice from Habitat for Humanity and concern about the new home matching community design standards. The home complies with all zoning requirements.
RAM film premiere is Thursday By Jake Mabe Remote Area Medical and its founder Stan Brock are known worldwide for bringing medical aid to individuals far removed from it, logistically, financially or both. Brock, familiar to TV audiences for his work on “Wild Kingdom,” says he was inspired to found RAM in 1985, after being injured by wild horses as a teen in Guyana, South America. “The nearest doctor was 26 days away by foot,” he says. A new documentary film on the Knoxville-based nonprofit premieres 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21, at the Tennessee Theatre. Admission to the screening is free. “We had nothing to do with (the film),” Brock says. “It’s shot from the patient’s point of view and is very tastefully done. “You get to see what people like Chris do,” he says, pointing to
medical director Dr. Chris Sawyer. “There’s nothing political about it. It’s about poverty in America, particularly in rural Appalachia.” The documentary was filmed at a RAM event at Bristol Motor Speedway two years ago. “People line up for 10 or 20 hours to get a ticket (to be seen by a doctor). People are camped out in the parking lot, sleeping in cars. It’s grim. And whether we’re in Los Angeles or Wise County, Va., or Knoxville, it’s the same. We hear the same complaints.” Sawyer, a prominent Knoxville physician, says the most important thing RAM does is provide optical and dental care. “People who have lived with a sore tooth for a year or two and it’s throbbing. Most (dentists) want money up front, so most of these people wait for a RAM event. They’ll drive for hours just to get a tooth pulled.”
Sawyer became involved with RAM in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “I had been on missions in the Amazon six times, to Chile, to Brazil and after Katrina, my wife (Betty) said, ‘What are you going to do? You go and help all these people and you can’t help your own?’ In about five seconds, I knew who to call,” he said, pointing to Brock. Brock says the film is produced and directed by Jeff Reichert and his wife, Farihah Zaman. It has been wellreceived by audiences at various film festivals and is getting
Remote Area Medical founder Stan Brock and Dr. Chris Sawyer participate in a conference call with Rene Steinhower, who is organizing a medical relief effort in the Philippines. Photo by Jake Mabe
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