VOL. 1 NO. 13
IN THIS ISSUE
A gift to Candoro
Employee photos of Candoro Marble Works from its active years have been presented to the Candoro Arts and Heritage Center. The photos were given to Candoro treasurer Michael Patrick last Wednesday by cousins David Green and Carlene Johnson. Green is the son of the late William Loy “Red” Green, who was a marble cutter who worked for Candoro for 30 years.
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Read Betsy Pickle on page 3
New officers for East businesses Excitement filled the room as business owners kicked around ideas for advertising promotions and customer bonus days. It is obvious that businesses in and around Knoxville Center mall are uniting, and the enthusiasm is contagious!
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Read Nancy Whittaker on page 7
Haslam held hostage Ron Ramsey’s going to put his big boot down on Gov. Bill Haslam. If Haslam’s thinking about bringing his long-awaited Tennessee Plan for Medicaid expansion to the General Assembly, Ramsey’s going to mess it up.
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See Betty Bean’s story on page 4
Branscom’s two jobs Christi Branscom seems to have settled easily into her job as chief operating officer and deputy to the mayor, replacing Eddie Mannis. She is visible in solving issues such as the initial foolish decision to change the camera lights at the entrance to Turkey Creek shopping which developer John Turley highlighted. She corrected the error.
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Read Victor Ashe on page 4
Myth or maybe We have been told this will be Cuonzo Martin’s best basketball team at Tennessee. That won’t take much. The previous two lost in the opening round of the NIT, at home, to Mercer and MTSU. Perhaps you have heard that three Volunteers, Jordan McRae, Jarnell Stokes and Jeronne Maymon, are allSoutheastern Conference types. One might even make all-America. Hope so.
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Read Marvin West on page 4
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November 11, 2013
South Waterfront ready to boom By Betty Bean
It’s not the biggest redevelopment project in the city’s history – the convention center and World’s Fair Park were bigger and so was the realignment of Neyland Drive – but the South Waterfront project, which will eventually stretch from the planned River’s Edge Apartments, a 134 luxury unit building on the east side of Suttree Landing Park behind South Knoxville Elementary School on Sevier Avenue, to a student apartment complex on a connecting greenway that ends at the Ft. Dickerson recreation area to the west, is plenty big enough. Knox County Commission and the Knoxville Community Development Corporation board have To page 5
Redevelopment director Bob Whetsel and deputy director Dawn Michelle Foster Photo by Betty Bean
Honoring those who served By Betsy Pickle From Facebook to City Hall to the nation’s capital, today will be filled with words of thanks and praise for veterans of the country’s military branches – as it should be. Inevitably, fewer of those feted will be veterans of World War II, members of what has become known as the “Greatest Generation.” Their numbers are dwindling, though their legacy continues. Two self-described “unimportant” veterans happen to live on adjoining streets in a quiet neighborhood in South Knoxville. George Buchanan was a bomber pilot in the Army Air Corps in the latter part of the war. Terry Howell was an electrician in the Navy whose mission really started after the war, when he served on a minesweeper in the Philippines. They have much in common, including the fact that they have lived in South Knoxville the bulk of their adult lives but were born and reared in western North Car-
olina. They are active, intelligent and humble, still quick to lend a hand to family, friends and their community – though reluctant to talk about themselves. “There were thousands of us going through the thing,” says Buchanan. “Nothing really to write about.” Buchanan had started his second year at Mars Hill Junior College when he volBuchanan unteered for the Army Air Corps in fall 1943. Basic training was in Miami Beach. “They had us in hotels they’d taken over,” says Buchanan. “It was something I’d never heard of before.” While Buchanan thought he was living in the lap of luxury, so did Howell. He went to basic training in Bainbridge, Md., in November 1944. “There were about 61 or 62 in my boot camp, and those guys
would gripe and fuss about everything,” said Howell. He found no cause to complain. “It was a racket – after being raised on the farm and getting up at 4 in the morning.” Howell was happy to be able to sleep in till 5 a.m. Buchanan says there were so many in the aviaHowell tion cadet program, “they didn’t know what to do with us.” He was sent to Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania to study math and calculus “till they got us all straightened out.” He did his basic training in the Southeast and eventually went to Montgomery, Ala., for B-24 training. “I wanted to fly a P-38, a singleengine fighter, but I got a B-24, a four-engine bomber,” he says. “It turned out to be a good plane.” Buchanan was stationed in Italy with the 460th Bomb Group with the 15th Air Force, 762nd
Mid-term report card: By Betty Bean Last week, Gloria Johnson put both her jobs on the block by inviting her fellow teachers to speak out about their grievances with Knox County Schools. As a state representative, she was handing her political opponents a potential opportunity to brand her ineffective, a troublemaker. As a lifelong educator, she was risking the ire of those who sign her paycheck. But her colleagues answered the call. Dozens of teachers attended a Monday night planning session. Most had never spoken publicly about their grievances, and many – but not all – were apprehensive about speaking out. Some asked a reporter not to use their names. But Johnson helped them screw up their courage and hone messages to present at the Wednesday night school board meeting. Some had gathered solid data; others presented first-hand accounts of how the system’s emphasis on endless high-stakes testing was impacting their students.
Gloria Johnson rallies the troops All spoke with conviction. The atmosphere was creative and collegial. They vowed to have each other’s backs, and they decided to wear red to symbolize their resolve. As good as the Monday meeting felt, Wednesday night would tell the tale. The 60 teachers at the planning session would be swallowed up in the large assembly room at the City County Building, which seats 310 people on the floor and another 136 in the balcony. If the teachers didn’t turn out in numbers, their concerns would be
dismissed and Johnson would become a statewide laughingstock. Tension rose that afternoon. But by the time board chair Lynne Fugate opened Wednesday’s meeting, almost every seat on the main floor and some 35 in the balcony were occupied, and almost everybody wore red. One by one, they presented their concerns, complaints and demands: A Spanish teacher talked about being asked to speak less Spanish during her evaluation because her evaluator didn’t speak the language. An elementary school teacher said her classroom is distracted so often by outsiders that students have asked why so many adult “stalkers” are in the room. A special education teacher said that forcing reading-disabled students to take written tests dooms them to failure (and probably violates federal law). Others spoke out about: ■ An unfair evaluation which includes 61 indicators on a rubric. ■ Students being taken out of
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Squadron from Nov. 1, 1944, to the end of the war. “Our crew, we didn’t get a scratch on us. We had some holes in our plane from shrapnel.” After four months of Navy training as an electrician, Howell was sent to the Pacific Theater, where he quickly was transferred to a “yard minesweeper.” “It was about a 150-foot-long wooden boat designed to sweep mines in the harbors,” says Howell. “The Japanese and the Germans used a lot of mines.” After 19 months in the service, Howell went into the reserves for a four-year stint. “One day before four years was up, I went back – when Korea came up,” he says. He was sent to Florida to reactivate the electrical equipment on ships that were in mothballs there. One of the first things Howell noticed in the Navy was that officers took meals in a nice dining room with tablecloths, while To page 3
Teachers – A Superintendent – Fail School board – Incomplete class to be coached for tests while missing instruction time. ■ Being called “human capital” by the administration (which boasts an actual position labeled Director of Human Capital Strategy). ■ Contacting the administration with specific problems and never getting a response. A few demanded that Superintendent Jim McIntyre be dismissed, and many applauded those demands. The presence of some 300 teachers put the lie to the claim that “most” teachers have warmed up to the atmosphere of evaluation and high-stakes testing. The teachers showed up, spoke out and made their points in a forceful, intelligent and courageous fashion. Teachers’ grade: A Afterwards, McIntyre gave a 9-minute interview during which he said it was great to hear from all those terrific teachers, although “we try to create opportunities for feedback all the time.” To page 5