SOUTH KNOX VOL. 2 NO. 31 1
IN THIS ISSUE
Preservation, anyone?
If anyone ever doubted that people in Knoxville care about preserving the city’s history, they should have been at the East Tennessee History Center last Tuesday.
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Read Betsy Pickle on page 3
Bean’s election predictions “This time next week, Stacey Campfield’s going to be cleaning out his Nashville office. He and Steve “Extra Crispy” Hall can discuss their future plans on the way back to Knoxville because Hall’s going to lose his primary, too.” Ouch! Betty Bean’s not mincing words with her predictions for Aug. 7.
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Read Betty Bean on page 4
A-B-C’s of politics Have you got what it takes to run for office? Larry Van Guilder tells you the A-B-C’s: “For your supporters: Always Bring Cash. “Let’s recap. Be a man, raise the voting bar, get a family, off with their heads, guard the border and cash is king. See you in Nashville!
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Read Van Guilder on page 5
Food fight rages August is a good month on the Cumberland Avenue Strip. Anticipation of the influx of student consumers that fall semester at the University of Tennessee will bring starts to build and hits a high point with the first home football game (this year, Aug. 31). But as the Shopper-News reported last week, the runup to the new school year is off to something less than a Big Orange high note for 10 Cumberland District business owners and managers.
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Read the latest on page 8
Interns finish Shopper-News interns finished the summer with a picnic at Oakes Daylilies. They will start high school next week, but on this day they were still kids.
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Read the recap on pages 8-9
NEIGHBORHOOD BUZZ
Tea & Treasures Tea & Treasures’ 2nd Saturday Marketplace will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 9, at 4104 W. Martin Mill Pike. Vendor booths include arts and crafts, antiques, plants, books, food and music.
7049 Maynardville Pike 37918 (865) 922-4136 NEWS news@ShopperNewsNow.com Sandra Clark | Betsy Pickle ADVERTISING SALES ads@ShopperNewsNow.com Shannon Carey Jim Brannon | Tony Cranmore Patty Fecco | Wendy O’Dell
www.ShopperNewsNow.com |
August July 29, 6, 2013 2014
www.facebook.com/ShopperNewsNow
Hann takes on new role with greenways commission By Betsy Pickle As the new chair of the Knoxville Greenways Commission, Brian Hann sees connections as top priority. “There are just a lot of missing links, and I think it behooves us as a city to connect those missing links and allow for more mobility,” says Hann, known for his achievements as president of the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club. “Reaching from the center city outward is where I would like to see the focus and just start moving with the connections that are missing from the center out.” Overall, Knoxville has done well on the greenways front, but progress has come in fits and starts, says Hann. The city’s first greenway, Third Creek Greenway, was created in 1973. After a long lag, there was a growth spurt in the 1990s, when Mayor Victor Ashe created the Knoxville Greenways Commission with Will Skelton as chair. In recent years, there has been a slowdown in greenway expansion, likely due to the economy, Hann believes. Mayor Madeline Rogero resurrected the commission, and South Knoxvillian Hann will lead his first meeting as chair at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 12, at the Larry Cox Senior Center, 3109 Ocoee Trail.
There By Cindy Taylor
Brian Hann at his office just east of the Old City Photo by Betsy Pickle The commission meets on the second Tuesday every other month. Lori Goerlich, the city’s parks and greenways coordinator, has been the de facto chairas the group has been getting reorganized. Hann notes that the approach to greenway development has changed over time. “The requirements for greenways became connected with road projects, (and) anytime there’s a road project that involves federal dollars, things are inherently going to slow down,” he says. “There was a period of time
when (a greenway) was just a trail through some ground and paved over in asphalt, and that’s easy. But when they’re connected with road projects, that gets difficult. I think during my time on the commission I’m going to try and look to find quicker, cheaper ways of continuing greenway progress or to start it back up.” Hann’s interest in greenways is an extension of his love of cycling, which started when he was 4 years old. He grew up in Cincinnati and moved to Knoxville to at-
is a free lunch!
Eight of the nine South Knox schools will be among 52 schools countywide to serve free breakfast and lunch to all students this year. One principal estimated a savings of $720 per child per year for families who otherwise would buy both meals each day. Qualifying schools on the South side are: Dogwood, Gap Creek, Mooreland Heights, Mount Olive, New Hopewell, South-Doyle Mid-
dle and High schools and South Knoxville Elementary. Community Eligibility Provision will enable schools to serve breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students, eliminating the need for schools to collect paper applications. There are no qualifiers for students who attend a qualified school, regardless of income. “CEP is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which provides criteria to assess which
tend the University of Tennessee. After graduating in 1998 with a degree in ornamental horticulture and landscape design, he worked as a landscaper for a company in West Knoxville. “I loved the people I worked for, but we were landscaping urban sprawl, basically, and I just couldn’t do it anymore,” he says. “I couldn’t put another boxwood in front of a brick, two-story house.” Hann’s girlfriend at the time To page 3
(and breakfast, too)
schools qualify,” said Jon Dickl, executive director of school nutrition for Knox County Schools. “Through this federally funded program, all students in the qualifying schools receive meals at no charge.” CEP is a nationwide program for the 2014-15 school year. Schools and nutrition advocates will work together to implement this provision. The program will help schools reduce administra-
tive costs related to collecting and processing applications and tracking students based on mealeligibility status. Another benefit is that schools will no longer have to collect payments or use swipe cards during meal service. To take advantage of the breakfast, students will need to be in their seats no later than 7:30 a.m., as the meal will be served in the classrooms. Lunch will be served in the cafeteria as usual.
Reinstated teacher hopes for new beginning By Betty Bean They called him “Big Rich” when he was an All-American basketball player at Maryville College, and Richard Suttle, who stands 6-7, remembers those years as the happiest of his life. Now that he’s won back his job with Knox County Schools, he’s ready to turn the page on his worst year and is looking forward to going back to simply being called “teacher.” Suttle believes he has been publicly labeled a bad teacher, despite hearing officer H. Scott Ream’s reversal of Superintendent James McIntyre’s decision to fire him. Ream was scathing in his criticism of the McIntyre administration for pursuing a tenure revocation and made a point of complimenting Suttle’s ability to explain basic algebra in a way math-phobic students could understand. Last week, he got his first paycheck in 10 months – a year’s salary minus a 90-day suspen-
Richard Suttle breaks down TVAAS. Photo by Betty Bean
sion without pay (a punishment he doesn’t believe is deserved), and he is relieved to end a year of stress and financial hardship. But here is some of what he believes has been lost in the discussion: He taught repeaters at Gibbs High School – sophomores, juniors and even seniors who had failed freshman algebra, sometimes
more than once. Often, these students became so frustrated with standardized tests that they gave up trying to answer questions and bubbled in answers in haphazard fashion, just to get through them. Administrators argue that these are the students with the potential to show the most improvement, which Suttle says ignores the realities of kids who may be dealing with family crises, financial, health or relationship trouble, or simply the frustration of not “getting” math anymore. “I was told by my numeracy coach, ‘If you have a class of 20, and three of them don’t try and just ‘Christmas tree’ the answer sheet, there’s no way to recover from that,’ ” Suttle said. Simply put, Suttle’s argument is a direct challenge to the system of teacher evaluation now in use.
The early years
gut High School’s class of 1976, the last graduating class at the “old” high school. He didn’t play team sports but always loved basketball and played recreationally every chance he got, especially after he went on to the University of Tennessee. He was playing a pickup game when he caught the eye of coach Tom Deaton during the summer after his freshman year. Deaton, who coached at Bearden High School and also assisted UT coach Don DeVoe, offered Suttle the opportunity to walk on at UT, but before he made a decision, he heard from Maryville College head basketball coach Rick Byrd (now at Belmont), who invited him out to the school and offered him a place on the team. By fall, he was enrolled at Maryville College, majoring in physical education, minoring in math and thriving on the basketball
Suttle was a member of Farra-
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