South Knox Shopper-News 111214

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SOUTH KNOX VOL. 2 NO. 45 1

IN THIS ISSUE

Lake Forest on the move

City of Knoxville construction department employees made short work of moving the newly engraved, five-ton Lake Forest sign from Mead’s Quarry to the corner of Chapman Highway and East Lake Forest Drive last week.

Read Betsy Pickle on page 3

New nest for West Marvin West has a new home in Shopper-News. Look for his column each week on pages 4-5. This week he talks about Kentucky: “Kentucky, brave and daring, sends word that it will show up Saturday at Neyland Stadium. “The Wildcats have seen the Joshua Dobbs Show. ... They know how hard A.J. Johnson hits and what Derek Barnett does to those he catches. “The Big Blue seems unaffected, totally resistive to intimidation. There has been no mention of opting out.”

Read Marvin West on page 4

Aubrey’s grilled salmon tacos Our mystery diner has discovered a rare treat: “When I first heard of “fish tacos,” I was confused. Being “a little bit country,” I couldn’t see stuffing bits of fried catfish into a hard taco shell and covering them with lettuce, tomatoes and cheese.

Physical therapist and athletic trainer Teresa Johnston opened Foothills Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine Center in 1992. Johnston wanted to offer the people of South Knoxville and the downtown area a freestanding and diversified clinic not associated with any one doctor. Located across the street from Krystal at 4011 Chapman Highway, Suite J, the clinic is only 1.5 miles south of downtown. Read Nancy Whittaker on page 9

Magnet schools From the strong communications program at Fulton to the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) program at Vine Middle to the DanceWorks program at Beaumont Magnet Academy, magnet schools are attracting a wide range of students.

Read Ruth White on page 8

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Shared victories By Betsy Pickle

He may be the most popular person in South Knoxville right now, but Clark Duncan is modest to the core. The head football coach at South-Doyle High School, Duncan is all about the 100 student-athletes on the roster, the 10 assistant coaches, the student body, faculty and administration of SouthDoyle and the entire South Knoxville community – not himself. “We’ve got great kids; we’ve got excellent teachers,” says Duncan. “We’re all on the same page working hard for the same common goal: for our kids to be successful. We preach that on a daily basis.” In his sixth season as Cherokees head coach, Duncan and the team have achieved success big time. For the first time in school history, they finished 10-0 in regular-season play. The first round of playoffs pitted South-Doyle against Gibbs last Friday, with the Cherokees winning 32-21. They will play Campbell County at 7 p.m. this Friday at home. Duncan’s career at South-Doyle got off to a rocky start. The team lost every game his first season and all but one his second, for a 1-19 record. Gradually, things began to improve, and this year seemed primed to bring a lot of wins. “Going into the season, we really felt very optimistic,” he says on the eve of a pep rally designed

November July 12, 29, 2013 2014

Duncan gives props to team, community

those things and worked hard, we knew that we had a chance to be successful.” Duncan didn’t expect perfection, but “everybody dreams of that undefeated season,” he says. “Whether you win all of them or not, that’s just a plus. We had a goal, and that was to get to the playoffs, hopefully have the homefield advantage, ideally a (No.) 1 seed, like we are, and that way we would host several games if we could stay alive in the playoffs.” A native of Erwin, in Unicoi County, Duncan came to Knoxville to play football for the University of Tennessee. After graduating, he taught and was an assistant coach at Fulton High School for five years. He then went to Powell High as head coach and stayed 17 years. “Winning football games is not about winning football games,” he says. “It’s about Friday night when your community can come together and cheer for each other and pull for each other, and then when good things happen it just bleeds over into the school.” While the school and community have rightly shown pride in Principal Tim Berry and head football coach Clark Duncan get fired up at last the 10-0 season, Duncan says the Thursday’s South-Doyle High pep rally. Photo by Betsy Pickle team isn’t thinking about that. “The sense of accomplishment to unite the community before the coming into the season that we is gone; we’re focusing on what we’re doing now,” he says. “If you playoffs. “We have a lot of seniors had a lot of experience. that have been with us since they “But we also knew that we ask our players when do we enjoy were freshmen. The majority of needed to make some growth in football season, the answer is ‘in them actually started since they areas and remain injury free as January.’ Right now, there’s just were sophomores, so we knew much as possible, and if we did too much work at hand.”

McIntyre gets a mentor

Read “Plate It” on page 7

Foothills PT

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By Betty Bean At the tag end of the superintendent’s report during the November school board workshop, James McIntyre announced that Rod Paige, who served as Secretary of Education under George W. Bush, is his new mentor. “The former U.S. Secretary of Education was here in Knoxville last Friday, and I had the privilege of spending a few hours with him,” McIntyre said. “I’d been introduced to him through one of my professional networks, and he’s agreed to serve as sort of an informal mentor and executive coach for me. I believe his insights and wisdom will be pretty valuable to my continued professional growth … This is a great opportunity for me, and I’m pretty excited about that.”

Analysis There is no cost to Knox County Schools. “Dr. McIntyre and Dr. Paige were connected by the Broad Center, and it is our understanding that they will cover the expenses of Dr. Paige’s engagement,” Melissa Ogden, KCS director of public affairs, said in response to a question. Teachers in the audience, who were stripped of tenure and collective-bargaining rights and left with something called PECCA (Professional Educators Collaborative Conferencing Act) by the state Legislature in 2011, should be forgiven if they don’t share his enthusiasm.

Rod Paige and James McIntyre

Photo

from KCS Twitter

PECCA required the school board to meet with teachers’ representatives to discuss a limited list of matters including salaries, benefits, insurance and leave. The board delegated its powers to McIntyre, who was in no hurry to comply with this toothless law, and KCS failed to reach an agreement with the weakened Knox County Education Association by Nov. 1, leaving teachers without

even the weak protections afforded by the new law. So what does that have to do with McIntyre’s new mentor? This: To say that the 81-year-old Paige is not a proponent of teachers’ rights is like saying Babe Ruth was a pretty fair hitter. One of his best-known pronouncements was to brand the country’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, “a terrorist organization.” Prior to landing the job with the Bush administration, Paige (who is part of the “executive” faculty of the Broad Center for Superintendents) served as superintendent of the Houston Independent School District for eight years and boasted a too-good-to-be-true record of improved student achievement in inner-city high schools, featuring sky-high graduation rates and dropout rates of nearly zero. One of the ways he achieved this unbelievable result was to do

away with tenure for principals and put them on one-year contracts that could be terminated without cause if they failed, or to reward them with lavish bonuses if they succeeded. The result? A whole lot of cheating, uncovered after Paige was long gone. KCEA president Tanya T. Coats was in the audience when McIntyre announced that Paige would be mentoring him. At the end of the meeting, she protested that the administration is misinterpreting the rules governing the selection of the teachers’ bargaining agent by attempting to reopen the process to give other organizations a second chance to apply since KCEA was the only applicant that has complied with the terms set by the Legislature. McIntyre smiled and said he’d be looking into that. Teachers better hope he isn’t calling Rod Paige for advice.

Ijams opens pet welcome station Ijams Nature Center, complete with over 12 miles of trails, is a great greenspace for walking pets. Now, with the support of PetSafe, a new pet welcome station will provide enhanced enjoyment for the furry park visitors. Ijams and PetSafe invite visitors and their special pets to a grand opening at 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, at the Visitor Center Plaza. A number of community pet partners will attend, including

Small Breed Rescue with little pups who will be up for adoption. The Pet Welcome Station is part of a series of improvements Ijams has made in 2014 to enhance visitor orientation and enjoyment on the Visitor Center Plaza. Recent additions also include wildlife interpretation, information kiosks and custom-designed art installations by local artisans. The Pet Welcome Station features a handy water fountain as well as hitching posts to secure

dogs while visitors step into the Visitor Center for a trail map or a quick snack. Funding has been provided by PetSafe, the largest manufacturer of electronic pet training products in the U.S. PetSafe is committed to helping Knoxville become the most pet-friendly city in America. Ijams Nature Center is a 300acre urban greenspace encouraging stewardship of the natural world by providing engaging outdoor experiences.

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