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IN THIS ISSUE
Standing at the foot of the largest white oak tree in Tennessee are Steve Roark of the Tennessee Division of Forestry; sisters Paula Holman and Lisa Gary, on whose Maynardville farm the tree is located; and Maynardville City Recorder Gina Singletary. Photos
By Cindy Taylor
Film shot in Union County unearthed A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer motion picture shot in Union County in the summer of 1972 and not seen publicly in decades will be shown as part of a new fi lm series 7-9 p.m. Friday, March 2, at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay St. in Knoxville. “The Lolly-Madonna War,” also known as “Lolly-Madonna XXX,” will be shown along with a Hal Roach short, “Southern Exposure” starring the now-forgotten comedian Charley Chase, the first in a new First Friday film series, “Treasures from the Vaults,” at the history center.
See Jake’s story on page 4
Our Union County Valentines These sweethearts hold a special place in Union County history. Their contributions to Union County are far too numerous to mention, but here are a few thoughts about them this love month. See Bonnie’s story on page 4
iCare Part IV During the past three weeks we have been looking at iCARe in Union County and the vision the coalition has for assisting youth who are at risk. This week, we interviewed a young woman whose life has been changed by people from Union County who learned of her trials and chose to help.
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See Cindy’s story on page 5
Index Business Community Bonnie Peters Lynn Hutton Marvin West Kids
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4509 Doris Circle 37918 (865) 922-4136 news@ShopperNewsNow.com ads@ShopperNewsNow.com EDITOR Cindy Taylor brentcindyt@gmail.com ADVERTISING SALES Brandi Davis davisb@ShopperNewsNow.com Shopper-News is a member of KNS Media Group, published weekly at 4509 Doris Circle, Knoxville, TN, and distributed to 11,000 homes in Union County.
Union County’s heritage isn’t limited to country music stars. It extends to the natural world as well, specifically the largest white oak in the state of Tennessee, located in Maynardville on Monroe Street. Now, the tree is the inspiration for a new logo for the city of Maynardville. On Feb. 3, Steven Roark of the Tennessee Division of Forestry measured the historic white oak for the first time in 10 years and declared it to still be the largest in the state at 267 inches around at breast height (4.5 feet above the ground), which is up from 258.2 inches in 2001. The tree is 97 feet tall with an average crown spread of 122 feet, an increase of 4 feet from 2001. According to Roark, to score the tree for this honor it gets 267 points for each inch of circumference, 97 points for each foot of height and 30 points for its crown spread ( 1/4 of average spread), for a total of 394 points. This is less than it scored in 2001 due to the slightly shorter height measurement, which could be because a branch broke. It is still the Champion White Oak in Tennessee. The present National Champion White Oak is located in Indiana with a score of 458 points. “We didn’t pay a lot of attention to the tree when we were kids,” said Lisa Gary, who coowns the property where the tree stands with her sisters, Paula Holman and Lori Rose. “We just knew this was a big tree. It kept us in the shade when we played ball under it.” The sisters say their greatgrandfather purchased the property in 1934 when he was moved from the Lost Creek area due to the impounding of Norris Lake. He passed it down to their grandparents, Troy and Rova Bridges, and it was later passed down to the three sisters. Roark also looked at the health of the tree and gave it a “fair” because of some large dead limbs on one side of the crown and what appeared to be some decay in the trunk. “It probably still has plenty of
Moncier: Goforth will appeal By Cindy Taylor With a 4-3 vote on all six counts brought against Goforth and after three hours of deliberation, the Union County school board voted to terminate suspended Director of Schools Wayne Goforth. Goforth’s attorney, Herb Moncier, then announced that Goforth would
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life left in it, though,” said Roark. “White Oaks are one of our longer lived trees and can reach 300 years. My best guess based on the average growth rate of white oaks and this tree’s location is the tree is somewhere around 200 years old.” During the winter season some of the beauty of the aged Oak is diminished, but it is still The new city of Maynardville logo features the historic white oak. majestic in its stance.
invoke his right to a hearing by an impartial state official “in a heartbeat.” By a unanimous vote and on the recommendation of attorney Mary Ann Stackhouse, the board elected to keep Goforth on suspension with pay until after the hearing and authorized her to work with Moncier toward selecting an impartial judge. According to Stack-
house, continuing in this vein will be expensive for the school. Stackhouse informed the board that the hearing process could be lengthy. She said the board needs to meet at least one more time after that to review the recommendations of the hearing officer. The board brought six charges against Goforth as grounds for his termination, including failure to solicit bids for the gym floor at Horace Maynard Middle School or for the computers and phones at Paulette Elementary School, leaving bad debts on school lunch charges unpaid, allowing
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by C. Taylor
School board terminates Goforth
UNION PAWN Union Square
February 11, 2012
A giant of a tree Maynardville white oak is largest in Tennessee
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expenditures to exceed the fund balance, writing checks with no money to cover them and misrepresenting the members of the school board in a letter that was sent home with students last September. Board members Danny Wayne Collins, David Coppock, Don Morgan and Billy Sexton voted that all charges were cause for termination. Voting against were Mark DeVault, Gerald Smith and Brian Oaks, with Oaks abstaining on the charge of misrepresenting the board in a letter. According to state law under the Department of Edu-
cation bad debts, including losses arising from uncollectable accounts, are not allowable. Due to this law, unpaid lunch charges cannot be absorbed by the school nutrition program but must be repaid to the program from other sources. The board charges that Goforth failed to follow this policy of repaying these charges at the end of the school year in which they are accrued and that the debt has still not been paid. According to Ensley a policy was passed by a Union County School Board more than 10 years ago agreeing To page A-3
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