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VOL. 7 NO. 14
IN THIS ISSUE
April 7, 2012
and growing
Happy Easter! ➤
See our Easter greetings on page 4
Cleanup!
Hundreds of volunteers spent March 31 joining in the Norris Lake and Tennessee River Rescue. More than 100 volunteers participated in Union County alone.
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See Cindy’s story on page 3
Historic Sexton store
The Jack and Amy Sexton home and store – the house is still standing – is important to Union County history for many reasons. First, the country stores were not only important for local people, most of whom did not have cars until about the end of World War II, but the stores, schools and churches were the community centers of bygone days.
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See Bonnie’s story on page 5
Pick your chick
Once again, more than 60 0 new residents have come to Union County. As in years past, they are cute and cuddly and mostly yellow. The 3-day-old chicks were shipped to the Maynardville post office and picked up by April Adams, the newest employee at the Union County Extension Office. The chicks were held at the office in boxes under heat lamps in wait for 4-H’ers to come and take them to their new homes.
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See Cindy’s story on page 6
Union County High School sophomores Dylan Berry and Dillon Cardwell tend the greenhouse plants in preparation for the opening day of plant sales. Photo by C. Taylor
Plant sales open at high school
Agriculture students Dylan Berry and Dillon Cardwell, along with their classmates, helped grow and tend the plants. Container gardens with succulent plants By Cindy Taylor are a hot topic and are being offered this year Union County High School’s greenhouse is for the first time. open for business. “There are seven to nine plants in each April 2 marked an exciting day, when the container,” said teacher Linda Baxter. “These public was welcomed to purchase quality or- are easy to grow and were designed by the ganic bedding plants, hanging baskets and students themselves, so each pot is different.” Everything is started by students from even succulent containers at the greenhouse.
seeds or cuttings, and no pesticides are used on the plants by the students. Students handle all sales and customer questions. Inventory includes bedding plants, container gardens, tomatoes, peppers, annuals and perennials. Other plants will be added as the season progresses. The greenhouse accepts cash or checks. It is open during school hours and will be open 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays, April 14 through May 19.
School budget balanced, for now
Index Business Community Bonnie Peters Kids
2 3 5 6-7
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.
By Cindy Taylor The Union County Board of Education passed a so-called balanced preliminary budget for 2012-2013 during a special called meeting April 2. Temporary Director of Schools Jimmy Carter said that there were many lines in the budget that he had not reviewed due to lack of time, and he said they may increase. Carter presented a budget similar to the 2011-2012 finances with some increases in expenditures but no projected increases for salaries at Central Office. “We didn’t make a lot of changes from last year,” said Carter. “We’re hoping to maintain what we had this year. The
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issue is we don’t necessarily have the revenue we had last year.” The school budget will be minus $420,000 of Federal JobEd money, all of which is attached to 10 teacher positions. Carter said that the budget represents a 42cent increase in needed revenue. He said the school board needs a commitment of financial help from County Commission before June 15. That is the date the school system is required to notify employees if their positions will be reinstated. According to Carter, the line item for transportation will be put back to where it was in the 2011-2012 budget with no cuts, but there will be an increase needed for fuel. Health insurance for teachers was kept at the
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2011-2012 level, which allows for the system to cover teacher insurance costs as it did that fiscal year. Twelve-month employees whose salaries were cut back to 11 months were also reinstated. A number of teachers are expected to retire, and incoming teachers will most likely be paid at a lesser rate than those who are retiring, which would decrease the line item for teacher salaries. Carter presented a proposed $75,000 increase in the maintenance budget for electrical and natural gas to total $150,000, but the board voted to make that line item equal $200,000 to prepare for an anticipated rise in maintenance costs. “Due to the amount of time
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we had, we wanted to be sure that the biggest part of this budget was taken care of,” said Carter. “County Commission understands that this is a work in progress and is very preliminary. There are line items that will need to be made up from somewhere, but this is the best we could do with the time we had.” The board chose not to add a line item to pay for upcoming litigation with suspended Director of Schools Wayne Goforth or for payments still being sought by Michael Brady Inc. for the new Paulette School. The board planned to present the budget as written to the Union County Commission’s Budget and Finance Committee on April 3.
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