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VOL. 7 NO. 38
September 22, 2012
Making music in Luttrell
NEIGHBORHOOD BUZZ
Best of Union County 2012 It’s that time of year again – time to vote for the best things in Union County. Get your ballot in next week’s ShopperNews.
Local grants for highway safety Gov. Bill Haslam has announced grants totaling more than $18.1 million to support highway safety in Tennessee. “These grants will support the efforts of highway safety agencies and advocates to reduce the number of people killed and injured in traffic crashes in Tennessee each year,” said Haslam. Locally, $5,000 will go to the Maynardville Police Department and $19,995 will go to the Union County Sheriff’s Office to be used primarily for sobriety checkpoints.
IN THIS ISSUE
Coffee Break
Joan Gray Biddle has been in the field of health care since graduating from St. Mary’s School of Nursing in 1963. Even though she retired from the state of Tennessee Department of Health last year, Biddle stays busy with current issues. Sit and have a coffee break as you get to know Joan Biddle.
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See Coffee Break on page 2
Gospel Strings performs favorite tunes at the Luttrell Bluegrass Festival. Members of Gospel Strings are: Ronnie Kitts, Claude McCoy, Bob Nieman, Johnny Raley and Wade Brantley. Not pictured is Dana Peters on fiddle. Photos by S. Carey
By Shannon Carey Luttrell came together Sept. 15 to celebrate the community’s musical heritage with the Luttrell Bluegrass Festival, held at Luttrell City Park. The festival, sponsored by the Luttrell Park board, donates all proceeds to the Luttrell Volunteer Fire Department. Event organizer Mayme Taylor called it “another great year.” Musical guests included Gospel Strings, Melba Greene, Wayne Burnette Revue, Eric Holcomb and Mark Walker, Donald Beason and Pam Williams, East TN Bluegrass Band, and Still Rest. There were four participants in the Kids Music Competition, and 15-year-old Katelyn Parker of Powell was the winner. She has numerous awards to her name, including the 2012 Red Gate Rodeo Talent Competition. She leads weekly worship services for her church youth group and enjoys singing with the Rickard Ridge house band at Cove Lake State Park.
Katelyn Parker won this year’s Luttrell Bluegrass Festival Kids Music Competition. Photo submitted Casandra and Chad Fritts warm up before the cornhole tournament at the Luttrell Bluegrass Festival. Taylor said the festival’s car Taylor thanked all who volun- Citizens, Luttrell PTO member show grew again this year with about 30 cars participating. She teered and participated, including Bridget Mathews, 3:17 Adventhanked temporary director of James Perry, Matt Brogan, Lee tures, United Missionary Baptist schools Jimmy Carter for allowing Carver, Gibbs High School ROTC, Church, Justin Smith, Luttrell the festival to use the adjacent Lu- the Rev. Doyle Wolfenbarger, Lut- Mayor Johnny Merritt, Jerry Wilttrell Elementary School ball field trell Volunteer Fire Department, liams, Phil Ruth, and all vendors, for the car show. Uncle Butch BBQ, Luttrell Senior crafters and attendees.
Index Coffee Break Community Government/Politics Marvin West/Lynn Hutton Bonnie Peters Kids Calendar
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4509 Doris Circle 37918 (865) 922-4136 news@ShopperNewsNow.com ads@ShopperNewsNow.com GENERAL MANAGER Shannon Carey shannon@ShopperNewsNow.com EDITOR Sandra Clark sclark426@aol.com UNION COUNTY REPORTER 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.
Virtual Academy is needed, says sponsor Despite criticism, Brooks remains sold on virtual education By Betty Bean The Tennessee Virtual Academy’s first year test scores are in, and they’re not good. The cyberschool run by Union County landed in the bottom 11 percent statewide, and suddenly it’s not just DemoHarry Brooks crats criticizing TNVA. Even Tennessee’s commissioner of education Kevin Huffman is publicly deploring the school’s performance.
State Rep. Harry Brooks says he isn’t taking it personally. Brooks, who serves on the House Education Committee, was the prime sponsor of the bill that created the online school. He says he worked on the concept for 10 years, at first teaming up with Rep. David Hawk of Greeneville, whose bill Brooks used as the framework for the Virtual Public Schools Act, which passed in May 2011 and authorized the online school. The controversial bill was approved by the Republican-dominated House on a party line vote and was signed into law so late in the summer that Union County officials had to scramble to hire teachers for the 2011-12 school year. The reason he isn’t upset by the criticism, Brooks says, is because
he was involved with neither the selection of Union County to administer the cyberschool, nor of K13 Inc. to provide the curriculum or pay TNVA’s teachers. For that, K12 collected more than $5 million Tennessee tax dollars and paid Union County a 4 percent fee last school year. Brooks says he is not sure how either of the selections was made. “What I have been doing, I’ve been doing for 10 years. I didn’t say, ‘Boom! I got this vision.’ I spent a lot of time reading, went to a lot of conferences, did a lot of research, collected a lot of documents,” Brooks said. “I talked with folks in Chattanooga and upper East Tennessee about what they were doing.” An important step in his research was meeting and picking the brain of Putnam County Schools director Kathleen Airhart, now deputy commissioner of education for Tennessee. Airhart, who was last year’s Tennessee Superintendent of the Year, started a virtual education program in Put-
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nam County in 2006 for students who had fallen behind and needed to pick up credits to graduate. “What was missing was to bring together these concepts where a system could do a school. Dr. Airhart’s vision was to do a cooperative with a number of (school districts) on the (Cumberland) Plateau,” Brooks said. “The piece that was missing was to create a school ‘building.’ In some regions it had to be brick and mortar. In others, it’s totally virtual. We worked it out and combined elements and put together all of those pieces, worked with (local schools), and arrived at the conclusion that it would be managed by a school district.” One thing Brooks says he is sure of is the concept of online education, particularly for certain student populations – like juveniles in state custody and medically or psychologically fragile children – and he says if TNVA doesn’t perform academically, the state will step in and take it over, just like any other school.
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