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Volume 110, Number 17, Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Independent Appeal Making McNairy County headlines for more than 110 years
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Schools plan in limbo following vote
INSIDE THIS WEEK
By Jeff Whitten Head News Writer
The McNairy County Commission postponed a vote on the school referendum at its Sept. 4 meeting. As Commissioner Wilburn Gene Ashe acknowledged at the meeting, this means that the referendum will not be on the Nov. 6 ballot. The referendum would ask voters to decide whether to raise taxes by one-half cent in order to finance new schools in Selmer and Adamsville. One option is to raise sales taxes by one-half cent. Half of this revenue would go to the schools and half would go to the towns. They could give their half of the tax to the schools if they wished, as Adamsville and Ramer have pledged to do. Selmer deferred a decision on this issue, citing the uncertainty that the issue would be placed on the ballot and whether the voters would pass it or not. A second option would also include a wheel tax as well as the sales tax increase. The current wheel tax can only be used
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e re n d um RE J E C TE D
ADAMSVILLE VS MCNAIRY CENTRAL The 2012-13 Kick-Off for McNairy County United Way was held at MCHS, just prior to the kick-off of the Adamsville-McNairy football game. The marching bands from both schools marched onto the field and formed a “U” and “W” for the United Way. During the event companies who worked to support United Way in McNairy County were also recognized.
FOR COMPLETE GAME COVERAGE SEE PAGE 1B
Reliving rockabilly history Freddie Burns shares life story with IA’s Whitten By Jeff Whitten Head News Writer
File Photo
The McNairy County Commission postponed its vote on a schools referendum in its September meeting. The missed vote means the referendum will not appear on the November ballot. to retire debt on the Justice Center. New County Mayor Ronnie Brooks gave the commissioners 10 minutes to review the
two resolutions on the school referendum since they just received them. Discussion of the resolutions had just begun when
Freddie Burns has lived an eventful 98 years. He went from humble beginnings to hobnobbing with the famous and entertaining the multitudes. “I was born in Dixieland on one cold and frosty morning,” is how Freddie began his story. He was born on Feb. 1, 1914 in Booneville, Miss., but he currently lives in Selmer. His father was an elected official. When the elder Burns finished his term in office, he bought a farm. Freddie’s father died when Freddie was only three years old. There were eight people in his family. “That left my mother to be the manager of the whole family,” he said. “We were like everybody else. We were just a poor country family, but we never went hungry.” His mother had not one, but three gardens. “We had plum thickets. We had blackberry thickets. We had fruit trees, peaches and apples and everything you could think of, and pigs. We had plenty of pork. We had a curing house where we cured our pork and so we had meat. We had beef. We ate and we were happy, poor people because everyone else was poor but didn’t everybody else have as much to eat as we did, and they always loved to come to our house to eat because we had plenty of food,” Burns recalled. Burns got his first guitar when he was 15 years old when he lived in Decatur, Ala. “I heard Jimmie Rodgers singing and yodeling and that attracted my attention. I said, ‘I believe I can do that, and so Sears and Roebuck had a guitar advertised for $2.98. I bought it,” Burns said. Burns financed this purchase by selling popcorn on Saturdays next to the theater in Decatur. “I saved up a little money so I got this cheap guitar, and I learned to play it because they gave me the instruction book and a pitch pipe to tune it up.” He learned to yodel and some Jimmie Rodgers songs, “Tea for Texas, Tea for Tennessee.” and “All Around the Water Tank, Waiting for a Train.”
commissioner Billy Brown moved that consideration of them be postponed indefinite-
See REFERENDUM, 3A
Forgiveness for felons in Tennessee By Amanda Lowrance Feature Writer
Tennesseans can now request an expunction of their criminal record and start, once again, with a clean slate after a new state law took effect on July 1. House Bill 2865 was reviewed and signed into law by Governor Bill Haslam on May 21. The new law is an act that has amended Tennessee Code Annotated 40-32-101, relative to the expunction of certain criminal records, allowing one-time offenders to petition a nonviolent, non-sexual misdemeanor or Class E felony. While this is a great opportunity for Tennesseans to swipe their record clean, there are exclusions and conditions, fines, restitution, and other assessments must be paid, and the criminal must fulfill all court-mandated requirements of the sentence, including imprisonment and the conditions of supervised or unsupervised release. The nature of the “nonviolent” offense cannot include attempted, threatened, or the use of physical force against a person or property, the use of a firearm, or a sexual offense, in which the offender is required to register as a violent or
nonviolent sexual offender. After five years of meeting all of the requirements, the offender may apply within the county convicted by paying a $350 fee at the county clerk’s office. The case will then be taken before the district attorney general within the judicial district, and the D.A. will respond within 60 days of serving the petition. In opposition, a prosecuting attorney can conceivably gather and present the necessary documents and evidence to argue the removal of a charge, but if the court denies, the petitioner will not be eligible to file for another two years. The state will benefit financially and economically as the fines will be paid and the barrier is removed from employment. Many employers and institutes ask whether or not the applicant has had any previous criminal charges. For someone who has had only one haunting mistake in their past, the new law will help relieve them of this burden. Ex-felons will have all rights restored; including voting and gun rights, but Tennessee has laws preventing felony drug and violent offenders from possessing a gun. The court will grant a petition that has been denied over a 10-year period, and the offender is still eligible.
See BURNS, 3A
Local artists recognize Recie ‘Flower Lady’ Tull By Christen Coulon Editor
Anyone who has driven down Poplar Avenue in Selmer knows her or at least knows her work. Recie Tull, a.k.a. “The Flower Lady” can be found working in her yard most warm days. Her yard has become something of a landmark to those who pass by it on a daily basis. Two local women were so inspired by the garden, that they felt it needed to be preserved as a work of art. Phyllis Stewart and Joy Watkins, local retirees who have taken up painting in their retirement, collaborated on a work to immortalize Tull’s garden. Stewart said it all started when she began to admire the garden more and more as she would pass through the neighborhood. “This is a garden that is noticed by everybody, and I live near here, so I see it quite often,” Stewart said. “I always thought how beautiful it is. Then I started painting, and I thought...I couldn’t do it justice but I wanted to paint the garden. “In the springtime it is so beautiful, I’d stop and take pictures of her garden.”
Stewart said that it was on one of her stops to admire the garden that she met Tull. “Then one day I drove by, and she was out in her garden and I thought I’d better stop and talk to her about her garden to see if I could take more pictures and paint it if it was alright,” Stewart said. Stewart who began painting recently following the completion of a painting class said that she still considers herself an amateur painter. She said that before she began, she asked her friend Joy Watkins, to help her with the finer aspects of the painting. Watkins said that she, like Stewart learned to paint in her retirement years. Her first experience in art was at her church during a lesson hosted by Barbara Mitchell. She said that she had never drawn or painted before, but when she was finished her first painting of an apple, it really looked like an apple. After that she was hooked. It was after her first experience painting that Stewart saw her work and encouraged her to continue. “I learned to paint at 68,” Watkins said.
See FLOWER LADY, 3A
Staff Photo By Christen Coulon
Recie Tull holds the painting given to her by Phyllis Stewart and Joy Watkins. Stewart wanted to recognize Tull for her gardening work.
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PARTIES NOMINATE CANDIDATES FOR COUNTY CLERK Please read next week’s Independent Appeal for complete coverage on each candidate. Democratic Nominee:
Kevin Lipford
Independent Appeal
Republican Nominee:
Byron Maxedon
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