VOL. 54 NO. 11
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BUZZ
World Rotary Day works locally
Down Syndrome In celebration of World Down Syndrome Day, the Halls Branch Library will host a book launch of “Life with Charley: A Memoir of Down Syndrome Adoption,” 2 p.m. Saturday, March 21. Halls library assistant and author Sherry McCaulley Palmer will be on hand to give a reading and sign books. “Life with Charley” is the story of one clergy couple’s adoption of a baby with Down Syndrome and the 24-year journey that follows. Refreshments will be served. The library is at 4518 E. Emory Road. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Down Syndrome Awareness Group of East Tennessee. Info: Jamie Osborn, 9222552 or josborn@knoxlib.org.
Powell High Alumni banquet Powell High Alumni Association will hold its annual reunion banquet Saturday, April 4, at Jubilee Banquet Hall, 6700 Jubilee Center Way. Doors open 4:45 p.m., meal served at 6. Cost is $24 for the meal and $10 dues. Deadline for reservations is March 21. Info/reservations: 607-8775; rmcfalls57@frontiernet.net; or LBrown8042@aol.com.
INSIDE Little Free Library Little Free Library is a concept that has been sweeping across Knoxville for a couple of years now. People can borrow a book, swap a book or just take one to keep from small structures built specifically to hold them. The miniature buildings are showing up in many neighborhoods. But where do these tiny libraries come from?
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See Cindy Taylor on page A-3
March 18, 2015
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By Cindy Taylor More than 60 Rotarians from local clubs including North Knox, Downtown, Farragut, Knoxville Breakfast, Turkey Creek and Farragut braved the cold start to the day March 7 to spruce up the outside of the Cerebral Palsy Center Group Home on Highland Avenue. “There are about 10 people who live at this location, and North
No relief for
Knox Rotary handles about 80 percent of their yearly funding,” said club president Nic Nicaud. “We plan to donate funds for professionals to renovate the inside of the house within a year.” Independent club members donate money throughout the year for local projects. Each local club contributed $500 to sponsor the work day at the Group Home.
North Knox Rotary Club president Nic Nicaud and UTK Rotaract Club member Olivia Hysinger work in a raised bed at the Cerebral Palsy Center Group Home on Highland Avenue. Photo by Cindy Taylor
Greenway Drive in I-640 redesign
By Betty Bean Nobody at the meeting listened more intently to the TDOT report than residents of the Greenway Drive area, who are wedged into the hillside and valley surrounding I-640. Phase I (completed in 2002) cost them the ability to turn south onto Broadway, and they are wary of what’s coming next. Greenway Drive residents Larry and Mary Hitchcock had a lot of questions. Mary asked TDOT project manager Mike Russell how she was going to be able to go south on Broadway. “Are we going to have to keep cutting through CiCi’s Pizza if we want to go to town?” Russell said she probably will because Greenway Drive is too close to the interstate. Greenway Drive is a narrow, shoulder-less, two-mile-long residential street that runs east/west from Washington Pike to Broadway, hemmed in between a ridge and I-640 to the south. If they want to drive toward downtown, the Hitchcocks enter Broadway, scoot off the Jacksboro Pike exit ramp and merge into the right lane of Broadway traffic to hang a quick right and loop-de-loop around Ci-
I-640 work schedule
Greenway Drive residents Mary and Larry Hitchcock Photo by Betty Bean Ci’s Pizza and make another right onto Jacksboro Pike to Old Broadway, which merges into the southbound lanes of Broadway. To return home, they turn left off Old Broadway onto I-640’s Broadway exit ramp, cross three lanes of northbound traffic and slide into the extreme right-hand lane so they can execute a turn onto Greenway Drive. The CiCi’s route (which is probably somewhat extra-legal) would be a difficult one for an emergency
vehicle to navigate. Last spring, at Honor Fountain City Day, Mayor Madeline Rogero announced that the city would be spending $350,000 on new sidewalks and crosswalks along Old Broadway to complement Phase II of the state’s I-640 connector redesign. The plan is to connect Greenway Drive to a greenway, but that reference is to a stub of Greenway Drive located between Broadway
Work will commence on Phase II of the $28 million I-640/Broadway redesign late this year, pending available federal funding, said Tennessee Department of Transportation spokesperson Mark Nagi, who reported that the construction phase will take two years, although TDOT will not set an official timeframe until plans are finalized. Representatives of TDOT and engineering firm CDM Smith met with Fountain City Town Hall last week to update area residents on the project. They said the major focus of the work will be westbound interstate entrances: A loop ramp will be added for northbound traffic to eliminate the need for a left turn onto I-640, and southbound traffic will be rerouted onto Old Broadway, where the entrance ramps will be widened.
To page A-3
Calling Clarence One way or another, Knox Countians may soon get a real-life demonstration of why elections matter.
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See Betty Bean’s story on page A-5
Spring practice Once upon a time, spring practice was thought to be the birthplace of college football teams. That thought has evolved. Winter workouts are now very important, more for individual improvement than team functionality. Summer togetherness is critical for bonding, all for one, one for all.
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Remembering Richard Beeler
Read Marvin West on page A-4
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By Betty Bean One summer day in 1988, I got onto an elevator in the Andrew Johnson Building with Richard Beeler, a young attorney who represented an outfit called the Knox Solid Waste Authority, a misbegotten city/county agency whose sole purpose was to build and operate a vastly expensive mass burn incinerator. I’d been looking for a chance to get him alone because I’d heard that he’d been doing a lot of target shooting at the KPD firing range and had gotten a carry permit because he was involved in an FBI investigation and was wearing a wire. I dug around and found out that the target was a state legislator. From there, it wasn’t difficult to figure out the probable target. “So, Richard,” I began. “You wired up today?” He turned red as a fire engine and said he didn’t know what I was talking about. When I said I’d heard that he was involved in an FBI investigation of a state legis-
lator, he stammered and stuttered and denied it and kept getting redder as the elevator climbed. Richard Beeler was a lousy liar. I was the Knoxville Journal’s county government reporter at the time, and the project drew such overwhelming opposition that covering it had become a full-time job. In the process, I got to know Richard Beeler quite well. He was a straight arrow whose job it was to defend an indefensible project. By the time I got on that elevator, I had been reassigned to state government and would soon be departing for Nashville. This was during the McWherter administration, and Democrats dominated Tennessee politics. Democratic Rep. Ted Ray Miller was the most powerful legislator in the Knox County delegation. He chaired the State and Local Government Committee and was reputed to be very close to Gov. Ned McWherter. Ned Ray and Ted Ray, people called them.
Heading for Nashville I kept after Richard, and after awhile he finally owned up, in exchange for a promise not to compromise the investigation. I went on over to Nashville and started watching Chairman Miller, as he was called – if I’d been a legislator, they’d have called me Lady Bean. That’s how they talked in those days. The investigation came to a head the following spring when the feds picked Miller up in the downstairs bar at the Hyatt Regency, where he was meeting with Richard on a Sunday evening before he went back to Nashville on Monday. I wrote all night, and although the News Sentinel got enough of a late tip to run a headline in the morning, we broke the second-biggest story of the year that afternoon. I felt awful. I’d spent so much time with Ted Ray that I’d come to like him. He’d told me about his life, and I had a lot of sympathy for
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Editor’s Note Richard Beeler, former Knox County law director, died March 12 of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot. He was 57.
this fatherless boy who’d pulled himself up by strength of will and street smarts and knew what it was to struggle against long odds. He fed the hungry and delivered loads of coal to the cold. He was funny and charming, and I wished I could warn him to stop shaking people down. The Miller investigation was proceeding on a parallel path with an ongoing operation called Rocky Top. Contrary to other reports, Miller Time was entirely separate from Operation Rocky Top, which targeted bingo operators. Capitol Hill was engulfed in suspicion. One day I was talking to Ted Ray, and he motioned toward the To page A-3 2704 Mineral Springs Ave. Knoxville, TN 37917 Ph. (865) 687-4537
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