Out N About Magazine - June 2015

Two great local health systems.

Multiple national award recognitions.

And a million thanks to the people who made it happen.

Prestigious awards just keep rolling in for our local hospitals. With each national recognition, we are reminded how fortunate we are to live in a community where quality healthcare is the rule.

• U.S. News and World Report ranked Johnson City Medical Center as one of the top eight hospitals

in Tennessee.

• Becker’s Hospital Review named Johnson City Medical Center as one of only four hospitals in

Tennessee among America’s 100 Hospitals and Health Systems with Great Cancer Programs.

• Becker’s also named Franklin Woods Community Hospital in Johnson City, TN, and

Norton Community Hospital in Norton, VA, among the nation’s 53 hospitals with the best outcomes for pneumonia patients.

• Indian Path Medical Center earned a Citation of Merit from the Premier Partnership for Patients

for providing a safe, healing environment for patients and preventing hospital readmissions, and Johnston Memorial Hospital received the 2014 Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award.

And we congratulate our friends at Wellmont’s Bristol Regional Medical Center and Wellmont Holston Valley Medical Center for being named Top Performers on Key Quality Measures®

by The Joint Commission.

On behalf of a grateful community, thank you to all of the doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals for bringing such nationally recognized quality here to our home. This is good for all of us!

msha.com

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Out-N-About Publisher Scott Pratt Operations Director Dylan Pratt Managing Editor Kelly Hodge Associate Writers Trey Williams Daniel Bratton Mary Ellen Miller David Fagelson Harrison Jenkins Lester Bean Cover Designs Nathan Wampler Page Designs Kelly Hodge

I

A downtown on the move

n this issue, we touch on the redevelopment of downtown Johnson City, made possible by a nice combination of restaurants and bars, small businesses, apartments and offices, and green space created by the city.

The rise of craft beer, our cover story, is obviously playing a role, too. The new Yee-Haw brewery is compelling evidence of that.

I worked downtown at Frick’s Music Mart for a year back when I graduated from high school. During that time, some forty years ago I hate to admit, the downtown area was experiencing its decline. Masengill’s, Sammons and Zimmerman’s were still in business, along with a couple of banks, but the writing was on the wall. People had started heading to north Johnson City to the new Miracle Mall and McDonald’s.

The same thing was happen-

ing all over the country as cities embraced the idea of sprawling shopping centers and abandoned Scott their downPratt towns.

But it wasn’t long before those same cities realized something — when they gave up their downtowns, they essentially lost their character.

They no longer really knew who they were or what they were. Some cities — Asheville and Greenville, S.C. are prime examples — got back on the downtown train before others and soon began to reap the benefits.

It’s been a tough slog for Johnson City. There have been various programs implemented by the city and

different boards, but for the most part, nothing has really jelled until the past couple of years. It started slowly with residential development in the form of apartment buildings, then Main Street Pizza came in and turned into a solid business, and now there’s even a nice, new Trek bicycle franchise on Market Street. There will soon be a daily flow of college students when Northeast State finally gets its operation up and running in the old courthouse building.

The difference in the business climate has been, as always seems to be the case, industrious, innovative risk-takers. Some call them movers and shakers. Some call them entrepreneurs. I call them vital to any economic recovery.

Rafael Zabala, Joe Baker, Brandon Greenwood and David Lockmiller are some of

the people mentioned in this issue of our magazine who are changing downtown right now, turning it from an afterthought to a vibrant neighborhood, one in which the community can be proud. Their work is behind the change, their money, their vision.

We wish them nothing but the absolute best going forward. What they’re creating ain’t your daddy’s downtown. It’s a downtown that will, if encouraged and nurtured, make Johnson City into a destination, much like Asheville has been for the past twenty years.

Now, am I allowed to mention the eight-story monstrosity at the other end of downtown? Convert the old John Sevier Center into nice apartments, bulldoze it and replace it with an arts center — anything but subsidized housing — and we’ll be cooking with gas.

Photography Andy Rowe Out-N-About magazine is a monthly production of Phoenix Flying Inc. We strive to be informative, entertaining and, above all, interesting. Thoughtful feedback is welcome at outnaboutmagazine@ gmail.com. For advertising opportunities, call Dylan Pratt at 423-2028664.

The June issue, along with previous issues, will be archived at outnaboutmagazine.com.

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Something’s Craft beer is catching on, brewing in places large and small Andy Rowe

By Kelly Hodge

S

Andy Rowe

Yee-Haw Brewing Company, top, was an intriguing work in progress in downtown Johnson City as June approached. Depot Street Brewing, above, in Jonesborough has been in the craft-beer business for 11 years.

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itting on the patio at Depot Street Brewing, sampling the Loose Caboose lager while watching the bocce ball games and the occasional train rumble past, there’s a sense that no one in the place has a care in the world.

Owner Michael Foster likes it that way.

Behind the scenes, however, the rustic Jonesborough brewery is a hub of activity. Depot Street churned out about 1,000 barrels, or 31,000 gallons, of craft beer last year. It’s a modest amount by microbrewery standards, but enough to spread around to customers from here to the mid-state, up to a dozen counties in Virginia and down into Georgia.

And there’s still plenty for Foster and his many friends to enjoy right

on property, four nights a week.

“Maybe if I was younger, I would be going full bore and trying to double the business every year,” he says. “But I’m really not interested in doing that. I’m interested in having a good time and growing, up to a certain point.”

The rising popularity of craft beer across the country — and, certainly, of late in Northeast Tennessee — has made it hard for brewers to resist putting the pedal to the metal in their pursuit of profits. Of course, the very notion of making the finest beer is often at odds with making the most money.

Purists call it “craft” beer for a reason.

“In my opinion, craft beer is made by somebody who cares and is very passionate about creating a great beer-drinking experience,” said Brandon Greenwood, the brewmaster and chief operating of-

ficer of the new Yee-Haw Brewing Company in Johnson City. “Craft brewers tend to put the quality of the beer ahead of the profits.”

In 2014, craft breweries accounted for 19 percent of the U.S. beer market — up from 14 percent the year before — according to statistics compiled by the Brewers Association, a Colorado-based trade organization. (A change in the definition of what is considered a craft beer now allows the inclusion of Yuengling, the nation’s oldest brewery, and Boston Beer, the maker of Samuel Adams. Together they account for several million barrels a year.)

The seemingly endless variety, community and regional connections to breweries, and an expanding palate by drinkers are all playing a role in the rise of craft

See CRAFT, Page 5

Too many choices? Let’s look closer

Craft

Continued from Page 4 beer. Greenwood says there’s also a generational factor at work.

“Twenty years ago, you had one generation experiencing the early craft breweries that were there,” he said, “and now you have their children.

When they turned legal, what they began to drink was craft beer. They weren’t drinking the big, traditional brands. They were growing up, so to speak, with craft beer.

“So we have a generation of beer drinkers now who are not loyal to any one brand anymore. They want to try everything that’s out there, and that’s what they do.”

Craft beer on tap tends to make for vibrant social settings. You can see the enthusiasm locally at events like Thirsty Orange, Racks on the Tracks, Tennessee Oktoberfest and the Blue Plum Festival, which begins its 16th annual run in downtown Johnson City on June 5 and will again include the Blue Hop Brew-Haha.

The craft-beer craze is good business, too, and thus has received the tacit endorsement, if not legislative help, of politicians across the state. The legislature passed a resolution designating April as Craft Beer Month in Tennessee; organizers in this area jumped on the bandwagon with Tri-Cities Craft Beer Week.

The Thirsty Orange Extravaganza at Millennium Center in Johnson City drew over 3,000 participants.

In the most recent data available, craft breweries had a financial impact of $445 million in the state in 2012 and reportedly generated over 29,000 beer-related jobs. The number of microbreweries and brewpubs had doubled, from 24 to 50, in the last four years.

“Craft brewers have really made it a viable industry throughout the state,

By Daniel Bratton

Andy Rowe

Yee-Haw’s shiny new brewery produced its first beer on May 22. and I think that deserves recognition,” said Jon Lundberg, a state representative from Bristol, who sponsored the House resolution. “It takes science and art and combines it. The folks I’ve talked with have a passion for that craft.”

The days when the typical consumer walked into a bar and ordered a can of Bud appear to be fading fast.

M

ichael Foster made the transition from sculptor to professional beer maker 11 years ago, in part because of boredom and the “social isolation” of the former.

He had been a home brewer for 15 years, and when he started searching for an interesting new line of work, he noticed an opportunity.

“I looked around and saw we didn’t have any breweries in East Tennessee closer than Sevierville,” he said. “I thought, half a million people, five colleges, medical centers … and we

don’t have a single brewery. I was lucky enough to start one, and things just worked out.”

Now there are 13 craft breweries in the Tri-Cities market, from Jonesborough to Abingdon, Va., with various visions for their businesses. All but two, Depot Street and Wolf Hills (in Abingdon) have sprung up in the last three years.

Plans are even being made for a “beer trail” that will tie the breweries togehter and be actively promoted.

Foster already owned the building in which Depot Street has always operated, and he purchased used equipment in California and got to work. Slowly but surely, the product caught on.

The brewery now turns out all sorts of railroad-themed ales — Freight Hopper, Eurail Gold, Crazy Train, Southbound Scottish Ale — and other

See CRAFT, Page 6

The ancient art of brewing beer is one of myths, misconceptions, tradition and pride.

In 1487, what was known as the German Purity Law was enacted, allowing only water, hops and barley to be used in beer. The discovery of yeast came centuries later, but it wasn’t until 1993 that yeast, wheat malt and sugar were included.

American breweries have been at the forefront of experimentation that both push the preconceived notions of what beer can be as well as delving into the ancient past through DNA on ancient artifacts to recreate elixirs of yore.

Craft breweries have seen an enormous growth rate on regional and national scale. To the uninitiated, their offerings can seem overwhelming. But with a little knowledge, ordering up an enjoyable craft beer at your local ale house, brewery or bottle shop can be an enjoyable and memorable experience.

The American spirit has always been adventurous, and beer drinking is no exception. There a just a few basic styles of beer, and a general understanding of these can be a catalyst to set you on a path of enlightenment in which the rewards are immeasurable.

LAGERS are the most commercially produced beers and come in a variation of colors and flavors but are generally light in color, body and taste. What separates craft lagers from the domestic giants, and accounts for

See CHOICES, Page 6

Top U.S. Craft Beer Makers Based on sales volume in 2014, according to the Brewers Association of Boulder, Colo. (brewersassociation.org) 1) D.G. Yuengling and Son, Inc. (Pottsville, Pa.) 2) Boston Beer Co. (Boston) 3) Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (Chico, Calif.)

4) New Belgium Brewing Co. (Fort Collins, Colo.)

5) Gambrinus (Shiner, Texas) 6) Lagunitas Brewing Co. (Petaluma, Calif.)

7) Bell’s Brewery, Inc. (Galesburg, Mich.)

8) Deschutes Brewery (Bend, Ore.) 9) Stone Brewing Co. (Escondido, Calif.)

10) Minhas Craft Brewery (Monroe, Wis.) 11) Brooklyn Brewery (Brooklyn, N.Y.) 12) Duvel Moortgat USA (Kansas City, Mo.) 13) Dogfish Head Craft Brewery (Milton, Del.) 14) Matt Brewing Co. (Utica, N.Y.)

15) Harpoon Brewery (Boston) 16) Firestone Walker Brewing Co. (Paso Robles, Calif.)

17) Founders Brewing Co. (Grand Rapids, Mich.)

18) SweetWater Brewing Co. (Atlanta) 19) New Glarus Brewing Co. (New Glarus, Wis.) 20) Alaskan Brewing Co. (Juneau, Alaska)

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Choices

Continued from Page 5

the higher price point, is the use of actual grains instead of fillers such as rice and corn that are cheap and add nothing to the flavor. If a light, flavorful, crisp beer is what you are looking for, then seek out an American craft lager, Pilsner, or cream ale. These are great beers on their own and also a safe first step into experiencing the flavors, passion, pride and comaraderie that is the craft beer movement.

RED and AMBER ALES are malt forward, low in bitterness and can have a slight fruitiness as a general rule. They also include one of the most popular styles — the almighty Oktoberfest. These beers are suitable for almost any palate as they have a low alcohol content and the bitterness is kept to a minimum. Irish reds tend to be a little on the dry side and malt forward but are still very approachable.

PORTERS and STOUTS utilize darks malts to achieve chocolate and coffee notes and range from medium to heavy in mouth feel.

Since this style can be heavy, many variations from craft brewers are available. Options range from the traditional to sweet, bourbon barrel-aged and even the inclusion of vanilla or peppers.

Beers that are this malt heavy are strong enough in flavor to inspire the craft brewer to include flavors that will not overpower but complement the intense flavors of the beer.

WHEAT-BASED BEERS are another style that American craft brewers learned from tradition and made their own. Some American brewers hold close to the traditional Hefeweizen German style and use open fermentation tanks to achieve the wild yeast flavors of banana and clove. The brewers pushing the envelope use the wheat as a base due to the desired smoothness in the finish and utilize additional hops to give a

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citrusy edge to the final product.

SOUR BEERS are the newest trend in the American craft beer movement. These beers utilize yeast that impart a tart to sour quality and are usually aged at least a year in oak barrels, stainless steel, or wine barrels.

These beers can range from the slightly tart, with fruit or malt as a balance, to the straight up taste bud curdling vinegar qualities.

These beers, while not everyone’s beer of choice, have garnered a serious and loyal following and command top dollar for rare and aged offerings.

The undisputed kings of the craft beer movement in the United States are the AMERICAN PALE ALES and INDIA PALE ALES, or IPAs. These ales use very mild malts to accentuate every part of the hop. While once used almost entirely for preservation before commercial refrigeration, the hop is at the forefront of this new American tradition.

Hops can range in flavor and aroma from bitter, citrusy, fruity, grassy and flowery.

From the now classic American pale ale to the ever-changing Imperial IPA, this beer is best served fresh and is not for the faint of heart. The bitterness is an acquired taste, but once this level is achieved it is almost a religious experience to seek out the next great brew.

It is an exciting time to be a beer drinker and live in the Tri-Cities. We have multiple beer festivals, breweries like Sleepy Owl, Holston River, Depot Street, bottle shops like Libation Station, and bars like the Atlantic Ale House and Mellow Mushroom that have a wide selection of local craft beer.

Yee-Haw Brewery in downtown Johnson City promises to bring state-of-the-art brewing facilities with years of brewing experience on a commercial yet craft brew level.

We live in an area that is at the pulse of the craft brew scene, and it is our treasure to explore and enjoy.

Craft

Continued from Page 5 specialties like Loose Caboose lager and Roundabout stout under the guiding hand of brewmaster Devin Rutledge.

Foster gladly accepts Depot Street’s role in advancing the craft-beer cause.

“The charm is educating people,” he said.

“When we first got in it, most people around here didn’t know what craft beer was. Probably 75 percent of the market was domestics, so people were used to having a homogenized product that all tasted the same.

You’re educating the people that beer should have tremendous variety and tremendous variations in taste and texture and color and experience.

“Now people are accepting of that; they’re looking for that.”

Ask Foster about the future of craft beer and he smiles.

“I think the sky is the limit,” he said.

“We’re steadily growing over domestics and imports. Even the big beer companies see the writing on the wall; they’re buying up smaller craft breweries and marketing the beer as their own.”

T

he construction work was proceeding at a feverish pace in late May at Yee-Haw Brewing Company.

The historic brick depot by the railroad tracks at the corner of Buffalo Street and State of Franklin Road, for decades home to Free Service Tire Company, now houses a shining new brewery. Production of the first beer, a pale ale, began on May 22 as steam and the distinctive smells of Brandon Greenwood’s labors wafted from the stacks.

(White Duck Taco Shop, an Asheville, N.C.-based restaurant, will open in the other end of the building, probably in late June or early July. There’s a large taproom in between where patrons can enjoy Yee-Haw’s offerings.)

Founding partner Joe Baker’s new project will be a showplace, it seems, and Greenwood is there to make sure of it. He had served as Lagunita’s vice president of brewery operations since 2012.

“Joe and I crossed paths in the industry,” he said on a recent afternoon, amid the grinding sounds of construction work and a steady stream of cell-phone calls. “He enticed me to come down to this beautiful area and help him build his brand and his brewery. I had been living in Chicago, and I’m not a big-city person, so my wife and I had been looking for an opportunity to scale down a little bit.

‘I just like to sit with friends and drink a nice beer and have it be part of the experience.’

— Brandon Greenwood

Yee-Haw brewmaster

“We’ve been really happy here. Everybody we’ve met has been super-nice and supportive and excited about our project. It’s been a little overwhelming actually.”

Greenwood, 48, has been making beer since 1993. He was put on the path by a memorable trip overseas.

“I was traveling around Europe in the early ‘90s and drinking lots of good beers,” he said. “I was in Prague, actually, and I had one really, really good beer. The only way I can describe it was it was like a warm chocolate chip cookie coming out of the oven.

It was a dark Pilsner or dark lager and I’d never had anything with that type of flavor and complexity in a beer.

“I was a chemist at the time, so I started to read up on the chemistry of beer. I just kind of fell in love with it and went off to get a brewing degree, and here I am.”

Greenwood earned his degree from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, but having such credentials isn’t a necessity for success as a brewmaster in the craft-beer industry.

“It’s a mix of people who have credentials, people who have no credentials, people who brewed a few batches of home brew and thought they could do it,” he said. “Right now it seems to be a free-for-all; everybody is jumping into the game.”

Yee-Haw will be brewing four beers at the start — a traditional Pilsner, pale ale, Scottish-style 80 shilling and a Dunkel, which is a dark German lager. (For the record, Greenwood is not a fan of IPAs, which have become a staple of many microbreweries.)

“I just like to sit with friends and drink a nice beer and have it be part of the experience,” he said. “I don’t necessarily want to analyze what I’m drinking all the time. I’ll always pick a beer up and look at it, see how clear it is or what color it is. But there are certain beers you don’t have to worry about any of that.”

Greenwood expects Yee-Haw’s products to be on the preferred list. The brewery will initially have distribution within a 200-mile radius, down to Chattanooga.

See CRAFT, Page 7

Craft

Continued from Page 6 “I don’t think we have delusions of grandeur to take over the world,” said Greenwood.

“We’re a small brewery. You’ll hear the term ‘handcrafted,’ and that’s true for us and most craft breweries because there’s a lot of interaction with the brewers and the beer throughout the process. We’re not a fully automated brewery here, so people are involved in it every day, brewing beer.

“Starting a brewery, there’s always something new and exciting. This is a job that does not get stagnant.”

For Foster, who is brewing his Depot Street beer in considerably more humble surroundings, there is no real harm in Yee-Haw coming on line and doing well.

“They’ve come in with a lot of money and can set it up bigtime to start with, and that’s fine. That’s great,” he said.

“It’ll just bring more people faster to the whole scene.”

P

art of the scene a couple of blocks over from Yee-Haw, tucked away on McClure Street, is the Atlantic Ale House. The cinder-block building, which now sports an eye-catching blue and red paint job, dates back to the 1940s but has been a little bastion for craft beer since the first of the year.

David Lockmiller and his wife Jenny joined with neighbors Jacob and Kelly Grieb to give new life to the old Sevier Café property.

“It was a bar 15 years ago.

Opened at 6 in the morning, so the neighbors loved it,” said Lockmiller. “It had been closed until we went in there, and there were still beer in kegs under pressure. We completely gutted the place and started over.”

Behind the solid mahogany bar now are 16 taps with numbered handles made of exotic

Sheri Hamilton

The Thirsty Orange Extravaganza in April was the finale to Tri-Cities Craft Beer Week and drew about 3,000 enthusiasts to the Millennium Center. woods, the handiwork of a neighboring business owner.

A chalkboard menu lists the daily offerings, most of which come from microbreweries in the Southeast, and there have been dozens of them over the last five months.

In warm weather, a glass door is rolled up and the place spills out to a patio with a view of the Johnson City Public Library on the hill and the terraced green space below. The former U-Haul property next door will soon be transformed into another flood-retention area with more greenery.

On a recent day, some customers chatted at the bar, others lounged outside at tables, while others stood and studied a stack of Jenga blocks.

The Ale House is a beer house, plain and simple.

“It stemmed from wanting a place in Johnson City like this all these years and having to go to Asheville to get it,” said Lockmiller, a realtor by trade.

“It’s low key, where you can bring your dogs down. It’s just a

good place to get together with friends and enjoy craft beer.”

Needless to say, Lockmiller wouldn’t be in the bar business if Budweiser and Miller Lite were flowing from the taps. The ambience of his place is based on the tender, loving care of microbrewers.

“I think it’s the flavor; there are so many different flavors,” said Lockmiller. “Depending on your mood, or the different times of the year, you just have so many choices. We’re concentrating on local and regional beers, and there are enough of those that we can keep things fresh.

“One of our slogans is, Drink Local. Everybody supports each other.”

T

he good vibes seem to work nicely on a much larger scale, too.

Aaron Carson and his wife Stephanie are co-owners of SuperFly Fabulous Events, an Asheville business that stages several craft beer-centered events in Tennessee, North Carolina and Colorado. The

promoters are involved locally with Thirsty Orange, Tennessee Oktoberfest (formerly Kingsport Oktoberfest) and Blue Hops Brew-Haha.

“There’s more brewing going on in the greater Tri-Cities than in Memphis and Knoxville combined,” said Aaron Carson.

“Two and a half years ago, there were two breweries. Now we’ve got all these breweries, all these festivals, craft beer week. It’s a very exciting time.”

There have been some glaring problems in the state.

Until 2013, Tennessee had the highest beer taxes in the nation, based on an outdated price system rather than volume. That chased away many breweries that would have done business here.

Also, state regulations dictate that beer sold in bars and restaurants must have alcohol levels of 6.2 percent or less.

Serving “high-gravity” beer requires a liquor license. (A proposal to raise the cap to 8 percent is pending in the state legislature.)

“It creates a logistical is-

sue,” said Stephanie Carson.

“Kroger, for example, can’t sell a lot of the craft beer that’s available, and the distributor has to have a different license.

Even eight percent won’t help everyone, because a lot of the Belgian beers and some of the dark beer, by the nature of how they’re made, will exceed that level.”

She continued.

“State law has not been very supportive to craft beer. You look at taxes, operating in Tennessee costs more. Everyone in the legislature should be watching themselves lose breweries. Tennessee lost Sierra Nevada (to Asheville), and if you saw the campus there, it would make you sick to think that Tennessee let that get away. The good news is the Tri-Cities is a model for the state for what can happen; there’s a ton of growth in the Tri-Cities compared to the rest of the state.”

Aaron Carson hopes legislators can see the big picture.

“It’s not just the tax side of beer,” he said. “It’s about the tourists that you draw, restaurants, food trucks … there’s a ripple effect. It’s a good time and good community. From a social standpoint, we’re not talking about frat guys and 21-year-old kids. These are mostly 40-, 50-, 60-year-old people who love craft beer.”

B

ack at Depot Street, another game of bocce has been won and the gentle evening breeze is especially comfortable. The smattering of guests appear to be content and in no particular hurry to leave.

That’s fine with Michael Foster. The education continues, one pint at a time.

“The more we can get the domestic-beer drinkers over to craft beers, where they experiment around, the better,” he says. “That’s our job, to educate. Same thing with coffee or cheese. People learn about the better things in life and they like them, they seek them out.”

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Music schedule Friday FOUNTAIN STAGE My New Favorites .....................................6 p.m.

Danny Paisley and Southern Grass .........7 p.m.

18 South ...................................................9 p.m.

JAZZ STAGE Blueprint ..............................................5:45 p.m.

Power Players Show Band ..................7:30 p.m.

El Movimiento ......................................9:15 p.m.

——— Saturday FOUNTAIN STAGE Mike Knowles ....................................11:15 a.m.

Great Smoky Mtn. Bluegrass Band ...11:30 a.m.

Daisi Rain ..........................................12:30 p.m.

Empty Bottle String Band ....................1:15 p.m.

The Heppy Kats ........................................2 p.m.

Malcolm Holcombe & Ed Snodderly ....2:45 p.m.

SONiA & Disappear Fear.....................3:45 p.m.

The Howlin Brothers .................................5 p.m.

Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks ..............7 p.m.

RICHIE .....................................................9 p.m.

FOUNDERS STAGE (Requires ticket for entry) Ian Thomas and the Band of Drifters...5:30 p.m.

Rebirth Brass Band ..................................7 p.m.

Shovels and Rope ....................................9 p.m.

JAZZ STAGE Frito Puente ..............................................4 p.m.

Greyscale .................................................5 p.m.

Everyday Magic ........................................6 p.m.

Diane Roblin ........................................7:30 p.m.

Dan Wilson & Keith McKelley ..............9:15 p.m.

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CWAC Promotions

The Fountain Stage will be joined by a new Founders Park venue for musical acts Saturday night.

Blue Plum ready to expand its possibilities downtown

By Trey Williams The sheen of Nickel Creek, it seems, is not so suddenly beginning to fade, and the Blue Plum Festival intends to generate a new revenue stream on the banks of Brush Creek.

Festival popularity skyrocketed when Nickel Creek struck gold before its 2002 appearance. People crammed together like sardines in downtown Johnson City streets to hear the sound of celebrity.

“I remember when they were performing and Main Street was packed from shoulder to shoulder from the main stage back as far as

I could see,” said Deanna Hays, the current festival director who was there that night merely as a music fan. “And I just remember how exciting it was to be a part of that. My friend had an apartment upstairs and we went down to see, and seeing a crowd like that was really fun.”

Considerable crowds have continued to materialize each June. An estimated 80,000 is expected for this year’s three-day event, from June 5-7. Still, there’s been a feeling of stagnation of late that, when combined with declining city financial assistance in recent years, has the established happening eager for

enhancement.

Consequently, the festival is expanding in spaces its founders couldn’t have seen, much less foreseen, in 1999. The blocks party, basically confined to an “H” on Market, Main and Roan streets, is expanding less than a quarter of a mile west to the new Founders Park.

When Blue Plum began, most of the five acres at Founders Park were covered by dilapidated warehouses that also concealed and occasionally strangled a stretch of Brush Creek. Now, it flows majesSee PLUM, Page 9

Plum

Continued from Page 8 tically, glistening alongside a lush lawn and an amphitheater where, for the first time in Blue Plum history, attendees will pay to watch musicians.

Tickets can also be purchased for the second annual craft-beer tasting Blue Hop Brew-Haha, which will precede performances that include the New Orleans Grammy-winning Rebirth Brass Band and Shovels and Rope, a husband-and-wife duo that appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2013.

Letterman’s longstanding affinity and apparent ear for quality Americana music surfaced more conspicuously in the final months of his show, which Rolling Stone, among others, documented. YouTube traffic helped Hays and company decide to pursue Shovels and Rope.

“Then we learned that David Letterman and Ed Helms are big fans of Shovels and Rope,” Hays said. “They were at the top of our price range, but they were not out of it. … We’re excited.”

Shovels and Rope is worth at least a loose comparison to Robin and Linda Williams.

The harmonious matrimony of Michael Trent and Carry Ann Hearst helped land them emerging artist the year and song of the year for “Birmingham” at the 2013 Americana Music Honors & Awards. Their 2014 album “Swimmin’ Time” opened at No. 20 on the Billboard 200.

Hearst’s voice can stand hair on arms during such songs as “Birmingham” and “The Devil Is All Around.”

Trent’s broad range of percussion and harmonica help offer versatility.

CWAC Promotions

Certainly, the Rebirth Brass Band is a gumbo of sound. Spicing up relatively complex compositions with funky beats helped it win a Grammy for its 2011 album “ReBirth of New Orleans.”

It could also be heard on the HBO series “Treme.”

The group formed in 1983.

Prior to Blue Plum, Rebirth Brass Band will perform at Raise the Roof for Roots in New York City on June 1. Its busy summer tour includes

dates at Chicago’s House of Blues, Washington, D.C., and Santa Monica, California.

All Founders Park ticketed events are on Saturday, June 6. They begin from 1-4:30 p.m. with the BlueHop Brew-HaHa, where attendees can sample at least 75 craft beers from some 20-25 brewers and dine on samples from Bonefish Grill and Carrabba’s. Up to 40 brewers could be utilized based on advance ticket sales.

Concert tickets are good for three musical acts. Ian Thomas and Band of Drifters will begin playing at 5:30 p.m., followed by Rebirth Brass Band at 7:30 and Shovels and Rope at 9.

Much like Kingsport’s Racks by the Tracks, wristbands can be purchased for the concert ($25), BlueHop Brew-HaHa ($35) or both ($49). There will be food and beer available for purchase for those who buy only the concert ticket. BlueHop wristbands can also be used at the original Blue Plum site for beer purchases, where the vast majority of the festival remains.

Blue Plum’s history is dear to Hays. She remembers outlasting the rains to see “a lot of smiling faces” watch an exceptional late-night Sam Bush performance. And she likes to think she was serenaded by John Cowan one year while sitting in the green room when he rehearsed.

“He was warming up, but he was singing a song and I was right there,” she said. “It was just really a sweet moment.”

Hays notes that “95 percent of the music” is still free and most people appear to understand that more money is needed to avoid a general admission fee for the entire festival.

“Everything on Main and Market and Spring and Tipton and Roan — they are festival as usual,” Hays said.

“And then Founders is twotenths of a mile away, and we are utilizing that as our fundraiser. Founder’s Park is beautiful and wonderful, and it’s so close. … There’s a certain demographic that’s gonna love what’s going on at the main stage or the jazz stage, and there are certain ones that are gonna love that concert-on-the-grass atmosphere.”

Catching a wave on the

craft-beer craze is a no-brainer, especially when the new Yee-Haw Brewing Company is now adjacent to Founders Park. If Racks by the Tracks and last year’s sample-sized debut at Blue Plum are any indication, the craft-beer tastings are win-win-win for consumers, brewers and promoters.

“We had the BlueHop last year behind the main stage,” Hays said. “It was great. It was small, but it was a good effort. And because tickets sold out so quickly for that last year — I mean like super quick — we saw that we could expand it.”

The annual offering of free music is scheduled to include 21 musical acts. The Fountain Stage will feature SONiA and Disappear Fear, Malcolm Holcombe, Ed Snodderly and Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks. The Jazz Stage will showcase eight acts between 5:45 p.m. on Friday and 9:15 p.m. Saturday.

Athletic endeavors range from the new Crossfit East 10 Summer Bash to a rugby tournament (Civitan Park).

This year’s 5K has been moved from Saturday morning to Friday at 7 p.m. It will begin and end at Founders Park, and be preceded by the Little Plum Half mile race for children at 6:30 p.m.

Criterium cycling races conclude events on Sunday.

There’ll be the usual assortment of food options and arts and crafts vendors. The Blue Plum Playhouse for children and the Animation Festival are still in order, too.

Hays is optimistic about the new era for Blue Plum, which seems to be keeping in step with downtown progress.

“Johnson City is growing and experiencing so much exciting development,” Hays said. “We are complete guinea pigs here, but we have good plans in place.”

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June Q&A

Zabala stirring things up in Tri-Cities

Rafael Zabala got his first taste of the restaurant business as a 15-year-old dishwasher at an Asian American diner in Mountain City, of all places.

Two decades later, you can see — and, better yet, experience — his culinary influence across the Tri-Cities.

As the creative force behind the Stir Fry Group, Zabala, 36, has opened a half-dozen restaurants and catering services in the region. He joined the group eight years ago and, along with partners Mark Rowan and Martin Bagwell, continues to bring fresh, innovative ideas to old settings.

The Stir Fry collection now includes Label, Portico and Johnson City Catering Company in Johnson City; Stir Fry Café, Divine Café & Catering and The Social in Kingsport; and 620 State and the Foundation Event Facility in Bristol. The group also handles all food and beverage service at Glenrochie Country Club in Abingdon, Va., and has a hand in the Fermented wine bar and café in downtown Kingsport.

Zabala recently sat down with OutN-About managing editor Kelly Hodge at his Label restaurant on Tipton Street.

They discussed his rise in the restaurant business, his unique perspective on the Tri-Cities market and Stir Fry Group’s growing presence.

KH: All the Stir Fry restaurants other than Portico are downtown based. Do you feel a special connection to the core of these cities?

RZ: I love downtown. What’s really interesting in having a restaurant in all three downtowns is seeing how 20 miles — almost exactly 20 miles from door to door — how different each downtown is, the culture and the whole vibe.

KH: Describe those differences as you see them.

RZ: It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what the vibe is, but they’re all just so different from each other. Kingsport is laid out really well, nice wide roads, and Eastman obviously has a huge influence there, so we see professionals and people from all over the world

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er we’re out, we’re seeking out the best restaurant, seeing what’s happening.

coming into that restaurant. Bristol, now, is becoming a tourist town, tour bus groups coming in from all over the world to go to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. There’s the Rhythm & Roots festival, the kind of people that come in for that and big events like the Mumford & Sons show. Johnson City has a little more college vibe, but now you’re starting to see the middle-and upper-age people coming downtown to eat dinner, have Sunday lunch, things like that. It’s definitely on the move.

KH: As a restaurateur, how do you rate the Tri-Cities market as a whole?

RZ: It’s a great market. I always tell

Kelly Hodge

Rafael Zabala is the creative force behind the Stir Fry Group, which operates stylish restaurants in all three downtowns of the Tri-Cities.

people that when I’m traveling anywhere, or my cousins come up from Atlanta to visit. They just fall in love with this area. It’s beautiful, obviously, and there’s a lot of stuff to do. You can get anywhere in America pretty quick.

It’s a nice place to live and do business.

KH: What were your culinary influences growing up?

RZ: I just always liked restaurants.

I remember traveling around as a kid, looking through the phone book, trying to figure out where we were going to eat when we were on vacation, things like that. I still do that now when I’m traveling. Me and my fiancée, whenev-

KH: How did you arrive at this place professionally?

RZ: I met Kenny Saio when I was in college. He was a restaurateur in Knoxville; he started Stir Fry down there 23 years ago now. I got into bartending at one of his restaurants, a Spanish restaurant in Knoxville called Cha Cha. Then I went to work at Morgan Stanley, and he and I just became friends. I really started this in a managerial role at Stir Fry in Johnson City when I was 24. Kenny started that and that’s how I got back here. He had four restaurant concepts going in Knoxville and brought Stir Fry here with his business partner that had built that shopping center. I was trying to get out of the broker business — it just wasn’t my thing — and I was like, ‘Well, let’s do it.’ The guidelines in the beginning were that I’d come up here and do it only in a managerial role, but I wanted ownership some day. Kenny got into the restaurant business the same way; somebody pulled him up and he started out managing with the goal of buying into ownership. So he did the same thing with me. Tragically, he passed away four months after opening that restaurant — drowned at Hilton Head. The business partners at that point weren’t really restaurant guys; they were developers.

Big developers, too, some of the biggest in Tennessee at the time. So they brought in a guy, Mark Rowan, who had just retired from Pilot travel centers, as the restaurant operations guy. Mark and I started working together, and we did the Asheville restaurant, did the Kingsport restaurant. We bought all the other guys out and now it’s just Mark and myself and Martin Bagwell.

KH: The restaurants all have unique personalities. Is creating that a collaborative effort between the partners?

RZ: It’s mostly my designs and my concepts. Martin is the chef and helps design the menus. Mark is now just a silent partner who lives in Knoxville;

See Q&A, Page 11

Head

Continued from Page 10 he’s our mentor.

KH: One 12 Downtown seemed like a successful venture for years in this same building. Why did you decide to try the Label concept a year ago?

RZ: One 12 started out really well. I think we were a little ahead of downtown, so we weren’t doing the food business that we originally thought.

The upscale sports-bar concept was what we were going for, and there really wasn’t anything here to fit that niche. We learned that you’ve got to run a pretty good amount of people through the door because you’ve got people sitting here for three or four hours watching games. Sometimes you just don’t make as much money as you’d hope. It turned into more of a nightlife place, which downtown Johnson City for the last 50 years has been nightlife-based, bars and clubs.

We closed that down to get out of the nightlife business. It was just too much

of a headache, running until two or three o’clock in the morning. It’s nice when you’re here, but I wanted to be home and didn’t want my servers here that late, so I got out of that to start this. It’s more restaurant based, more restaurant focused, and the longevity is better than the bar business. We set out with this concept with this business to build a restaurant that will stand the test of time and hopefully be here 20 years from now.

As far as the direction of downtown, over the last five years I’ve been here, it was very stagnant. You’d hear talk of things, but nothing ever came to fruition. But since last summer until now, the light switch has turned on finally and everything is moving in a positive direction for sure.

KH: Tell me a little bit about Portico, which opened early this year out on the Bristol Highway. What was the vision there?

RZ: Portico is Spanish-influenced — the head chef there is Puerto Rican — and also with a mix of Italian.

The concept is built around the Neapolitan-style pizza, and there’s not

another oven like that in the area. It was imported from Naples, Italy. I had never really eaten that kind of pizza until about a year ago at a restaurant in Atlanta and fell in love with it. It’s a different style. Neapolitan pizzas are actually how pizzas originated in Naples, Italy in the 1800s. Nine hundred degrees and wood fired. To be a true Neapolitan-style pizza, they have very stringent regulations, and one of those is it cannot cook for over 90 seconds. So you have a really hot fire in there and pull it out, it’s just different than other pizza in the area, so there’s an educational process. It’s not crispy, but kind of chewy and doughy, with really fresh ingredients, top-quality ingredients.

Seeing the kind of clientele that goes out there versus down here, we haven’t been back in a shopping-center environment since we sold Stir Fry Johnson City to Ruby Tuesday’s six years ago now, so it’s different. It’s nice to have the convenient parking, and the vibe is just different than being in downtown.

KH: What about expansion, or more ventures? Is that on the horizon?

RZ: It’s just whatever comes along.

Portico, we really weren’t out there searching for that. The deal kind of came to us. The restaurant came to us. We weren’t looking to do another restaurant deal because we just did this deal; it just kind of popped up. At the same time that deal popped up, a building in Kingsport, an event facility that we really liked, popped up and we ended up doing two deals. So over the last year and a half, we’ve built Label, built Portico, we’ve built Social. We also manage and do all the food and beverage at the Foundation Event Facility, which is on the second floor above 620 State in Bristol. That’s a huge event facility; we had 400 people in there the other night.

There’s always stuff we’re thinking about doing. It’s just timing and whether the deal is right, and whether you have the right people in place. As long as you have the right people in place at your other properties, you can keep moving forward with new things, knowing those people are going to take care of the businesses properly. That’s the biggest challenge, and in the restaurant business you have a staff of people doing everything to accomplish the same goal, which is a lot of moving parts.

“Liberty!” to open 37th season of outdoor drama on Thursday, July 9, 2015 ELIZABETHTON - The Official Outdoor Drama of the State of Tennessee begins its 37th season July 9 at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area in Elizabethton, and continues for a three-weekend run – Thursdays through Saturdays – beginning each evening at 7:30 at the Fort Watauga Amphitheater.

Tennessee’s official outdoor drama is presented by a cast of local performers against the backdrop of Fort Watauga. Liberty! portrays the significant history of Sycamore Shoals during the late 18th century.

The outdoor drama offers a very unique format in which to experience a theatrical performance. Without a doubt, live theater, performed beside the cool waters of the Watauga River, with Fort Watauga as the backdrop to the play, is unlike any other. Theatrical lighting, professional sound, and a host of unexpected effects completely immerse the audience in the trials and challenges of life in the late 18th century.

As the story unfolds, long hunters and settlers begin leaving the protection of the English Colonies, crossing the Appalachian Mountains in violation of the British Proclamation of 1763. Along the Watauga Old Fields, families soon made their homes, formed a new government, bought and traded land from the Cherokee, and ultimately, helped secure our freedom during the American Revolutionary War. The series of events that unfolded at Sycamore Shoals were critical to state and national history. These dramatic chapters in America’s westward expansion set the tone for a number of events that helped propel the British colonies towards independence and a democratic form of government. These stories are proudly shared with our guests during each performance of Liberty! The Saga of Sycamore Shoals.

The 2015 season will also mark the 6th exciting year for Carter’s Trading Post, a venue named in honor of the original store opened by pioneers John Carter and partner William Parker shortly after they arrived on the frontier in 1771. A fine menu of mouth-watering treats will be offered each evening for Liberty! guests.

NEW this year, we will be offering additional ticket price discounts and the option to purchase your tickets in advance, online ( www.TheLibertyDrama.com). All seating is general admission. Take advantage of this new service to insure your admission on the night of your choosing.

Each Friday night, a sign language interpreter will be with us, bringing the story to life for the hearing impaired. In addition, we also have a Williams Hearing Impaired system transmitting on 72.9 MHz during all performances for those that have a receiver and ear piece.

Special admission nights this year are: First Night -Thursday, July 9th - Adults & Seniors $8.00; Student $5.00; 5 & under Free Veterans Night – Thursday, July 16th – Veteran and an Escort admitted Free

Liberty ad

Tickets may also be purchased on-site the night of the performance, with a maximum total seating capacity of 450 total seats. The box office opens at 6 pm.

Ticket Prices: Adult (18 & up) $12.00 Seniors (55 & up) $10.00 Student (6 to 17 years) $5.00 5 and under FREE Friends of Sycamore Shoals Member $6.00 (Must present memberships card)

During your visit to Sycamore Shoals, please plan to visit our new interpretive exhibit, shop in our Eastern National Gift Shop, and take in the sights and sounds of your Tennessee State Park.

Sponsored by Friends of Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area, A to Z Rentals, Appalachian Lighting & Production, Big John’s Closeouts, CH2M Hill Corporation, the City of Elizabethton, Elizabethton/Carter County Chamber of Commerce, Elizabethton Electric, Holston Gas, LeBleu, Massengill-DeFriece Foundation, Inc, Northeast TN Valley Regional Industrial Development Association, the Tennessee National Guard, Tennessee Society Sons of the American Revolution, John & Susan Kubenka, Michael & Lynne Barnett, Dr. Samuel Powell (Burlington, NC), 11Connects – WJHL TV, and WCYB TV 5

Liberty! runs Thursdays-Saturdays, July 9 – 11, 16 – 18, and 23 -25, in the Fort Watauga Amphitheater at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area in Elizabethton.

Performances begin nightly at 7:30 (Box office opens at 6 pm). John Carter’s Store (concessions) opens at 6:30 pm.

For more information, please call the park at (423) 543-5808.

Come early and enjoy an excellent dinner prior to the performance of Liberty!

The Dinner Theater will be offered Friday and Saturday nights during Liberty!

The dates are July 10 & 11, July 17 & 18, and July 24 & 25. Dinner is served at 6:00 PM. Doors open at 5:30 PM. Although the 2015 menu has not been set, the typical menu consists of all you can eat turkey legs, barbeque, sweet potato casserole, green beans, apple fritters, and an assortment of beverages.

The menu is subject to change without notice.

The Liberty! Dinner Theater is available by advanced reservations only. Reservations must be made by 1:00 PM the day of the performance. Dinner Theater Tickets (make reservations on-line or by calling 423-543-5808)

Adult $25.00 Seniors (55 & over) $23.00 Student (6 to 17 years) $18.00 Children (Ages 5 and under FREE with paying adult) Friends of Sycamore Shoals Member $19.00

For more information, contact: Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area 1651 West Elk Avenue • Elizabethton, Tennessee (423) 543-5808 tnstateparks.com/parks/about/sycamore-shoals/ www.sycamoreshoalstn.org Info@FriendsOfSycamoreShoals.org www.FriendsOfSycamoreShoals.org

June 2015

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NPAC NISWONGER PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

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G N I C OM ASON! E S S I H T

June 2015

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Resolute

Anderson’s summer project has some legs

By Kelly Hodge

Jeff Anderson is testing his heart in more ways than one this summer.

The East Tennessee State University administrator set out alone on the Appalachian Trail in mid-March and is steadily working his way north. He plans to walk into Baxter State Park in Maine sometime in early August.

Anderson was more than 700 miles into the 2,189-mile journey as June approached and feeling a sense of wonderment about it all.

“What’s interesting to me is that this is a part of America that most of us don’t get to experience,” he said during a stopover in Narrows, Va. “There’s still a wilderness component out there, and I’m very thankful for that.”

At 54, he’s also thankful to be healthy enough to undertake such a strenuous adventure.

Anderson grew up in Johnson City and was a frequent hiker as a scout, spending many hours on parts of the Appalachian Trail where it passes through the area. He always planned to tackle the entire trail at some point in his life.

The timetable moved up after a brush with mortality a couple of years ago.

“In the summer of 2013,

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Jeff Anderson

Jeff Anderson had made an assortment of new friends in the first two months of his hike on the Appalachian Trail.

I started having some heart difficulties,” said Anderson.

“It took a long time to get it diagnosed correctly. I went through treatment at Vanderbilt and was finally able to resume physical activity.

I just thought as part of my recuperation, wouldn’t it be great to do the trail now rather than wait until the retirement years. This seemed to be my window of opportunity.”

So Anderson got clearance

June 2015

to miss five months of work as ETSU’s interim vice president for university advancement and interim president of the ETSU Foundation — “I’m very grateful to (president) Dr. Brian Noland; he’s so supportive,” he says — and began hiking from the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail at Springer Mountain, Ga. (For those who want to keep up, he’s logging his experiences on the trailjour-

nals.com website. His chosen hiker name: Resolute.)

Anderson is on his own in one sense, but hikers on the AT are never alone for long.

He’s making new friends as he goes.

He described one night at a shelter — basically a three-sided lean-to — in the Smoky Mountains that was designed to accommodate 12 people. Temperatures were supposed to fall below freezing, and the hikers huddled

closer together and squeezed in 17.

“It’s really encouraging to see that kind of camaraderie,” said Anderson.

“Despite the difference in ages, or where you’re from, hikers support one another. I’ve already met people from over half of the states and countries like Australia, Finland, Germany. There’s an amazing diversity, from what See TRAIL, Page 15

Jeff Anderson

Shelter life in the Smokies at Tri-Corner Knob on a freezing night.

Trail

Continued from Page 14 they do, to their ages. I’ve met hikers as young as 17, all the way into their 80s.”

Each day is different on the trail, too, depending on weather conditions, supplies and the location of shelters along the way. Carrying a pack that typically weighs about 30 pounds, Anderson clicked off 15 miles on his best day.

He said the terrain early on, in Georgia and the Smokies, was particularly challenging. But no matter what happens, hikers try to stay strong and keep walking.

“The routine is you get up about 7 o’clock and try to be on the trail by 8,” he said.

“As a mid-50s hiker, there’s soreness and the aches. One day your back may hurt. The next day your feet may hurt, and the next day it may be your knees. But you try to rest when you can and keep going.

“The most difficult aspect of the daily routine is

‘It is very much a spiritual experience.’

— Jeff Anderson

having to pack and unpack every day.”

The biggest variable, he said, is food. If you drop into a town and pick up a week’s worth, you may regret it once it’s on your back. Some hikers he’s met were lugging packs of over 50 pounds.

“The biggest surprise to me is you simply cannot eat enough food,” said Anderson. “I like to think of the Appalachian Trail for through-hikers as the ultimate weight management program. I’ve probably lost 15 pounds — some out here have lost 30 — and I’m not even halfway to Maine.

“You just can’t consume the amount of calories you burn every day on the trail.”

Hikers also have to make sure they’re carrying enough water to get to the next available source.

Anderson said his wife,

Jeff Anderson

A majestic view from the trail awaits hikers at Chestnut Knob, Va.

Beth, and daughter, Olivia, have been extremely supportive since he decided to spend five months in the wilderness. Beth even plots out some of the logistics of his trips and mails resupply boxes to be waiting at certain stops.

Anderson, an attorney and former Johnson City mayor, was also helped in preparation for his trip by friends like Jim Moody. Moody hiked the trail in 2006 after retiring as city planner in Johnson City.

“Oddly enough, he and Beth and Olivia and I hooked up in New Hampshire that summer,” said Anderson.

“He was hiking and crossed into a little town where we were on vacation.”

Anderson will surely receive a fine reception at the end of his journey, at spectacular Mount Katahdin in Maine. In the meanwhile, he’s going to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

“Having gone through a challenge with my heart health, this is an experience where I appreciate the soli-

tude in nature and also the chance to reconnect spiritual-

ly,” he said. “It is very much a spiritual experience.”

Register Now! 282-2540 studiodancejc.com

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Allen Greene Photography

Jason Witten, the Cowboys tight end, will conduct his 13th annual SCORE Foundation camp in Elizabethton on June 13.

NFL stars shine off field, too

By Trey Williams

Area youth football players aiming for the stars have an unprecedented shot at celebrity sightings in June.

A number of current and former NFL players will be working at three free camps, where giving back is its own reward.

Tennessee Titans cornerback Coty Sensabaugh and his cousin Gerald, a former Dallas Cowboys defensive back, will headline the third annual Sensabaugh Camp Classic at Dobyns-Bennett’s J. Fred Johnson Stadium on June 6. The 13th annual Jason Witten SCORE Foundation Football Camp will be held June 13 at Elizabethton’s Dave Rider Field. And on Tuesday, June 16 at Steve Spurrier Field, former Hilltopper Van Williams and fellow NFL veterans Anthony Hancock, Bruce Wilkerson and Tony Robinson will work the Science Hill Football Camp.

Coty Sensabaugh first attended a

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Witten camp when he worked one while playing at Clemson.

“That was actually the basis and the blueprint that me and my team based our camp off of, to be honest with you,” Sensabaugh said. “I thoroughly enjoyed and loved what Jason was doing, and the impact and the vision he was bringing to the kids. I was like, ‘Man, I have to bring this to Kingsport.’”

Witten’s camp has swelled to around 2,000 campers at times. It’s a surreal setting where smiles constantly coat young and old faces alike. Instructors have included fellow Pro-Bowlers such as Tony Romo, Brad Johnson and Terence Newman.

“I’m just in awe every time I go back, and it’s really Jason in a nutshell,” said University of Texas basketball assistant/Witten camp instructor Michael Morrell, who was Witten’s teammate in football and basketball at Elizabethton.

“He put his whole heart and soul in to it, and it not only became a success, it

became the best. And that’s what he is.

You know, he’s a guy that not a ton of people gave a chance, and he became the best. And that’s what his camp’s become, because that’s the only way he knows how to do it.

“As good of a player as he is, it’s not half of the person that he is. That’s why the camp is so good, because Jason puts his heart into it. And now not only him, but his wife (Michelle) does, his family does. And all the people that care about J, we just want to be involved and do anything we can because of what he means to us.”

Even a skeptic quickly ascertains that Witten isn’t too good to be true.

Genuine and mindful of others, Witten was quick to commend Sensabaugh for starting a free camp.

“Obviously, I’m a big fan of Coty and what he stands for,” Witten said. “And I think he gets that part of it – that it is a huge opportunity to give back.”

Indeed, Sensabaugh has raised

money for lymphoma and leukemia research. It’s a dear cause. When Coty was 11 his 16-year-old brother Jamaar died from leukemia.

“In my first two years in the league we raised over $60,000 … and we actually got a research grant at the University of Vanderbilt in my brother’s name,” Sensabaugh said.

Tragedy made Coty wise beyond his years. He appreciates each day knowing nothing’s guaranteed. His favorite memory from his first two camps was watching a boy push his wheelchair-bound friend through all drills for the entirety of the camp.

“That was very special for me,” Sensabaugh said.

He wants children to dare to dream the way he did when he was a 13-year-old sitting beside his cousin Teddy Gaines shortly after Gaines was drafted out of Tennessee by San Francisco in 2002.

See STARS, Page 17

Stars

Continued from Page 16 “He had an autograph signing at Dobyns-Bennett High School and he allowed me to sit at the table where he was autographing everybody’s pictures or jerseys or whatever,” Sensabaugh said. “I don’t even know if he remembers. I just remember sitting at that table and seeing how everybody loved him and wanted a piece of him, and I’m like, ‘Man, out of all the people he could have at this table with him, he has me — this little kid, his little cousin

Allen Greene Photography

Titans cornerback Coty Sensabaugh speaks to campers last summer in Kingsport.

— at the table with him. I was like, ‘Man, I want to be in this position one day. I want to have the same impact on people that he had.’”

Former Tennessee Volunteers/Science Hill offensive lineman Phil Stuart will reunite with a childhood inspiration at Science Hill’s camp. Stuart, who was responsible for getting former Vols/NFL players such as Hancock, Wilkerson and Robinson to Johnson City for the June 16 camp at Science Hill, is looking forward to catching up with Van Williams.

A former Buffalo Bills kick returner and running back, Williams starred at Science Hill and attended the same church (Grace Temple) as Stuart when Stuart was a child.

“I always had nothing but the utmost respect for Van,” Stuart said, “because I would always, as a kid, watch him play and I’d see how hard he would train and how hard he would run. I always admired how hard he worked, and it

inspired me.”

Stuart got the inspiration of a lifetime from friend and former teammate Harry Galbreath’s untimely heart-related death in 2010. Stuart started a free camp of his own, Camp 76, to honor Galbreath. The fifth annual event will be held on June 13. Everyone from Phillip Fulmer and Charles Davis to numerous former NFL players has assisted Stuart in previous camps.

“Every year it’s very emotional,” Stuart said. “Harry’s mom is so appreciative of it. And it’s something that I get so much joy from doing and the excitement from the scholarships that we give the kids that work so hard in the classroom. … We had a kid (Leon Humphrey) that we gave the money to last year that’s playing football at ETSU. That scholarship came from Harry.”

Stuart will head to Johnson City to do the Science Hill camp three days after Camp 76 at the Johnny Long Training Academy in Knoxville. When former Science Hill player Dana Whiteside’s father asked Stuart about attending the Science Hill camp Stuart’s initial inclination was to turn down the request. He’s recently had two quadriceps tendon tears.

“And I have so much going on with Camp 76 … and it takes a lot out of me,” Stuart said. “But I just said, ‘You know what, I’m not gonna do that (turn down the Whitesides), because that’s my alma mater. I can’t not do it.’ …

Giving back is what it’s all about and that’s kind of how I was raised, because my grandmother (Julia Mae Cousins) kind of gave back to the community.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance. Who says tomorrow (is guaranteed) — if I’ll ever live another day.

I wanted to make sure those guys get to see and hear guys that I played with and their journeys and their experiences — and not just on the football field.

You look at Tony Robinson’s journey, and it’s been rough.”

Stuart is also eager to see his 14-yearold cousin Tre, a rising freshman at Science Hill that looks like he’ll eclipse the stature of Stuart, who was 6-foot-5 and 275 pounds his senior year with the Hilltoppers.

“I’m excited to see him kind of grow and become his own,” Stuart said.

“I talk to him periodically and make sure that he knows the importance of becoming a young man and knowing rights and wrongs. It’s not only about the game of football, it’s about the game of life.”

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Sauceman has plenty on his plate

By Kelly Hodge

One way or another, Fred Sauceman will get his message out.

You may know him as the longtime news voice on WETS-FM, the area’s public radio station. Or from half a dozen food-related books he has authored. Or his occasional appearances on local television, in the Johnson City Press, or regional magazines.

As the resident expert on Appalachian culture and cuisine, Sauceman has also been involved with six documentary films and teaches a course at East Tennessee State University as associate professor of Appalachian Studies.

For good measure, he still recites the thousands of names at each ETSU commencement exercise — a duty he has gladly performed since 1994.

“I write, I teach, I broadcast,” Sauceman said recently, sitting back in his cloistered third-floor office in Burgin Dossett Hall. “I enjoy working in all media; I’ve done that all my life.

I started in radio, but I’ve done newspaper work, television work, printing, photography. This was the perfect job for me because of those skill sets.”

The 58-year-old Greeneville native is in a self-described “semi-retirement,” having put in 32 years of service with the state. Sauceman became a fixture in the University Relations office at ETSU long ago.

Now he has the freedom to do what he enjoys, and that covers a lot of ground. It includes teaching his Foodways of Appalachia class in the fall, and editing ETSU Today, the university magazine.

Of course, Sauceman still spends a fair amount of time at the radio station, where his career all began. He is the news director.

“I had been doing an air shift on Thursdays long before I retired,” he said. “When I retired, the news became an every-day thing, so I’m there six days a week now.”

The whole journalism business has changed radically, whether it’s print or broadcast. Unlike some others, Sauceman has embraced that change and made it work in his favor.

“When I started here in ’85 at WETS, they were literally editing with razor blades and tape,” he said. “Now, of

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Larry Smith/ETSU

Fred Sauceman, a jack of all journalistic trades, has become a prominent voice on matters of Appalachian cuisine and culture.

course, if I want to take a breath out of a newscast, I can do it in a matter of a few seconds. With printing technology, you never hear the words ‘color separations’ anymore. We were working weeks and weeks on slide shows in the ‘80s. Now, with PowerPoint, you can do a slide show in a matter of minutes.

“Everything has undergone a huge transformation, and it allows people like myself to really appreciate this technology more than somebody half my age. It’s been a great career to have evolved with that technology.”

These days Sauceman is best known as an authority on regional cuisine and the establishments that serve it. He first began to dabble in that area about 20 years ago and found he enjoyed setting the narrative, with food as the backdrop.

“I’ve always wanted to tell the stories of my people in Appalachia,” he said. “I was born here, I grew up here.

I was educated in Appalachia, I always worked in Appalachia. I will forever be in Appalachia. And having worked in the media, I enjoy telling a good story.”

Sauceman grew up in a family that was “tied to the land,” he said, and thus to the bounty of food it produced.

His father had 11 brothers and sisters, and many worked as sharecroppers in Greene County communities.

Some of the indelible impressions of his youth came from visiting an aunt on his mother’s side.

“She had an African-American maid, for lack of a better term. Trula Bailey was her name, and my aunt taught her how to read,” said Sauceman. “When Trula Bailey was an adult, she would scour newspapers, magazines and cookbooks, reading recipes. And she’d take these recipes and transform them into her own.

“She really had a profound impact on me when I’d go down there and visit, because she’d serve me things I never had at home. I’m sure she served me my first eggplant and probably my first mushrooms. And definitely my first apricot chiffon pie.”

Sauceman chuckles at the memories.

“So I’ve just been around people who understand the value of the table and the value of the farm,” he said.

Those kinds of values were subtext to a larger story. As the scope of his career has expanded, Sauceman has tried to explain the workings of every-day life in Appalachia through its food.

“I’m not a critic; I’m not a gourmet.

Those words don’t apply to me at all,” he said. “I don’t do critical reviews. I use food as a starting point for an entrée — pun there — to tell a story about a person. What I really love to write about are people who labor all their lives, dawn to dusk, are proud of what they do, never complain, never get much recognition, but find dignity in that labor. I guess that’s a major theme in my writing. It applies to farmers, it applies to barbeque masters, it applies to home cooks, it applies to restaurant owners.”

Sauceman relishes — pun there — restaurants that have stood the test of time, through generations of the same family. The Peerless in Johnson City, founded by Jim Kalogeros in 1938, is perhaps his favorite local establishment in that regard.

Somewhere near the top would be Ridgewood Barbeque in Bluff City, which had gotten off to a dubious start in the 1940s.

“Grace (Proffitt) started that business in 1948 in Bullock Hollow,” said Sauceman. “Jim, her husband, was over in

Elizabethton making rayon, and she was running a beer joint in that lonely hollow in 1948. Four years after she opened, Sullivan County went dry. So there goes the beer joint.

“That’s why they turned to barbeque. Got the idea to start barbequing in Daytona Beach. That’s where the name Ridgewood comes from; there’s a Ridgewood Avenue in Daytona Beach, Florida.”

Another mainstay on Sauceman’s list of favorites is a place in Greeneville called the Bean Barn. He grew up eating there, sometimes twice a day.

“I have talked about them all over the country and written about them so many times,” he said. “That’s the best example of a restaurant building community that I know of. There’s white collar, blue collar, no collar. All races, classes. They gather over that bowl of soup beans.”

Soup beans, in fact, was the subject of one of his documentary films. Other topics included a Cajun pig roast in East Tennessee; trout farming in Western North Carolina; and ramps, the wild onions that are popular in pockets of our area.

Sauceman’s latest book is titled, “Buttermilk and Bible Burgers: More Stories from the Kitchens of Appalachia.” He’s also the author of the three-volume series “The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South — from Bright Hope to Frog Level.”

Earlier this year, he was asked to submit an essay on Appalachian food and culture for the project “What It Means to Be American,” a partnership among Zocalo Public Square, the Smithsonian and the National Museum of American History.

All in all, there’s rarely a dull moment in the life of Fred Sauceman, at least not when it’s time to eat.

“I’ve been so lucky to do the things I love for my entire life,” he says. “Even going back to college, I had a career going in radio before I started college.

So I really didn’t have to worry about things that would prepare me for a job; I took things I liked. I loaded up on English, history, anthropology, geology, foreign languages. That’s always been a priority with me — doing what I enjoy. The stars just aligned pretty much correctly to allow me to do that.”

Southeastern Autorama

Erwin car show still cruising at 55

Rockstar Energy Racing

Zach Osborne of Abindgon, Va., has been battling back from injuries.

Muddy Creek feels like home to Osborne

By Trey Williams

Zach Osborne can go home again, although opportunities run in cycles.

The Abingdon, Va., native will be in Blountville for Muddy Creek Raceway’s third annual LUCAS Oil PRO national championship Motocross event on June 6, and a large gathering of family and friends will be on hand to cheer on Osborne in the Red Bull Tennessee PRO National.

“I think I need about 30 tickets for the race for everyone to get in,” said the 25-year-old Osborne, who has family in Bristol, Abingdon and Rural Retreat. “It’s cool for me and my family and everyone that’s been involved in my career to be able to have a race there.”

Of course, the blitz of friendly faces does pose a potential distraction, and time management is crucial.

“It is a tough race for me, but it’s definitely worth it and it’s still pretty enjoyable,” Osborne said. “I mean everyone understands what I have going on and everything. It is a busy time, but at the same time … I’m glad that I get the opportunity to come there and it be something big for me now.

“It’s pretty crazy that there’s finally a national at Muddy Creek. It was long talked about since I was just a young kid.”

Tim Keller

An aerial view of Muddy Creek Raceway.

Osborne began racing at Muddy Creek at age six. He spent a lot of years wondering when Muddy Creek would land a national event, and it came at a good time. The 2013 debut coincided with his move back from Europe, where he’d raced for five years.

“It’s a good place to visit; it’s tough to live there, though,” he said. “It was cool that the first year I came back was the first year of the nationals. I got to be a part of the first one at Muddy Creek and hopefully for many more to come.”

See OSBORNE, Page 21

It started with a couple of guys sitting around at the old Big Hat restaurant in Erwin, cooking up ideas for a special event that might interest the townspeople.

What Conrad Beam and Jim Hobbs came up with was a car show, and more than half a century later it still seems like a good idea.

Southeastern Autorama will roll out antiques, classics, muscle cars and everything in between for the 55th straight year on June 6. The show is held at the track and field complex at Unicoi County High School.

By his count, Charlie Ervin has been involved with the last 48 shows, as both an entrant and an organizer. He is currently the treasurer of Southeastern Autorama.

“I’m an old car enthusiast and haven’t missed one in all this time,” said Ervin.

“I’ve been to every show and am still pretty active in the club. We do it for the town and the county.”

There have been highs and lows with the Autorama through the years, but it has lived on to become reportedly the oldest continuous car show in Tennessee.

As many as 250 vehicles have been entered some years, and sometimes fewer than 100. Organizers say the event is on an upswing again and were hoping for perhaps 150 entries this year.

“A lot of people still come from other states to show their vehicles, and we

get some from Nashville and Knoxville,” said Ervin, who owns Fords of the 1940 and ‘50 vintages, and a 1975 Corvette. “A lot of friendships are made and we have people who are real loyal to us. They come every year.

“One guy told me he liked our show better than anywhere he’d ever been.

He’ll be back this year with a customized Corvette.”

The show isn’t restricted to cars. In fact, you never know what you might see.

“If it has wheels, we like it,” said Kelly Clapp, an Autorama member who moved down from Connecticut six years ago.

“We’re not discriminatory.

We’ve had people show up with racing lawnmowers and go-karts. The more unusual, the better.”

Like the quaint little town itself, the Autorama has never drifted far from its roots.

“It started with a couple of guys getting together to show off their cars on the weekend and just blossomed from there,” said Clapp. “But it’s basically the same as it’s always been. We like the history, we like to talk about the vehicles. It’s just a good time, and anybody is welcome.

Everybody is welcome.”

The gates open on June 6 at 7 a.m., and prizes will be awarded at 5 p.m. There is a $5 entry fee for spectators.

The cost is $15 to enter a car, right up to the day of the show.

June 2015

— Kelly Hodge

Out-N-About

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Working dog has earned his keep

Concert JUNE Johnson City The Down Home (downhome.com) 11 — Food for Folk fundraiser; 8 p.m.; $25 suggested donation 12 — This Mountain; 8 p.m.; $18 advance 13 — Humming House with Christian Lopez; 8 p.m.; $15 advance 19 — Anniversary Celebration Show; Great Smoky Mountain Bluegrass Band, Motel Rodeo, Ed Snodderly, My New Favorites; 8 p.m.; $15 20 — Summer Slam featuring Crooked Rook and Tina Tarmac; 7 p.m.; $5 24 — Parker Milsap, 8 p.m.; $16 advance 26 — Darin and Brooke Aldridge; 8 p.m.; $16

By Mary Ellen Miller

I

s taking a pet to work is more likely found in Hollywood Hills than the Blue Ridge Mountains?

Actually, we found plenty of fourlegged friends making their way into the hearts and offices of workers right here in Northeast Tennessee.

One such pet is Jake, a 6½-yearold, 80-pound golden retriever with a soft, well-groomed coat. Jake is the self-appointed doorman and greeter for Stowaway Storage on Browns Mill Road in North Johnson City.

As this writer entered, Jake approached carrying a soft, red child’s toy in his mouth and wagging his tail.

By all appearances, he is both welcoming committee and chief public relations officer.

“From the very beginning when my youngest son pushed me to get another puppy (after the family’s previous golden passed away), I said, ‘OK he has to learn to ride in the car, he has to learn to jump in and out of the car, and he has to go to work with me every day,’” said Jake’s owner and person, Barbara Allen. “I picked him up on a Monday and he was just about 10-12 pounds. Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. he was in the office, and Friday of that week he shot a TV commercial for the Dogwood and Cattails Ball.”

Jake has been the mascot for Stowaway ever since.

“There are a lot of people who want to do business with somebody that is a dog lover,” says Allen. “Some people bring their kids and time their visit to be sure that Jake’s here.”

Allen says Jake considers his co-workers an extension of his family, and when the tenant, who lives in an on-premises apartment, stops home for lunch, Jake believes it’s his lunch break, too.

“Jake rushes over to greet him and keep him company through lunch and then the tenant leaves and he comes back to work,” says Allen.

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Jake the Stowaway dog.

Barbara Allen

Jake knows the UPS and FedEx truck drivers and is excited to see them because they are regular visitors at Stowaway. (Note: The well-mannered Jake does not bark at these uniformed guests.)

Allen says that taking a canine to work involves a lot of prior planning.

“You always have to be thinking ahead. You can’t run errands after work and you have to adjust your timing,” she says. Thankfully, Jake feels so at home at Stowaway that he is completely at ease when Allen says “I’ll be back” during work hours.

“He is featured in all our advertising, and believe it or not, he is responsible for lots of rentals,” adds Charles Allen. “Although Barbara didn’t take him to work for that reason, it is probably one of the better marketing moves we have made.”

Just like a small child, Jake’s regular nap time rolls around each afternoon between 3 and 5 o’clock. That’s when people know to step over the sleeping pooch who’s generally sprawled out in front of the door. His rest routine: look outside for a few minutes and then nod off to doggie dreamland.

“Dogs have to be at the right place at the right time and Jake’s perfect for here because he gets to interact with lots of different people,” says Barbara Allen.

Willow Tree Coffeehouse & Music Room (thewillowtreejc.com) 2 — Secret’s Society; 7 p.m.

3 — Open mic night; 7-9 p.m.

4 — Luttrell; 7 p.m.

10 — Open mic night; 7-9 p.m.

11 — Sol Driven Train; 8 p.m.

12 — Ancient Cities; 8 p.m.

13 — Kate and Corey; 8 p.m.

17 — Open mic night; 7-9 p.m.

19 — Great Disaster with Demon Waffle; 8 p.m.

24 — Open mic night; 7-9 p.m.

27 — Lauren Cole Band; 8 p.m.

——— Jonesborough Music on the Square (Free shows starting at 7 p.m.) (musiconthesquare.com) 5 — Honey Dewdrops 12 — Tellico 19 — Brad Puckett Band 26 — Angela Easterling and the Beguilers ——— Greeneville Niswonger PAC (boxoffice@npacgreeneville. com) 13 — Little River Band; 7:30 p.m.; $30-40 28 — Beach Boys; 7:30 p.m.; $100-250 ——— Bristol Border Bash, Downtown 5 — Banditos, 7 p.m.; Andrew Scotchie and the River Rats, 8:30 p.m.; free 19 — Margo Price and the Pricetags, 7 p.m.; Cale Tyson, 8:30; free

schedule Birthplace of Country Music Museum (423-573-1927) 14 — Second Sunday Concert Series presents Todd Day Wait; 2 p.m.; $15 20 — Friends of 1927 Concert Series presents Paul Thorn; 7 p.m.; sold out ——— Asheville, NC Orange Peel (828-398-1837) 4 — Kill Paris; 9 p.m.; $15 advance/17 day of show 10 — Glass Animals; 9 p.m.; $15/18 11 — Bleachers; 7:30 p.m.; $21/24 12 — Grind; 9 p.m.; $8/10 14 — Gary Clark Jr.; 8 p.m.; sold out 18 — Chris Stapleton; 9 p.m.; $15 19 — Abbey Road Live; 9 p.m.; $16/19 20 — Live at the Fillmore; 9 p.m.; $15/17 23 — Indigo Girls; 8 p.m.; $34/39 27 — Appetite for Destruction; 9 p.m.; $10/13 ——— Charlotte, NC Time Warner Cable Arena (704-688-9000) 2 — New Kids on the Block; 7 p.m.; tickets $29.50-101.50 6 — Barry Manilow; 8 p.m.; $19.75129.75 8 — Taylor Swift; 8 p.m.; $39.50-200 11 — Kenny Chesney; 8 p.m.; $35-79 PNC Music Pavilion (704-549-5555) 4 — Zac Brown Band; 7 p.m.

9 — Train; 7 p.m.

13 — Lana Del Ray; 7:30 p.m.

30 — Def Leppard, Styx and Tesla; 7 p.m.

——— JULY Johnson City The Down Home (downhome.com) 2 — Scott Pleasant; 8 a.m.; $12 10 — A Great Disaster; 8 p.m.; $10 11 — String Fever; 8 p.m.; $10 18 — Beth Snapp; 8 a.m.; $14 ——— Jonesborough Music on the Square (Free shows starting at 7 p.m.) (musiconthesquare.com) 3 — My New Favorites 4 — WannaBeatles and JV Squad 10 — Michael Reno Harrell 17 — David and Valerie Mayfield 24 — Jeff Little Trio 31 — Get Right Band

Osborne Continued from Page 19

Osborne led for a while in the inaugural event in 2013.

“It was kind of a dream come true to come around and be in the lead and get to lead for a little while,” he said.

Things have soured since he led in Blountville. Osborne tailed off to a respectable fifth-place finish in 2013, then had to miss last season’s race due to a torn ligament in his thumb.

“My thumb went all the

way to my wrist,” he said.

“Muddy Creek’s definitely a huge highlight of my season, and to miss it was pretty tough. And actually, I had to go anyway for obligations to the team, and that just made it sort of double tough.”

Osborne, who is healthy after battling a fractured thumb injury much of this year, likes the challenging layout at Muddy Creek.

“For me it’s a good track,” he said. “A lot of guys don’t like it as much as I do, because it’s kind of narrow.

Overall, I think it’s a great track. … probably one of the top five tracks on the circuit,

and that’s pretty cool to have that really close to home and be able to have grown up there and now get to race there as a pro.”

Osborne’s uncle, Jason, got him started in racing. His chief inspiration was 43-yearold Mike Brown (Bluff City), who won the AMA 125cc motocross national title in 2001.

“Mike Brown’s been super successful and I’m good friends with him,” Osborne said. “So he’s been a big influence and also a big motivation just seeing that, you know, someone from our area, which is pretty small in the grand scheme

of things, can make it. He’s been definitely the biggest motivation and inspiration to my career.”

Osborne finished 12th in Sacramento on May 16 and 17th in San Bernardino on May 23, which placed him 15th in the 250 Class standings two races in to the outdoor season.

Motocross, in this era of specialization, demands year-round dedication.

Osborne has trained extensively in Chesterfield, South Carolina.

“Motocross is to the point now where we’re all in such good shape that it’s just wide

open the whole time,” he said. “It’s not really a game of chess anymore like it was maybe 10 years ago when you could kind of hold back and sit until the last couple of laps and then charge. Now it’s an all-out sprint for 30 minutes. It’s definitely tough.

We work hard. …

“I think sports science has come a long ways, and now there’s a lot of people, especially in our sport, that are coming to the more professional and scientific side of training. And it’s made a huge impact in our sport as far as the amount of hours and work that goes in to it.”

June 2015

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Income gap threatens us as a society

By David Fagelson

Terry Warner

Tackle inequality with work

By Harrison Jenkins We’re starting to hear them more and more these days, the drumbeats of the income inequality protestors.

“Boom, boom, boom… the wealthy are too wealthy… boom, boom, boom… the poor are too poor.” They make veiled threats that violent revolution may well be in our future if we don’t somehow find ways to put more money in the pockets of people who have chosen not to educate themselves and who would bleed us all to our financial deaths if we would just grow a conscience and hook a cash IV up to their veins.

Is there income inequality in the United States? Of course. There is income inequality in any free-market society. There will always be income inequality in free-market societies.

What can we do about it?

The most popular (or populist) idea seems to be that the answer is in

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tax reform. We can raise income taxes on wealthy Americans (the infamous one-percenters) to fifty percent or more. If they make too much money, say a half-million a year or so, take at least fifty percent of it and distribute it among people who aren’t hard-working and innovative. That’ll teach ‘em, won’t it?

Under that proposal, it seems to me that all we would accomplish would be causing a great many hard-working, innovative people to work less and create less. Whether we like it or not, money is an incentive — the primary incentive — in our capitalist society. Take half the incentive away, and we would quickly begin to drift toward that great inefficient, failed societal experiment we used to call communism.

A Federal Reserve economist named Thomas Garrett once offered this opinion on income inequality: “A wary eye should be cast on policies

that aim to shrink the income distribution by redistributing income from the more productive to the less productive simply for the sake of fairness.”

I agree with that assessment a hundred percent. If a person wants a bigger share of the American pie, he or she has options. Primary among those options are getting a college education and getting their backsides out into the workforce.

Statistics show that Americans who graduate from college make far more money over their lifetimes than Americans who only make it through high school. And those who don’t even make it through high school?

Well, they don’t have much of a shot, which is as it should be.

So to those who are beating the drums, this is what I say: Get off of your duffs and get to work. The government doesn’t owe you anything, and neither do people who have worked hard and become successful.

Although I am most assuredly not a member of the upper one percent financially, I do have some advice for them.

If they were to read history, they might learn that violent revolutions occur when the middle class disappears. It is when there develops a huge financial disparity between the haves and the have-nots, such as we see today. There must be a point where these people finally can, and must admit, enough money is enough So in the spirit of conviviality, I offer them this idea: We must redevelop a middle class, and as I see it there are three basic concepts that must take place.

First, there must be a livable living wage, not just $10 an hour, but at least $15 an hour. People must be taken out of poverty so as to be able to not just exist, but to prosper. The more money people have, the more they spend. Obviously, this will necessitate the haves giving up some profits, but the flip side is more cash in circulation.

Second, health care for all by expanding Medicare. If we can provide for our elders, why not for all of our citizens. Also, the great increase in healthy younger people in the pool will help to defray the mounting costs of seniors’ health care, which is draining us. We are the only industrial nation that continues to pretend that fee-forservice medical care still works. It doesn’t. It is time for a change.

Finally, stop messing with Social Security. It works and has worked for many decades. If anything, it should be increased, again to help the middle class. No one should have to sacrifice eating to pay rent or to pay exorbitant fees for medicines.

We paid into it, leave it alone. Privatizing social security will only give more money to the money-grubbers. If you need proof that privatizing social security would be a disaster, remember 2007 when the stock market tanked. The government system may not be perfect, but it works.

Therefore, as I see it, it is essential that we recreate our middle class. Granted, greedy corporations have robbed us of jobs by outsourcing, but the least we can and must do is to assure that our country still cares enough to build the middle class again.

I am certain that the likes of the Kochs, Trumps and Adelsons would call me a commie and insist that their livelihoods will be compromised. Go ahead, but accepting these ideas would be far better than the guillotine.

Lester Bean

Mountain Hollow Apartments 100 Mountain Hollow Court Elizabethton, Tennessee 37643

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Equal Housing Opportunity.

Wheelchair accessible

Cancer Fund yet another sick fraud

I read a story in the paper today that got me so worked up I had to drive straight to Miss Kitty’s Honky Tonk and Laundromat on Frog Hollow Road and order me up a beer.

“My goodness, Lester,” Miss Kitty said from behind the bar. “You’ve got sweat on your brow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sweat.”

“I’m mad, Miss Kitty,” I said.

“You’re always mad about something.”

“Well, this is something special. You know my momma died of cancer last year, right?”

“Yes, and I’m real sorry about that.”

“I read this morning that this place in Knoxville, the Cancer Fund of America, is a fraud. It’s a charity. They’ve been telling people for years that they’re raising money for cancer patients and cancer research, that the contributions would be used to provide pain medication to children suffering from cancer, transport cancer patients to chemotherapy appointments, and pay for hospice care. Turns out they were lying.

The guy that runs the place, this James Reynolds, Sr., has been living it up on the money. None of it has been going to fight cancer. He’s bilked people out of millions.”

“That’s terrible,” Miss Kitty said.

“What did he spend the money on?”

“Big houses and cars and jet ski outings and concert tickets and cruises.

Fat cat stuff.”

“So are they going to put him in jail?”

“No! That’s the worst part of it.

They’re going after them in civil court, suing them. They’ll close them down and take some stuff from the guy and tell him he can’t dupe people out of their money anymore. They might make him pay fifty or sixty thousand dollars because he’ll whine and moan and poor mouth and tell them he can’t afford to pay any more.”

“And that’s it?”

“They might make him say, ‘Gee, I’m sorry I’m a lying, stinking, pilfering fraud who takes advantage of

Just the thought that some stuffed-shirt snake oil salesman would pull something like this right here in Tennessee makes me want to go down to Knoxville, find his house, and start pulling his eyelashes out. kind-hearted people.”

“Take another sip, Lester, your hand is shaking.”

“My momma suffered, you know.

People who have cancer really suffer, and the people who love them suffer right along with them. Just the thought that some stuffed-shirt snakeoil salesman would pull something like this right here in Tennessee makes me want to go down to Knoxville, find his house, and start pulling his eyelashes out.”

“Violence is never the answer.”

“You know what’s even worse?” I said.

“How could it be worse?”

“This guy’s son was running the same kind of scam with another company in another state. They busted him, too. So this Reynolds taught his boy how to bilk people who care about cancer victims. He should be shot for that.”

“We don’t have firing squads anymore, Lester.”

“You know what? Come to think of it, there’s something else that might be even better, since they’re not going to put anybody in jail. As much as I hate to say it, karma can be cruel sometimes.”

“Lester, you’re not wishing cancer on anyone.”

“Like I said, karma can be cruel.”

June 2015

Out-N-About

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Out ‘ N About Magazine