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Are these East alumni or former East pupils? Year after year there are stories about people that may well be East alumni but whose East association has not met the verification requirements of this publication. The likey association has been noted but if you can provide confirming details, please let us know at editor@EastHigh.org. Here are references to a few of those stories for which confirmation is currently being sought:
By Sara Patterson, The Commercial Appeal August 28, 2011 [Excerpt] Beer runs through the veins of Jake Schorr III [circa '61]. The local bar owner's great-grandfather founded the Tennessee Brewery in 1885 with Caspar Koehler and Peter Saussenthaler. Schorr's father, Jacob Jr., was brewmaster until the company's demise in 1954. On a tour of the brewery one recent morning, Schorr's eyes drank in the surroundings. He had last visited the building about 20 years ago. He looked past the decomposing dead cat near the old boiler room, the heavy lines of graffiti throughout the 67,000-square-foot interior and the dozens of trashed bottles. He filled the empty space instead with childhood memories -- the smell of hops wafting through the air, the sound of sifted grains, the sight of bubbling wort in the 250-barrel brew kettle. "I was a curious kid," he said. "I'm a curious old man." Supply and demand: Before there were trucks, horses-and-buggies would pull into the 5,300 square-foot courtyard to pick up beer from the brewery and distribute it throughout the region. The brewery sold 36,132 barrels of beer in 1892 and peaked in 1948 at 208, 612, according to records gathered by Arkansas author Kenn Flemmons. Schorr, 69, was always fascinated with the mechanics of the brewery and he helps explain some of the architectural oddities of the place -- the mismatched floors, 18-foot-high ceilings and open courtyard that halves the complex.
The full story can be read for a time at The Commercial Appeal.
The following East alumni were mentioned or quoted briefly in the media. Because the reference was so limited, the full stories are not included here, however for a time the articles are available at the links provided.
editor, The East High Alumni Page August 8, 2011 Federal District Court for the Western District ot Tennessee Monday, Aug. 8 released its declaratory judgement in the case regarding the surrender of the Memphis City Schools charter. Effective with the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year Memphis City Schools will no longer exist, the schools previously in the Memphis system will be governed by the Shelby County Schools. East High will then be a county school.
By Dave O’Brien, The Record-Courier, Ravenna, Ohio July 31, 2011 A Portage County grand jury recently indicted a member of the Kent State University men’s basketball team on a charge he allegedly broke into an ex-girlfriend’s Franklin Township apartment earlier this month and assaulted her in an argument over money. Jarekious D. Bradley ['10], 20, of Memphis, Tenn., was indicted July 21 on one count of aggravated burglary, a first-degree felony, for the July 13 incident at an apartment on Ashton Lane in the Campus Pointe apartment complex on S.R. 59. Bradley, who according to his attorney is living on campus this summer, remains free on bond pending a trial in October in Common Pleas Judge John Enlow’s courtroom. Bradley has been ordered to have no contact with the alleged victim. According to the Portage County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a 911 call the morning of the incident saying Bradley had entered the victim’s apartment without permission. Bradley allegedly demanded money he believed the victim owed him and attempted to take it from her purse, the sheriff’s office said. When she tried to stop Bradley, he allegedly shoved her to the ground. Others who were in the apartment at the time then gave Bradley money and he left, according to the report. Bradley has been suspended indefinitely from the basketball team pending the outcome of his case, according to KSU Athletics. A shooting guard from Memphis East High School, Bradley entered KSU in August 2010.
An additional story about this incident is bleow.
By Henry Bailey, The Commercial Appeal Posted July 29, 2011  "If you haven't had your exercise, get it while you can," a colorfully clad Ekpe [Peter Lee ('75)] "the Edu-tainer" exhorted parents, grandparents and children from infant to 11 at the Hernando Public Library. "That's it. That's it. How low can you go? Keep flapping those wings!" Against a map backdrop of "One World, Many Stories," Ekpe (pronounced ECK-pay) spun, strummed, blew and drummed tales and music with an African flavor and universal messages: health, love of learning, reading and respect for self and others. His name tag lists a last name of Abioto, but just call him Ekpe. In African lore, "Ekpe" is a mysterious spirit believed to live in the forest and to preside at ceremonies. This Ekpe lives in Memphis and for 30 years has specialized in motivational music and cultural diversity programs for children. With his soft voice and traditional instruments including the djimbe drum, kalimba hand piano, agogo bell and shakere bead-draped gourd, Ekpe is rounding out the First Regional Library series of summer reading time special events. After this week's morning performance, it was on to Sardis; on Saturday at 4 p.m., he'll be at the Como library in Panola County. "We have reading every Wednesday, but starting next month I'll lose my school-age kids," said Denise McOwen, youth specialist at the Hernando library. Ekpe's story had started with kids bringing a lunch of carrots, broccoli -- "little trees" -- and other veggies only to be bamboozled by a clever bird. By now, things had morphed into a counting lesson and a "funky chicken" tribute to Rufus Thomas. Hailey Gullick, 8, of Southaven, was flapping with the best of them. And flipping over the lessons along with her preschooler cousin, Madison Arnold, 4. "What did we learn from that bird?" asked Ekpe. "Don't talk to strangers. You've got to be safe in this world today." Ekpe sang "I Am a Genius," the title tune from his motivational CD: "I am a genius/I will learn everything my teacher teaches me. ... You are a genius/You can learn everything that your teacher teaches you." To this, Hailey, a fourth-grader at Southaven Intermediate, revealed: "I've got two brothers and I'm smarter than them. I'm a straight-A student." She's been "waiting and waiting and waiting" to go back to school. "I can't wait to go back because I have a real cute blue backpack that will last at least two years or more." Says Ekpe later: "I use music as a metaphor for life to teach positive messages -- about school, about life. Children are attracted through the music, and I have a little fun in the meantime. That doesn't hurt at all." But it can be bit of a challenge for a mom, pop or grandma -- or librarian. "I had a little one who climbed in my arms when we started the 'funky chicken,'" McOwen said. "So I did the 'funky legs' under the table." --------------------
MUSICAL JOURNEY
By James Dowd, The Commercial Appeal July 22, 2011  If we build it, they will come, Charles McVean ['61] promises local leaders when pitching a field of beams proposal to construct a bicycle-pedestrian route over the Mississippi River. Promoting a plan to rebrand Memphis as the cycling capital of the world, McVean envisions thousands of tourists pedaling alongside throngs of walkers on a rebuilt boardwalk on the Harahan railroad bridge. Such was his message on Thursday, when McVean, chairman and CEO of Memphis-headquartered McVean Trading & Investments and a driving force behind the bridge project, was keynote speaker at a forum sponsored by the Society of Entrepreneurs. "If we could get our business leaders and government officials together on this and spend a few million dollars, this city could become the preeminent destination for cyclists from around the world," McVean said. "The Harahan Bridge boardwalk could be the centerpiece of a biking trail that begins in New Orleans and goes up to St. Louis. This project could change the entire image of Memphis." Built in 1916, the Harahan Bridge had a roadway that carried cars and trucks until 1949, when the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge opened. Union Pacific owns the railroad portion of the bridge, but Memphis and Crittenden County purchased the vehicle lanes in 1917. The supports, which need to be reinforced, are still in place, but the roadbed isn't. McVean said the upfront cost of the project would be a few million dollars that could be significantly underwritten by grants, but he'd like to see business leaders embrace the project and provide additional funding. The economic impact, he argued, would be lasting. "If our city and the Mid-South could get together on this project, the financial benefits of increased tourism would be substantial and sustainable," McVean said. In addition, he advocates connecting the bridge boardwalk to the Bluffwalk in Downtown Memphis, the Shelby Farms Greenline and a trail along Mississippi River levees from Louisiana to Missouri. "This is the kind of forward thinking that appeals to young creatives and offers a solid plan for recreational pursuits that would attract and retain talent here," said Brad Silver, CEO of Memphis biomarker startup Computable Genomix. "I enjoy being outdoors a lot and so do many of my friends and a bridge trail would be a brilliant amenity." SOE executive director Pearson Crutcher agreed. "The bridge could increase our existing tourism base and attract thousands of people here every year," Crutcher said. "It's an entrepreneurial idea that has the potential to transform Downtown and benefit our entire community."
By Dave O’Brien and Thomas Gallick, The Record-Courier, Ravenna, Ohio July 15, 2011  A Kent State University basketball player has been charged with breaking into an ex-girlfriend’s Franklin Township apartment on Wednesday morning, assaulting her and damaging her property.
Jarekious D. Bradley ['10], 20, of Memphis, Tenn. — a redshirt freshman guard on the Golden Flashes men’s team — is charged with one count each of aggravated burglary, a first-degree felony, and criminal damaging, a second-degree misdemeanor, for the incident that took place in an apartment in the 1800 block of Ashton Lane in the Campus Pointe apartment complex on S.R. 59 in Franklin Township. According to the Portage County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a 911 call Wednesday morning saying Bradley had entered the alleged victim’s apartment without permission. Once inside the apartment, Bradley allegedly demanded money he believed the victim owed him and attempted to take it from her purse, the sheriff’s office said. When the alleged victim tried to stop Bradley, he allegedly shoved her to the ground, injuring her, and damaged her debit card by bending it in half, according to the sheriff’s office. Others who were in the apartment at the time then gave Bradley money and he left the apartment. Deputies later made contact with Bradley, who was arrested and questioned. He has been cooperating with sheriff’s detectives investigating the incident, according to the sheriff’s office. Arraigned Thursday in Portage County Municipal Court in Ravenna via video from the Portage County jail, Bradley was ordered held on 10 percent of $25,000 bond, plus a $175,000 signature bond, by Acting Judge Marvin Shapiro, sitting in for Judge Mark Fankhauser. Assistant Portage County Prosecutor Tim Piero had asked Shapiro to set bond at 10 percent of $200,000 bond because the charges give Bradley "significant incentive ... to flee the jurisdiction." Defense attorney Errol Can, representing Bradley, countered by saying that Bradley has no criminal history, lives on campus in Kent and will be under the supervision of the KSU athletic department pending trial. "I don’t think he’s any threat to flee the jurisdiction," Can said. Requesting that Shapiro at least place Bradley on electronically-monitored house arrest pending trial, Piero told the judge that the case "arises out of passion," and "those kinds of situations can go awry." Additionally, KSU athletics officials "are not law enforcement. They are not accustomed to tracking and monitoring" people accused of crimes, he argued. "He would be under strict supervision of the athletic department," Can replied. "They actually do a very good job with that." Shapiro denied Piero’s request, though he did order Bradley to have no contact with the alleged victim or her residence. A preliminary hearing on the felony charge is set for 9:15 a.m. July 22 in Fankhauser’s courtroom. In a statement, Alan Ashby, KSU assistant athletic director, said the department was informed of Bradley’s arrest Wednesday. "The off-the-court conduct of our student-athletes is something we take very seriously, and therefore we are suspending Bradley indefinitely from all team-related activities pending the outcome of the ongoing legal proceedings." Ashby said. "We will reevaluate his status at the conclusion of those proceedings." Bradley, a shooting guard from Memphis East High School, was admitted to KSU in August 2010 on a scholarship. Bradley was a non-qualifier, meaning he paid his own tuition and expenses for the 2010-11 school year, while earning eligibility. He was supposed to begin playing for KSU this upcoming school year.
By Sherri Drake Silence, The Commercial Appeal May 26, 2011 A nonprofit organization authorized by the state to open Shelby County Schools' first charter school plans for it to be in Bartlett. Tommie Henderson ['91 and Faculty 1998-2003], executive director of Smart Schools Inc., said his organization signed a 10-year lease Wednesday for a 9,300-square-foot building on Stage Road at Elmore Park Road. The building used to be occupied by FedEx Kinko's and AT&T. The group agreed to pay about $121,000 annually in rent for the first five years and about $139,000 per year for the remaining five years. "The renovations that we need to do are very minor," Henderson said. "... (We) should be in the space as early as late July." Smart Schools plans to open the New Consortium of Law and Business to about 35 seventh-graders in the county district this fall and add another grade next year. The official application process doesn't start until June 1, but the organization has already received more applications than spots available, Henderson said. "Parents are very interested," he said. "It's been parents of all walks, from every type of community inside of Shelby County." Shelby County Schools twice rejected the application from Smart Schools. Following an appeal filed by Smart Schools, the state Board of Education voted in January to require the district to approve the request. Charter schools are taxpayer-funded public schools that are "chartered" by nonprofit organizations and operate outside of the control of local school boards. With approval from Memphis City Schools, Henderson opened a similar law and business charter school Downtown last year. He also started the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering in MCS. Henderson said the group plans to submit a proposed contract to the suburban district this week. County school board chairman David Pickler said the contract would be negotiated by Supt. John Aitken and SCS attorney Valerie Speakman. "At this point, the board has already reluctantly approved the agreement with them," Pickler said. " ... Our objective now is to ensure that this school meets the standards of Shelby County."
Kimbrow expected to make choice Friday By John Varlas, The Commercial Appeal June 29, 2011 Decision day is just around the corner for the top-rated high school football prospect in the Shelby-Metro area. East High coach Marcus Wimberley ['92 and Faculty] confirmed to The Commercial Appeal that star running back Brian Kimbrow will likely announce his college choice on Friday. Kimbrow is scheduled to make his choice known at the D1 Training Facility in Franklin, Tenn. "He's on his way up there now," Wimberley said late Tuesday afternoon. Kimbrow, who is ranked tops in Memphis according to rivals.com, is the No. 2 all-purpose running back prospect in the Class of 2012. He has offers from at least 24 schools, but Kimbrow said he would select from a list of finalists that includes Tennessee, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Cincinnati and Notre Dame. "I'm just looking for somewhere that's comfortable for me," Kimbrow said. "Someplace that's a good fit." The 5-9, 165-pound Kimbrow ran for 1,557 yards (7.7 per carry) and scored 15 touchdowns for a Mustangs team that went 4-7 and lost to Ridgeway in the first round of the Class 5A playoffs in 2010. Blazing speed is Kimbrow's calling card; he has been clocked at 4.28 in the 40-yard dash on several occasions. Kimbrow's teammate, Will Redmond, is drawing a ton of recruiting interest too, but Wimberley said a decision doesn't appear to be imminent. "The earliest he might make a decision is late summer," Wimberley said. "He hasn't taken any trips yet ... Will is taking things a little slower." The 6-0, 179-pound dual-threat quarterback, who will be in his first season at East after transferring from Manassas, is also being recruited as a defensive back. He's rated 30th nationally among athletes according to rivals.com and is the fourth-rated prospect in the Shelby-Metro area. Among the schools that have offered are North Carolina, Clemson, Mississippi State, Tennessee and Memphis. Wimberley added that Redmond picked up an offer from Miami on Monday.
[The East High Alumni Page editor's note: Kimbrow committed to attend Vanderbilt University and Redmond chose Mississippi State University.]
By Kathy K. Martin / Special to The Commercial Appeal May 19, 2011 [Excerpts} ... Jerrold Graber ['57], 72, feels the same way. "I wouldn't even want to consider retirement," said the former securities broker and longtime volunteer for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis. "I think it's important to be around younger people...: Graber graduated from East High School in 1957 and went on to Princeton University, where he received his bachelor's degree in history. He returned to Memphis and worked for a family business before joining the securities industry in 1967. His career as a Memphis financial consultant spanned more than 40 years before he retired from that in 2007. His interest in serving the community began in 1963, when he became a member of the Phoenix Club, a volunteer group for people age 35 and younger who support the Boys & Girls Clubs. His involvement grew from there, and he went on to serve as board member and president of the Boys & Girls Clubs. He serves as a member of the organization's advisory board, chairman of the planned giving committee, a member of the investment committee and a trustee of the Boys Club Foundation. "Being involved with the Boys & Girls Clubs surrounds me with other volunteers of high ability and energy and the rewards of seeing 96 percent of last year's senior club members graduate is great payback," said Graber, who was recently presented with the national organization's National Medallion award given to no more than seven people each year. "We're filling a great need with a great service." His strong interest in civic groups also led him to volunteer over the years for Jewish Family Service, the Jewish Home and Rehabilitation Center and the Mental Health Association, and he was president of each group...
For a time the full artilce is available free from The Commercial Appeal
By Richard J. Alley, The Commercial Appeal April 14, 2011  If you have stopped for lunch at the Taco Bell at Estate and Poplar in East Memphis recently, odds are you've encountered a group of raucous, overgrown boys eating and reminiscing. What you have wandered into is the Taco Bell Tuesday Club. The club started eight months ago and now includes about 60 members, including quite a few characters. The club started eight months ago and now includes about 60 members, including quite a few characters. "We were always sitting in here on Tuesdays, and it started out as a joke, 'Hey, why don't we start a club?'" said 60-year-old Stanley Rogers ['69]. That was eight months ago, and the five founding members -- Ernie Vescovo, a broker with First Horizon; Ronny Birmann, a retired traveling salesman; Ernie Barrasso, a retired casino executive and disco owner; Bud Cowgill, owner of Cabinet Services, and Rogers, who works in IT -- have grown into a roster numbering more than 60. The average age is about 65 (the oldest member, at 85, is Albert Caccamisi), and the parameters of the club are loosely defined, though members do have identification badges on lanyards and matching baseball caps with the bold letters "TBC" (Taco Bell Club) and a likeness of a taco embossed across the front. It's difficult to discern a leader of this party. Indeed, walking among them, the ringmaster of this circus seems to change from conversation to conversation, from colorful anecdote to anecdote. There is no telling what the common thread is here, but there are friendships that span half a century. How each is connected, though, is a puzzle in itself, which they are all too happy to put together; whether through high schools, lineage, neighborhoods, work or, more than likely, Elvis Presley. Many of them grew up with "The King" of rock and roll and knew him personally. "If Elvis was alive, he'd be sitting right over there," Harold Boone, 70, said pointing to an adjacent booth. Duke Brando, by far the youngest member at 34, says it's this knowledge that's a draw for him. "I'm just thankful to be able to know these guys because I'm the biggest Elvis fan there is, and these guys knew him as a person," Brando said. While every member may have a claim to Elvis, Gene Mason, onetime club owner and manager for the Bar-Kays and other Stax artists, also admitted, "We just come down here to see who can tell the biggest lie." In their golden years, their interests have turned to reminiscing. They are served tall tales and history with chalupas and nachos, washing them down with iced tea and memories. Their stories take them from Memphis to Hollywood and up to New York, and an auteur would do well to sit down with them over tacos to glean a story line or study a plot twist. There is certainly no shortage of characters. In the mix are investment brokers, club owners, police officers, a produce peddler, firefighters, security professional, casino executive and at least one bodyguard, almost all with "retired" behind their names. "There are no strangers in here," said Mason. Though the discussion tends to revolve around who they've known and who may be sick or hospitalized at the moment, it inevitably returns to the old days. "Back then, some Catholic schools had a dance every night; it was a place for us to go every night," said Fred Fredrick, 71, son-in-law of Stax co-founder Estelle Axton who regaled with the story of his first date with his wife, a double date with Elvis and Priscilla. Neighborhoods and schools are paramount in the group, a way to connect the dots. In that Taco Bell, the high schools represented include Catholic, South Side, Humes, Holy Names and Christian Brothers. On a recent Tuesday, they passed around an 8-by-10 photo of the group with member Larry Godwin ("His grandmother came over from Italy with my mother," Mason said) in uniform shortly after announcing his retirement as police director for Memphis. Other notable members include former mayor and sheriff Bill Morris and legendary street brawler George Tiller, Shelby County Circuit Court Clerk Jimmy Moore, restaurateur Silky Sullivan and former Chicago Bear Bob Lyles. "We're trying not to let it fade away," Sullivan said. Rogers added, "It's a great town, and it's guys like this that keep the history alive."
 By Marlon W. Morgan, The Commercial Appeal April 8, 2011 One of the reasons Adrienne Pratcher ['09] chose to attend Texas A&M is because she felt like the women's basketball program could do some amazing things under coach Gary Blair. But when the final horn sounded and the Aggies had defeated Notre Dame on Tuesday night, 76-70, to claim their first NCAA national championship, the sophomore point guard from East High was left stunned. "I was shocked and excited at the same time," Pratcher said, "because I never thought I would be in that situation, on a team that won a national championship." Pratcher was a backup point guard to Associated Press honorable mention All-American Sydney Colson. She played in 34 games, averaging 2.4 points and 1.0 rebounds for the 33-5 Aggies. She enjoyed the NCAA Tournament ride that saw Texas A&M knock off Big 12 rival Baylor, a No. 1 seed that beat the Aggies three times this season, in the Elite Eight, then follow that with a thrilling win over Stanford, another No. 1 seed, in the Final Four semifinal game. Pratcher's playing time diminished as Texas A&M advanced in the tournament. She played a total of five minutes at the Final Four, where her only disappointment was committing four turnovers. "I don't think it was so much me being nervous," she said. "I think it was me mentally probably not being ready to play. It was just me going out there and being nonchalant with the ball. The turnovers were very crucial. They were basically things that should never happen." Still, all was forgotten when the Aggies cut down the nets at Conseco Fieldhouse, then returned Wednesday to College Station, Texas, where thousands of fans filled Reed Arena to greet the champions. "It was a great experience," Pratcher said. "It made me realize how the people at this university feel about sports, how they feel about us as people, it was awesome. We had a great crowd. Afterwards, we got to sign autographs and mingle with the kids, so it was cool." Pratcher, who was the class valedictorian at East in 2009, looks forward to returning to Memphis later this spring to share her experience with family and friends. She's also already looking forward to next season, when she's expected to replace Colson at point guard. "I think this offseason I need to work on being a team leader, getting players together and working out," she said. "I need to work on my mid-range jumper and getting everything down pat so I can be ready for next season."
There is also on-line for an undertemined period of time a televsion news report about the same story: WREG.
Writen by: editor The East High Alumni Page May 22, 2011  Two hundred thirty-three students met the requirements for graduation from East High School and participated in graduation exercises Sunday, May 22, 2011, according to school principal Eric Harris ('91 and current Faculty). The sixty-first commencement of East High School took place in the historic Orpheum Theater in downtown Memphis. Chas McVean ('61), the graduation speaker, told the seniors just before they walked across the stage to receive their diplomas, that for those going ton to college, the next six months may be the most important time of their lives. For those not planning to enter a 4 or 2 year college, McVean suggested that what ever field of work they enter to do their very best every day. Saying that this is a great country, McVean told them if they do that, someone will notice. As an example of what can be accomplished, he cited a new company he has established to manufacturer and sell electric bicycles. McVean said he paid a search firm $50,000 to find the person in the United States of America who knew the most about building bicycles. After about a 6 month search, the firm came back with a name and McVean said let's get him to Memphis and hire him. First, though, the search firm wanted McVean to know one thing about the individual, he never attended one day of college. McVean said his response was, "get him to Memphis and let's hire him." McVean also noted there have been changes at East High since he graduated in 1961 but he said the colors that matter are red and gray, not the color of one's skin. East High was once an all white high school in the segregated Memphis City School system. Today, nearly all the students are African American. Memphis City Schools superintendent Kriner Cash released the diplomas to the students and congratulated each as they walked back to their seats. Sometimes, not all the graduation candidates that participate in commencement actually graduate at that time, as all the elements that go into the final grades may not have been received. Nevertheless, seniors were offered $2.3-million dollars in scholarships this year, according to school counselor LaTanya Pratcher. 
Principal Eric Harris concluded the remarks at the graduation by addressing "the Class of 2011 one last time:"
No matter what has been said about you, no matter what has been done to you, positive or negative, beginning tomorrow, none of that will matter. Whether you have overcome serious adversity, or worked hard to be at the top of your class, none of that will matter tomorrow. Because tomorrow begins your life, and you have the choice to follow a worn path or begin a new one.
To borrow from the book of Lamentations: "I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this is the moment I call to mind and therefore I will have hope" As I close my charge to you, 2011, remember that whatever it is you chose to do beginning tomorrow, always remember East High School is now your alma mater, and you are the sixty-first class to have that honor. As a fellow alum I truly wish you all the best there is. Before the final procession, the Class of 2011 rose and along with the Chorus, accompanied by the East band, sang the first verse of the East High School Alma Mater.
The Commercial Appeal April 7, 2011 [Excerpts]  Memphis teachers tell Governor Haslam their fears about new evaluation process Gov. Bill Haslam got thoughtful advice from school insiders over eggs and toast Thursday about engaging parents and freeing teachers from numbing loads of paperwork... Haslam made several appearances Thursday, including at Margolin Hebrew Academy and a groundbreaking in Millington for the three-mile Veterans Parkway, a $19 million project to link Paul Barret Parkway with U.S. 51 on the north. He started the day at East with Kevin Huffman -- his newly installed commissioner of education -- telling about 40 city and county educators he wanted to know what they tell their best friends about work. "That's what we are here to talk about, the things you think we should know..."
By Lesley Young, The Commercial Appeal March 30, 2011  "I liked to match my lipsticks. I remember this one outfit. I wore orange lipstick, carried an orange purse, wore an orange short set and orange Esprit sandals. I thought I was the cutest thing," she said. "I looked like a little pumpkin." Though her unique style earned her a nomination for "best dressed" at East High School, these days the 35-year-old native Memphian has traded her fondness for conformity in for name brands such as Vera Wang and Trina Turk. Keeping up with the latest spreads in Vogue magazine has had its consequences for the clotheshorse. "I am a total shopaholic. I buy so many different things," she said. "My mom gets onto me. She'll say, 'You have a $600 bag. Are you serious, Elayne?'" Perry decided to combine her weakness for a good wardrobe with her dream to have her own business and open a high-end consignment shop in the Cooper-Young area. "I think fashion says a lot about you," she said. "It can boost your self-esteem, and you don't have to spend $700 on an outfit to look good." This Saturday, Perry will presents her collection of high-end habiliments at the grand opening of Charm Boutique, 2296 Young. "It's going to be a ball. I'll have desserts and champagne, and I'll be giving out gift cards to the first 20 folks who come in," Perry said. So far Perry has acquired more than 300 items, including garments, accessories and shoes, boasting such illustrious labels as Gucci and BCBG, some of them from her own closet. "A lot of garments still have the tag on them," she said. "I also try to find out what the celebrities are wearing and look for that. I know a lot of people are wearing Tory Burch. I don't have any of hers, so I definitely want it." She has a list of 10 consigners, drawing both locally and from out of town, and maintains strict guidelines for what she will accept. "Consigners come in by appointment only. The clothes have to be in good to excellent condition, pressed and clean, and in season and up to date," she said. "I don't want it to become or be perceived as a thrift store." Consigners will receive 40 percent of sales, and if an item doesn't sell within 90 days, they have the option to either pick it up or donate it to charity. Opening her own business hasn't been a smooth ride for Perry, who will run the business from her home in Houston, Texas. She was poised to open her doors last October, but a mechanical fire put a hole in her ceiling and destroyed all of her equipment. "It was so heartbreaking," she said. "My feelings were so hurt." Over the winter, while a construction crew gutted and restored the space, Perry continued to meet with consigners at local eateries and her mother's house, determined not to fold. "It's amazing they were willing to trust me and drop off these really nice items just meeting me at a deli or at the Clark Tower," she said. "This is something I am passionate about. I love dressing up. It's natural to me. It's something that's just in me."
By Jonathan Devin, The Commercial Appeal March 26, 2011 Hope House is emerging from a nationwide slump in charitable giving with the realization that raising funds after the recession means getting the lead out. For Memphis' only early childhood education center for preschoolers with HIV, exterior renovations, tree care and lead abatement are all i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed when preparing to compete for grants. "We've talked about buying just one modern building, but part of the charm for our children is that we have houses," said Dr. Betty Dupont, executive director, referring to the three turn-of-the-century houses on South Idlewild in Midtown where Hope House is located. "In poverty, mostly what children have is institutional settings." At Hope House, about two dozen children affected by HIV/AIDS prepare for kindergarten with lessons and directed play designed to alleviate the stress of home life and poverty. For example, Hope House has a play therapy room where two social workers play with children such as a boy who watched his mother being murdered. In therapy, the boy buried a hand-sized coffin in a sandbox. Dupont knew that change was in the air in 2008 when the recession hit and purposefully did not fill staff positions that became vacant through natural attrition. In the fall, though, she hopes to add one, possibly two new teacher positions, and to do so, she had to do some house cleaning. The Plough Foundation and Assisi Foundation agreed to provide funding for major renovations but were concerned about the organization performing at capacity, so the Plough Foundation challenged Hope House with a matching grant of $250,000 and two years to raise the match. "I wanted to grow our endowment to $1 million so we could use the income to cover two additional classrooms," Dupont said. Plough and Assisi money paid for siding and new roofs on all three houses and pruning of several century-old oak trees on the property that had become a safety concern. Hope House's accreditation with the National Association for the Education of Young Children required lead abatement of all interior walls, which will begin this summer after the program's graduation. "They have to take out all of the walls right after graduation," said Kevin Dean, Hope House's director of development. "First, all of us will be moving everything out of the middle house and into PODS. All of the kids' programs will move to the house at 27 S. Idlewild, and then again to 23 S. Idlewild." The work will take most of the summer and will cost about $50,000 for each house. Proceeds from special events like a 5K run in March and a golf tournament in April, as well as gifts from other groups such as Carnival Memphis, will help them reach their match. If that sounds like a lot of work to keep the agency in good shape for future fundraising, it may well pay off in the end. Diane Rudner ['68], board chairman of the Plough Foundation, said scrutiny of grant applications is at an all-time high and relationships are more important than ever. For example, Rudner said that it is much harder to award grants for endowments these days because the income from interest is not as certain as it used to be. Also, foundations are looking closely at whether it makes more sense to buy a new building than to repair an old one. Hope House was an exception in both of those cases. "Hope House is very different because we've known the organization a long time," said Rudner, noting that the Plough Foundation was an original contributor to Hope House when it was founded by the Junior League 15 years ago. Agencies, she said, need to prove financial health and not ask for money to repay existing debt, and they need to demonstrate that they have cut as many expenses, including staff, as possible. Most important, Rudner said, agencies must not duplicate other programs. If the numbers line up for Hope House the way Dupont expects them to, the agency should be able to raise its capacity to 40 children within the next couple of years.
Harahan at center of ambitious pedestrian, cycling plan By Bill Dries, The Daily News March 28, 2011 
Martyrs Park sits atop the Chickasaw Bluff and overlooks the Mississippi River, its lone modern sculpture a memorial to victims of the 19th century Yellow Fever epidemics that devastated Memphis from the 1850s through the 1870s. Nearby on the bluff is the First Unitarian Church of the River, whose modern open space facing the river is the perfect companion to the sculpture. A rail line passes the church en route to the 94-year-old Harahan Bridge, whose stark metal work and an ornate wrought iron rail clearly come from an earlier era. The church’s open space and adjacent park offer a view of the river and a trio of bridges, including the Harahan, but this spot has never reached the same popularity for strolling and viewing as Tom Lee Park or Greenbelt Park on Mud Island. That is already changing. With the first weekend of spring-like weather just ahead of the season’s arrival by the calendar, the area, bordered by tall grass where the bluff begins its rapid drop to a rising river, bristled with bicyclists and walkers and river watchers. The oldest of the three bridges, the Frisco Bridge, was once the only bridge across the Mississippi River south of St. Louis. The three bridges still handle cars, trucks and rail traffic. And under an ambitious plan, one of the old "wagon ways" on the Harahan may again be opened to pedestrians and bicyclists as a boardwalk that links a system of trails on both sides of the river. Memphis commodities broker Charles McVean ['61] is lending important connections to the effort and is as relentless in his pursuit as the trains that cross the bridge daily. McVean’s goal is to have people walking and bicycling across the Harahan in 18 months at a cost he estimates at "several million dollars." "This is big," he said. "We’re going to go across that bridge." Terry Eastin, executive director of the Mississippi River Trail Inc., has watched the recent trail fever in Memphis from Fayetteville, Ark., with growing interest. Eastin’s group has set a goal of 3,000 miles of bike-friendly roads and pathways connecting 10 states – and the Bluff City has been a cornerstone of that ideal. "It’s fun to watch Memphis come alive," she said. "It’s such a change from when I started this job in 2005. It’s as though the entire culture of the city has undergone this wonderful transformation." She has met with McVean about the Harahan project, something she endorses for many of the same reasons McVean does. "We place a pretty darn high priority on that bridge," she said. "Right now with no bridge crossing at all in Memphis, it’s hard for us to be able to direct riders to go that way. You just can’t cross the river unless you have a car or rent a taxi or have some other vehicle to take you across. This bridge will change all of that." McVean also said the bridge crossing is bigger than just the view of the Mississippi River. He hopes the bridge can be the start of a link to a 120-mile riverside levee bike path being planned between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La. "The trade balance of any political entity is very important to its economic vitality," he said as he talked of the international biking community coming to Memphis to ride a regional trail system along the Mississippi River. "This project could drive a powerful swing in our region’s net balance of trade and tourism." The venture also becomes more complex on the Arkansas side of the boardwalk. Crittenden County elected leaders, including Arkansas state representative and former West Memphis mayor Keith Ingram, were among those in the group that went to Omaha, Neb., in February to meet with executives from Union Pacific Corp. – the railroad that owns and operates Harahan – about access to the bridge. They are already working toward a levee park that could include trails along river levees in Arkansas. It’s also a goal of some trail advocates in North Mississippi. Those advocates have talked of the ease of maintaining the levee tops with asphalt trails and pathways for bicyclists. But the levees weren’t built as roads; they were built as flood control projects and the boards that administer them have, in some cases, been concerned about what public access might mean. For now the levees are a politically sensitive topic that few want to comment about on the record. Despite the political roadblocks that remain, McVean has brought the same energy and high level connections to the Harahan effort that he has brought to other ventures, including a bid to race hackney ponies with electronically controlled jockeys and his efforts to promote his alma mater East High School. McVean founded the Greater East High Foundation in 2004. Its goal was to pay upperclassmen at the school $10 an hour to tutor underclassmen. McVean put some of his own money into the venture and helped get others to contribute. When McVean put a political fundraiser in Omaha on his busy 2008 calendar, he took a University of Memphis student with him and the two got face time with then-President George W. Bush to talk about the program. Bush himself got the group in touch with John Bailey, a domestic counsel at the U.S. Department of Education. That Omaha event was a fundraiser for the successful U.S. Senate campaign of Mike Johanns, the former governor of Nebraska, who is a personal friend of McVean’s. Johanns was instrumental in getting the Memphis delegation in front of Union Pacific CEO James Young earlier this year to make its Harahan Bridge proposal. The project is near and dear to McVean for other reasons as well. He is developing and marketing an aerobic cruiser hybrid bicycle and is just as avid about bicycling as an international tourism draw. His new venture, Cruiser’s High Point Hub, is a lifestyle center for bicycle enthusiasts about to open near the Shelby Farms Greenline. "The enemies of bicycling are automobiles, hills, winds and altitude," he said. "But if we control the automobiles, our flat temperate zone, low wind, is an ideal place for bicycling." The bridge, which has two rail lines and originally had wagon ways on both of its sides, was built after the Frisco Bridge but before the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge (also known as the Interstate 55 or "old" bridge), the two spans that parallel the Harahan. The bridge was designed by Ralph Modjeski, co founder of the Modjeski and Masters bridge engineering firm of Mechanicsburg, Penn., now being used by Union Pacific in its study of how a bridge boardwalk might be designed. Union Pacific officials could not be reached by press time for comment on the bridge project, but the Memphis delegates returned from Omaha in February saying Young told them the railroad would work to make it happen. For now, the project involves the Memphis group and the railroad assessing whether the steel framework that once held the wooden wagon way can support a boardwalk with pedestrian and bicycle traffic. "It’s counterintuitive, but a crowd of people out there to watch fireworks could put more weight on it than cars and trucks," McVean said of a very preliminary study he’s had in consulting with engineers. "There’s no doubt that our group will end up retaining a structural engineering company to interface with the railroad’s engineering consultants and move forward to put a plan together," McVean said. The city’s engineer is also consulting with Union Pacific executives on the bridge, which McVean described as "overbuilt." "Back in those days if you wanted to be the greatest bridge builder you didn’t want bridge failure," he said. "There was only one way to be sure and that was to overbuild." Access directly to the bridge is still difficult and limited because of railroad security needs. The rail line that runs directly by the Church of the River has a chain link fence on both sides. It once didn’t, and the area was the scene of several protests in the 1980s and 1990s by groups calling attention to trains they said were hauling nuclear weapons and waste through the city. Access would change with plans to restore the wagon way on the north side of the Harahan. By choosing that side, the Memphis group avoids any rail crossings that might add safety concerns. The north side of the bridge also offers an unblocked view of the Mississippi River and the city skyline. But McVean’s aspirations don’t end there – he wants to connect the city’s burgeoning network of bike and walking paths. That’s why McVean also is pursuing a link from the Harahan to the Shelby Farms Greenline, the wildly popular and busy rail-to-trail project whose western terminus is at Tillman and Walnut Grove Road. Lately, McVean has thought of Holmes Road, further east, as a connecting point for the trail to Downtown and the river. "I’m all in favor of Tillman," McVean said. "But there remains the fact of that dangerous intersection at Tillman and Sam Cooper. Holmes has got an underpass under Sam Cooper." McVean originally wondered aloud about a bicycle path along the tree-lined median of North Parkway. But since then, the city of Memphis has begun exploring bicycle lanes in both directions on the parkway itself. "However we do it," McVean said, "I think that we’ve got to have the vision to recognize that we’ve got to have a first-class route to get from Shelby Farms to the bridge."
By Mike Mueller, Memphis Magazine March 14, 2011  As 75-year-old Mike Cody ['54] ran on the track at Rhodes College on Sunday afternoon, his college coach Freeman Marr, 86, watched his former star's final race from the stands. On doctor's orders, Cody was running what would be the final mile of a remarkable, nearly lifelong running career. "Hey, Coach! What a lead!" Cody shouted to Marr as he distanced himself from four longtime friends accompanying him. Cody finished in 8:52, ending a career that began on the Rhodes (then Southwestern at Memphis) campus. He logged more than 80,000 miles. "Shut the book at 80,345," a beaming Cody said as he took his shoes off. Cody didn't log his miles for the first 20 years of his career and credited himself only an average of 1,000 miles per year during that time. A Memphis native, local lawyer and former state Attorney General, U.S. Attorney, Memphis City Council member and mayoral candidate, Cody ran competitively since his junior year at East High School in 1953. East High didn't have a track, so Cody would practice at Southwestern, which he would later attend on scholarship. Marr, track coach at Southwestern during Cody's final three years at the school, recalled some of his star's accomplishments as he watched him circle the track for the final time. He said at one meet, Cody ran the mile, the quarter-mile, the half-mile, the 2-mile and the anchor leg in the mile relay and won them all. "He did an unbelievable, unthinkable thing," said Marr. For Cody, running has been a "positive addiction" since he outran his father in a race to a pier in Pensacola, Fla., as a kid. While he argued cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, running is what cleared his head, he said. Cody's decision to hang up his shoes came after "a most peculiar injury," he said. The mileage on Cody's feet has worn away his heel pads, leaving no cushion between skin and bone. Cody said after about 40 minutes of running, his feet are "on fire." A doctor and friend of Cody's told him if he doesn't stop running, he won't be able to walk without pain. "That's the issue with 80,000 miles, they don't give you any retreads," he said. "I hope to live a number of more years and I hope not to be all crippled up." For Cody's wife, Suzi, watching her husband run for the final time was difficult. "It was emotional for me. I can't believe it was his last," she said. "Ever since I've known him he's been running. It's a reality that hasn't quite sunk in yet." Cody plans to replace running with other forms of exercise. But he knows he'll miss running, he said, especially "in beautiful places on beautiful days." "There will be days when I look out the window and it'll be hard not to put on the shoes to get back in that old feeling."
The Tragedy of Busing Revisited John Branston, Memphis Magazine March, 2011 [Memphis Magazine] Editor's note: Fifty years ago this coming October, the Memphis City Schools system was desegregated by 13 first-graders chosen, with considerable difficulty, by leaders of the NAACP. At first the process was slow; ten years later, the federal courts speeded things up by approving forced busing to achieve integration. By 1974, more than 30,000 students had left the Memphis public schools, and Memphis had the largest private-school system in the country. Busing was a life-changing and city-transforming experience. The people who remember the early 1970s — black and white, parent and student, teacher and administrator — still say that. Today, in the spring of 2011, we are at another key moment in our educational history. Barring intervention by the courts or state legislature, Memphis voters will likely decide on March 8th whether to surrender the Memphis City Schools charter and transfer control to Shelby County Schools, effectively merging the two systems. This story is built around an earlier one, originally published in the December 1995 issue of this magazine. John Branston, the author, updated and included that article in his 2004 book, Rowdy Memphis: The South Unscripted. Our thought is that publishing a revised version at this time will provide historical perspective as Memphians try to make up their minds how to vote, and, if the referendum passes, a new system is invented. Many of the principal figures Branston interviewed in 1995 are no longer alive, including federal judge Robert McRae, who presided over Memphis desegregation cases for 20 years, and MCS attorney Louis Lucas, who argued the case for busing as a desegregation tool; McRae died in 2004, Lucas in 2005. But other key players are still active in public life, and while many are retired, most are following recent events with keen interest. Their observations are included here, along with those of others who well remember the tumultuous years of 1973 and 1974 that tore Memphis apart. So as this city and this county begin the process of reinvention that might possibly create a unified school system of 150,000 students — roughly the same size MCS was in 1970 — we look back, but we also look forward. Another era of change has begun. On a Memphis summer morning in 1971, seventeen years after the highest court in the land outlawed segregation, the mayor of Memphis, Henry Loeb, pulled up to the intersection of Poplar and Third, glanced out his window, and saw the familiar face of U.S. District Judge Robert S. McRae. Loeb, who was on the passenger side next to his plainclothes policeman driver, rolled down the window, looked at McRae, and hollered, "Hey, you son-of-a-bitch, quit integratin' those schools," then grinned his famous grin and sped away. The mayor pretty much expressed the sentiments of the majority of his white constituents at that time. But Judge McRae wasn't about to quit "integratin'" those schools. In fact, he had only just begun. The next year, McRae ordered desegregation Plan A to bus 13,789 students. A year later, he followed it up with Plan Z, which called for the busing of nearly 40,000 students. Those students and their schools would knock down the legal walls of segregation. Or the legal walls, at least. The issue of busing would dominate the political and social life of this city during the 1970s, and well into the next decade. Busing was not unique to Memphis, of course. In city after city in both the North and South, federal courts called upon local school boards to use their public school systems as battering rams for integration. With an evident eye to the future, the courts' chosen method involved children. Other approaches that might have focused upon adults — for example, the use of property-tax rebates to encourage integrated neighborhoods — were put aside. As a result, the American dream of the melting pot and equal opportunity was set against the American dream of choosing a home and raising a family in a nice neighborhood with good schools. It was no contest. Tens of thousands of white Memphians, some racist, many not, fled the city for points north, south, and east. Looking back, it is difficult to imagine anything that the most powerful pro-suburban real estate developers and politicians in town could have concocted that would have done more to accelerate urban sprawl and the growth of Shelby County, and contributed more to the decline of the city of Memphis and its public schools. Plan Z failed for a lot of reasons, but perhaps the main one is that, in a democracy, people cannot be denied the right to vote with their feet. And Memphis and Shelby County, with its peculiar geography, two-headed government, separate school systems, and powerful churches, gave them options ranging from private schools to county schools to Mississippi schools just minutes away. One of the most prophetic statements in the massive court record of Northcross v. Memphis Board of Education, the original Memphis schools desegregation case, was made by Federal Appeals Court Judge Paul C. Weick. In 1972, the appeals court upheld Memphis' first court-ordered busing plan, called Plan A, on a 2-1 vote. Weick dissented. "The average American couple who are raising their children scrape and save money to buy a home in a nice residential neighborhood near a public school," he wrote. "One can imagine their frustration when they find their plans have been destroyed by the judgment of federal courts. . . . The burden of eliminating all the ills of society should not be placed on public school systems and innocent school children." Busing didn't create the suburbs, of course, but it certainly accelerated a process that was already well under way. In the two previous decades (1950-1970), the white population of Memphis had decreased by 2 percent while the black population had increased 2 percent, according to census reports. That decline of the white population would have been even greater had it not been for the annexation of parts of East Memphis, Frayser, Parkway Village, and Oakhaven during that time. And busing came at a time when developers were building suburban office complexes, and when governments were building the roads to get people to the far reaches of Shelby County. Busing gave thousands of white Memphians one more reason to use them. What was lost in the process, more than anything else, was something best described as "connectedness," for want of a better word. Connectedness is the difference between a geographic area and a neighborhood, between school attendance and school spirit, and between a group of people and a caring community. Memphis still hurts for connectedness, and busing is partly to blame. In its follow-up to the 1954 Brown V. Topeka Board of Education decision, the Supreme Court said schools must be integrated with "all deliberate speed." In Memphis and the states of the Deep South, "all deliberate speed" meant very slow. In 1960, there still were no black students in mixed schools in Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana. In 1958, 8-year-old Gerald E. Young tried to enroll at all-white Vollentine Elementary in Memphis but was turned away by the attendance officer, the superintendent, and finally the school board. In 1960, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit, Northcross v. Memphis Board of Education. Dr. T. W. Northcross was a Memphis dentist whose daughter Deborah was 8 years old. He was on the executive committee of the NAACP and an independent businessman who could handle reprisals better than others. At the time, there were 53,142 white children and 42,061 black children in the system, all attending segregated schools. "You have to remember where we were coming from," says former Memphis NAACP Executive Secretary Maxine Smith. "In the years after Brown, absolutely nothing was done here to integrate our schools. They started building all-black schools like Carver and Lester near white neighborhoods just to keep [blacks] out of schools like Southside and East. It was shameful." Maxine Smith helped persuade parents to let their children be used as pioneers when desegregation began in 1961. "I bet we went to 200 homes trying to get volunteers," says Smith. "It was difficult to persuade the mothers that this was good for their kids." Compounding the problem, classes had already started when integration began that October, and students were enrolled in neighborhood schools with their friends. And in the cruelest stroke of all, the desegregation plan called for integrating one grade at a time, starting with the first grade. The 13 students whose parents eventually agreed to participate were assigned to four schools, with no more than four black students at any one school. Dwania Kyles said classmates asked to see her tail "because black people were supposed to have tails." Michael Willis, who later changed his name to Menelik Fombi, was called "rich nigger" because he came to school in his parents' Cadillac. Deep down inside, he admitted years later, he wished he had not gone through it. For E.C. Marcel Freeman, the desegregation experience was not as traumatic. Now E.C. Fentress, she was one of four black students assigned to Rozelle Elementary School. "That opportunity to learn what other students were learning was magnificent," she says. "I can only guess that my experiences were different because I was quiet. I kind of stayed to myself." Deborah Northcross, namesake of the Memphis lawsuit, graduated from an integrated Central High School in 1969 and went to college at Mount Holyoke. She is grateful to Central for giving her a good education, newer textbooks than the ones used by her friends at all-black schools, and a heavier homework load. But she feels whites then and now often get the wrong message. "Desegregation gave whites the impression we wanted to be with them," she says. "That was not the point. It was a matter of school choice and educational equity." The 12 years that Fombi, Kyles, Northcross, and Freeman spent in the Memphis public schools from 1961 to 1973 spanned the major milestones of both desegregation and re-segregation. The grade-a-year plan held for five years as the pace of integration increased all across the country. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1965. In 1966 the Memphis city schools faculty was integrated, and all 12 grades were integrated, often with only token numbers. By 1969, for example, East High School still had 1,866 white students and only 19 blacks. Nearby Lester Junior High and High School were all black. Desegregation began in earnest in 1971, with the Supreme Court's decision approving busing as a means of desegregation. Student enrollment reached an all-time high of 148,015 in 1970-71, making the Memphis City Schools system the tenth largest in the country. By 1973, all deliberate speed had become full speed ahead, thanks to Desegregation Plans A and Z and Judge McRae. In retirement, two decades later, McRae isolated himself in a carrel at the University of Memphis library and prepared a nine-part oral history for the Mississippi Valley Collection. He was surrounded by newspaper clippings, court documents, boxes full of old hate mail, and a score of yellow legal pads in which he wrote notes in longhand. His famous red judicial robe was replaced by casual clothes and an ever-present Greek fisherman's cap. Did it work, a visitor asked? "Yes it worked," he said. "People are going to debate that because they disagree on what the purpose was, but yes, it worked. The plan was to get rid of the biracial school system. It did. It wasn't part of the plan to run the whites off. They just left." That they did. After Plan A ordered the busing of 13,789 students in 1973, approximately 8,000 white students left the system. A federal appeals court ruled that busing was "but a first step." Plan Z called for busing 39,904 students, although only 28,000 actually participated. Another 20,000 white students left the system. Within a year, Memphis had the largest private (and segregated) school system in the country. Said McRae in 1995: "I tried to stop with Plan A but the appeals court wouldn't allow that. I was disappointed in the reaction to Plan Z. But I had to keep a stiff upper lip because this [reaction] was an act of defiance. Still I was disappointed that we hadn't come up with something that worked. "No, I wouldn't do it any other way. I am convinced there was nobody who could have settled this the way the parties were opposed. Somewhere along the line I became convinced that it was morally right to desegregate the schools." It is often overlooked that for a variety of reasons Plan Z was not popular with many blacks either. The NAACP wanted 60,000 not 40,000 students bused and sued to overrule Plan Z, which it called "a grotesque distortion of the law." A total of 26 inner-city schools were never integrated because, take your pick, there were not enough white students to go around or because the architects of desegregation believed white students would refuse to attend them. Black parents complained to civil rights lawyers that marijuana and LSD were far more common at white schools like East than at black schools. Others were worried to the point of tears at putting their children on buses. "Judge McRae was as easy on the school system as he could possibly have been," says O.Z. Stephens, a former city schools official who helped devise the desegregation plan. "Plan A might have held the white population but we would not have had integration. It was something that had to be tried. We would not have had any rest in this city until it was tried. Plus, the Constitution said we had to." So O.Z. Stephens wrote Plan Z. The title was McRae's idea. After Plan A, he didn't want to deal with a succession of Plans B, C, and D etc. So he dubbed the first acceptable plan Plan Z in hopes that it would be the terminal plan. For the most part, it was. "Inasmuch as my middle initial was Z, I got tagged with it," says Stephens. "My identification with Plan Z killed me professionally in the school system." Still, he called McRae a profile in courage who could easily have ruled in favor of the school board, let the appellate court overrule him, and let them take the heat. Stephens' unsung hero of school desegregation is John P. Freeman, superintendent of Memphis schools in the busing years. "He was a big, tough, salty South Memphis railroader and product of the school system. He had been a navigator on a B-17 bomber in World War II and could be unbelievably profane but he had a big heart. He was the one who went head to head with Mayor Wyeth Chandler over all the impediments. When the bus drivers threatened to walk out, he railed at them, 'you blankety-blanks will blankety-blank pick up those little kids.' And they did." There was at least one partial success story which has survived. Optional schools are magnet schools or schools within schools for college-bound students or students with a special interest in theater or some other area. These are open to students from outside their attendance zone and include some of the few racially balanced schools in the city. Started in 1975, optional schools like Grahamwood Elementary and White Station High School had a distillation effect that concentrated a high percentage of high achievers while gutting other schools of their best and brightest, both black and white. By the mid-Nineties, the effect was obvious on teachers like Karen Champion at Central High School, a 1967 graduate of Hamilton High School. "Our games were packed when I was at Hamilton," she says. "Now unless the team is great it's difficult to get fans. When kids don't live in the neighborhood and can't walk to games, there is not as much loyalty to the school." Memphis attorney Louis Lucas was one of the legal masterminds of school desegregation, working with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Lucas believed systematic segregation did not go away after Jim Crow laws were struck down. It continued because of neighborhood patterns influenced by bankers and realtors and school attendance zones drawn for years by a whites-only board of education. Several years after the great busing experiment, Lucas moved to Germantown. His daughters attended Shelby County schools that were overwhelmingly white. "My kids went to county schools because that is where we lived when we had children. We didn't move out there for the schools." For whatever reasons, thousands of families moved to the suburbs after busing. In 2011, white flight and black flight from the inner city is very much an ongoing process. Memphis City Schools enrollment of 103,593 includes 92,157 blacks, 1,438 Asians, 7,067 Hispanics, and 7,655 whites. The number of whites would be even lower had the system not absorbed former county schools in annexation areas. Put another way, the chances are better than 90 percent that a black or Hispanic student attends a high school that is 99 percent or 100 percent minority and more than 90 percent economically disadvantaged. Only two city high schools, White Station and Cordova, come close to matching the city demographics as a whole. The Shelby County school system has 47,342 students including 25,244 whites, 18,226 blacks, 2,340 Asians, and 2,233 Hispanics. As Memphis demolished its housing projects, subsidized housing was dispersed, with a heavy concentration in Hickory Hill, and other annexation areas. When pending Memphis annexations are completed, 12 schools operated now by Shelby County Schools are scheduled to become Memphis schools. Nine of those 12 schools are majority-black. In all, these 12 schools have 7,656 black students, or more than 40 percent of the black students in the county system. One of them, Southwind High School, has 1,764 students but only 18 of them are white, a ratio quite similar in reverse to East High School in 1969. The Southwind anomaly was noted by U.S. District Judge Bernice Donald in her 2007 review of the county schools' compliance with federal desegregation orders. She ordered the county system to redistrict to achieve better racial balance, but a federal appeals court overruled her in 2009. In a line of reasoning that was ironically opposite the federal court's affirmation of busing in 1972, this appeals court said the school district has no duty to remedy imbalance caused by demographic factors, annexation, and "voluntary housing choices made by the public." The idea of surrendering the Memphis City Schools charter and merging the school systems is not new. Maxine Smith recalls an effort in 1976 that failed by a narrow vote on the school board when she was a member. Smith is a supporter of the referendum. At a rally earlier this year, she predicted that it would pass. "They know we are right and they know we are going to win." Julian Bolton, a Memphis attorney and former member of the Shelby County Commission, was involved in another merger effort in 1990. The commission was redistricting to increase black representation. Suburban interests countered with a threat to secede and create a new county, Nashoba County. The underlying reason was fear of school system consolidation. Bolton vividly recalls a meeting at Bartlett High School in a gymnasium packed with more than 3,000 people. He was the only county official to speak, and he did not mince words. "I said that county commissioners swore an oath to Shelby County and could be removed from office for violating their oath," Bolton said. "They were booing me, and a sheriff's deputy rushed me out of the auditorium." Two years later, newly elected Memphis mayor Willie Herenton picked up the cause, suggesting in an interview with The New York Times that Memphis could surrender its charter and thereby consolidate with Shelby County. A task force concluded that would be difficult, at best, and nothing came of it. "I did not want Memphis to become another Detroit," Herenton says now. "I saw that white flight left cities black and poor." During his four and one-half terms as mayor, Herenton supported several attempts to revamp the school systems by committee, but although the intentions were always admirable, the results were negligible. The failure of those efforts convinced many of the current charter surrender activists that negotiations with county school board members and suburban mayors were futile. O.Z. Stephens retired from Memphis City Schools in 1984 after 30 years. He lives in Bartlett. In a recent interview, he said he would vote against the merger if he lived in Memphis. He believes a 150,000-student system is too big. And he predicts another round of white flight if the merger passes. "Then they will start tinkering," he said. "I can just hear some of the thoughts. 'We've been talking about closing 50 schools. We've got all these portable classrooms in Bartlett and Germantown. We don't need to build any more schools out there. Let's bring them here.' I guarantee some talk like that is going to emerge. The minute it does, bye-bye." Virginia Burnette was the mother of four school-age daughters when busing began. She and her husband, a Methodist minister, decided it was their Christian duty to make the best of what was, she says "the most tumultuous time of my life." Her youngest daughter went to Dunbar Elementary in south Memphis with about 40 other white children. Virginia went to class with her for a few weeks and was PTA president. It was a hard year, but she remembers humorous moments too. Someone asked if her daughter was "bright," meaning light-skinned. "I said, yes, she is very smart." One day Virginia read the class a poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, namesake of the school. Doing her best to speak in dialect and explain that "black" was not a literal color but more akin to chocolate, she asked, "What do you call me?" A little boy piped up, "We call you a honky." Ridgeway was the Burnettes' brand-new neighborhood school, but their oldest daughter was bused to Melrose. As she boarded the bus for the first day, she assured her mother everything would be fine. There was a bomb scare that afternoon. "That was the biggest single witness we ever participated in because we gave our children to Memphis City Schools," said Burnette. "It was your Christian discipleship that was at stake. We thought we were doing the right thing and I think we were. Our children did not suffer." All of Burnette's daughters went to college and had professional careers. Now living in Cordova, Burnette said she would vote for the referendum. At 79 years old, Joe Clayton is the white-haired eminence of the Shelby County Schools Board of Education. When he retires next year, his career will have spanned three generations and three school systems — Memphis, Shelby County, and Briarcrest Christian Schools, where he was principal of the high school from 1974 to 1996. Like Virginia Burnette, he says 1974 was a test of his Christian faith. "In the spring of 1974 I was principal at Overton High School when we graduated 600 students, the largest senior class in the history of Memphis City Schools. Briarcrest had opened an elementary school in 1973 and wanted to start a high school. When I was contacted by the board, I did a lot of praying because I had been in public education for so long, but God had other plans for my life. My life plan was to spend the next 22 years of my life bringing Briarcrest into existence. "It blows my mind even today. We opened with 963 students, and 103 of those were seniors, which meant they had left another school. By the second year we were accredited. That school was a miracle school. It just took off and never looked back." The school's first location was on Sweetbriar in East Memphis. It has moved further east as its enrollment has grown. The movie The Blind Side is based on the life of Briarcrest student Michael Oher and the Tuohy family. Clayton sees similarities between then and now. "When I went to Overton in 1974 busing had just started. It was a fear thing. You were busing kids out of Overton to Hamilton. Parents were not going to let that happen. I don't see the fear factor in this now. I think people are concerned about taking a large system of 100,000 students and 105 failing schools and merging with a school system of 48,000 students and five failing schools. The big concern is who is going to be in charge and why are we doing this. Why are we taking a good school system and merging it with one that on paper looks like it is having troubles?" Clayton ended the interview with the Bible passage "all things are possible with God" from the Book of Matthew. "To put this thing together by man is going to be impossible, but if this is God's plan we can make it work."
By Jane Roberts, The Commercial Appeal March 3, 2011  A funny thing happens in the course of learning to critique peers' work in the Advanced Placement Studio Art class at East High. With the path wide open to blurt out insults, no one does. "I was nervous," said Jaylyn Johnson, 17, a senior. "But we've gone through so many critiques that I know they won't tell me something that would hurt." Dominique Wein is more practical: "You have to have a reason for what you are saying; it's not just 'you took my milk at lunch.'" The intensity is heating up now as AP Studio Art classes in high schools across the city drill down to the final portfolios due for judging in Cincinnati in early May. Each student must present 24 canvasses, a blend of work showing the breadth of their skill -- pen and ink to pastel -- plus canvasses in their concentration subject. The work will be judged or "read" by 136 AP Art teachers from around the country. "It's one of the most amazing things I have ever seen," said Wendy Free, director of fine arts curriculum and content development at the College Board in New York, which oversees Advanced Placement courses. "You'll see over 40,000 portfolios from AP classes around the world laid out before your eyes. It's like the future of artwork laid out before you." If the just-completed Mid-South Scholastic Art Awards are representative, Memphis students are on their way. Of the 200 student pieces of art selected from 1,600 regionally to hang in the Memphis Brooks Museum, Memphis city students earned 31 gold keys, qualifying them to compete at the national Scholastic event in New York this month. Of the 19 high school winners, 11 are enrolled in AP Studio Art courses across the city, including Terrello Lane, 18, salutatorian at East. His AP class, taught by Dorothy Northern [Faculty], also includes valedictorian Wein; No. 3 Erika Olveral and No. 4 Johnson. "We enroll because this class has a reputation for excellence," Johnson said. In a time when AP test grades are slipping nationally, Northern continues to have East's highest AP scores, including a perfect 5 last year. While she takes credit for some of it, she's quick to say art has a way of combining brain hemispheres. "If you get the two sides of the brain to cooperate, you can do a better job." Her teacher colleagues at East say her students look at problems differently and as a result are better critical thinkers. "They also say that my kids are very good at critique in other subjects," Northern said. They get a lot of practice. Northern schedules critiques once a month, insisting that it's easier to hear the criticism in a group than it is to be home alone when a poor portfolio grade comes in the summer. "I think that would be horrible when nobody had indicated there might be something wrong," she said. So the discussions are frank, including assessments of where students think they are stumped, where they have triumphed and what they admire in their colleagues' work. "My biggest challenge is my background," admits Marquis Stewart, 16, standing before his self-portraits and peers. "Do you feel you have a solid idea or are you struggling to make something?" Northern asks. "Maybe put it aside for awhile," she advises. Wein is next, standing beside four urban landscapes. "I don't like this one," she says, pointing to streetscape. "I want to make the colors more intense, but I haven't done it yet." "You handled pointillism really well," Northern says. "I would like to see you go really big. I have some big canvasses in the closet," her way of pushing students to stretch. Kathy Dumlao, associate curator of education at the Brooks, sees the strides. "The other night, we had an opening for a contemporary artist while the Scholastic exhibit was still on view. The security officers enjoyed watching the visitors get so excited about the student work."
By Michael Lollar, The Commercial Appeal February 28, 2011 The Pantaze Drug Store was an anchor on one corner of Beale Street. With its soda counter, it gave a family atmosphere to a place also known for saloons, gambling dens, pawn shops, theaters and houses of prostitution. With a name made famous by W.C. Handy's "Beale Street Blues" in 1916, the spot attracted Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald to town and was a regular gig for the likes of Riley "Blues Boy" King and Bobby "Blue" Bland. Their names would become household names, and Beale Street would become the best-known street in Memphis and one of the biggest tourist attractions in the state. But its beginnings are as murky as the business and politics of early Memphis. While other early streets were named for presidents, politicians and heroes, no one is sure how Beale got its name. It's a name that first showed up on a city map in 1841 as "Beal," without the eventual "e" at the end, says Wayne Dowdy, manager of the history department at the Memphis Public Library. The man credited with naming the street was wealthy developer and entrepreneur Robert Topp, but the person he named it for has eluded historians ever since. "It's wild. It's kind of crazy," says Beale Street developer John Elkington, who spent six months researching the street for his 2008 book, "Beale Street: Resurrecting The Home Of The Blues." "There was a rumor that it was named by Andrew Jackson for a lieutenant, a sharpshooter, in the Battle of New Orleans." That 1815 battle was the final battle of the War of 1812 and would have meant a long memory -- 26 years -- for anyone choosing him as a namesake for a Memphis street that didn't show up on a map until 1841. Charles Crawford, a history professor at the University of Memphis, says the name remained on maps and on the tongues of Memphians until the street was among the most famous in the nation, along with Bourbon and Basin streets in New Orleans, State Street in Chicago and Broadway in New York. "By the time people got around to asking obvious questions about the name, the records were gone," he said. Crawford has directed dozens of student theses involving Memphis history. "I've always said, 'If you hear anything about the origins of the name Beale Street let me know.' No one ever has," he said. While various theories have come and gone, Shelby County historian and former county commissioner Ed Williams ['52] has his own. McCall was on the 1841 map as the street immediately north of Beale. (It is now Peabody Place.) It was named for a staff member of Edmund Pendleton Gaines, commander of the southwest United States (including Memphis) before the Civil War, says Williams. "McCall was a major on Gaines' staff, and I think Beale was probably also named for a staff member (of Gaines)," he said, although there is no specific person whose name has surfaced to prove the theory. Williams dismisses other popular theories. One held that Beale was named for a Gen. Edward Beale, who became famous in 1848 or early 1849 for bringing back samples to the East from the first gold nuggets discovered at Sutter's Mill, Calif., that helped set off the California gold rush. A San Francisco street was named for him, but, by then, "Beal Street" already was on the map in Memphis. Williams used the same historical reasoning to dismiss a popular myth about another well-known Memphis street. The theory held that Union Avenue was named to signify the "union" of incorporated South Memphis with Memphis in 1850, but Union Avenue was on city maps as early as 1827. It also is on the 1841 map, and Williams says the name Union simply "was a popular word in the American vocabulary at the time." It followed the naming of other streets for U.S. presidents. "There had only been five presidents and they ran out of names, so they named the next street Union," he said. Former Streetscapes reporter Ann Meeks, who wrote the column in The Commercial Appeal for 14 years, researched all of the theories about the Beale name in a frustrating effort to solve the mystery. "I would love to know the answer, and I just knew I'd be able to determine it," she said. Instead, Beale became the single exception to her sleuthing. "I can't think of another one" that led to a complete dead end, she said. Williams suggests the spelling of the name, either Beal or Beale, may not be significant, saying, "Historians frequently find variations of spellings because a mapmaker makes a mistake." Bill Day, heir to the historic Hunt-Phelan Home at 555 Beale, contributes another theory. His relatives, the Phelan family, were related to the Beale family of the documentary film "Grey Gardens." Charles Beale, born in Chattanooga, later became an Alabama Supreme Court justice. In 1917, he married Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' aunt, Edith Ewing Bouvier. After a divorce, she was given the couple's 28-room summer home, Grey Gardens, in East Hampton, N.Y. Day's uncle, Stephen Phelan, told him the Beale family connection led to the naming of the street, although the early maps, mistakenly or not, were spelled differently. Another longtime Beale tenant, Elliott Schwab, owner of the legendary general merchandise store A. Schwab that was listed for sale last week, says he has always heard that Beale "was named for a general. I don't think he was even tied to Memphis." Either way, Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau president Kevin Kane says Beale, though shrouded in a certain mystery, is "world famous." "It is what Bourbon Street is to New Orleans, and it is synonymous with the city's entertainment and culture," he said, adding that state tourism figures indicate the street draws up to 4.2 million people a year. He says that translates to about 2 million visitors (not counting locals) a year. "It generates about $50 to $60 million a year in revenue." It is the mystery of the street that attracts historian John Harkins, president of the West Tennessee Historical Society: "As a species, we're too focused on knowing the answers to everything. We have a precision that takes some of the grace out of life."
By John Morris, Special to My Life, The Commercial Appeal February 27, 2011 [Excerpts] The Christian Brothers High School Hall of Fame inducted 10 new members in ceremonies on the CBHS campus Jan. 30. Candidates are chosen by the Hall of Fame membership on the basis of personal accomplishments, civic and public contributions and support of or involvement with activities of interest to the school. CBHS graduates must have graduated a minimum of 20 years prior to selection. The CBHS Hall of Fame was established in 1968. Since then, 485 men, living and deceased, have been inducted into the group (386 of whom are CBHS grads) by their peers. Joseph "J.G." Griesbeck, Jr. (Faculty 1964-1972) (CBHS '35), was at the time of his death on Oct. 12, 2010, the last living teacher from the Adams campus. A member of five generations of Griesbecks who graduated from CBHS, J.G. Griesbeck served for nearly 30 years as an educator with the Memphis City School system, including principal at Guthrie School, Fairview Junior High, and East High School. His father, Joseph Sr., brother Charles, stepson Roy Henderson and 13 nephews are graduates of CBHS. He is the fourth member of the Griesbeck family to be inducted into the CBHS Hall of Fame.
By Wayne Risher, The Commercial Appeal February 25, 2011 Besides the Internet, where else can you buy fake samurai swords, suits of armor, cowboy hats, cast-iron cookware, voodoo dolls, love potions and mojo bags? But unless there's some magic to make time stand still, the legendary A. Schwab dry goods store on Beale Street may fade into history. Descendants of Abraham Schwab, a haberdasher who founded the store in 1876, have listed it for sale with commercial real estate broker Slovis & Associates. "It's sort of the next generation is not interested," said Sam Braslow ['73], a schoolteacher who owns the Le Sel Corp. with his brother Marvin Braslow and cousins Elliott Schwab and Mike Weis. "There's a reason businesses like ours don't exist anymore." Store manager Elliott Schwab, 49, has mixed feelings about selling out after 32 years walking the ancient wood-planked aisles. "I don't want to go along with it; I'm kind of going along with it," said Schwab, wearing flannel shirt, jeans and an A. Schwab ballcap. "With the economy, and the headaches of having to do everything, it has just kind of gotten to me. I'm tired of it," Schwab said. He added, "If I were in a position to keep it open, I think I would. I enjoy coming down here." Family members signed papers to put it on the market three weeks ago. Commercial Realtor Adam Slovis said an asking price hasn't been set and will likely be determined by give-and-take of offers and development plans from potential buyers. The buildings, connected on the interior, cover nearly 20,000 square feet, according to the Shelby County Assessor of Property, which has them appraised at $426,000. Slovis said it's hard to set a value, because of the historic nature of the brand, lack of comparable sales and the location in the state's top tourist destination. "This truly has the old adage of location, location, location. It is smack dab in the middle of Beale Street between Silky O'Sullivan's and B.B. King's Blues Club." Because it was a going business when the City of Memphis bought up Beale Street to create an entertainment district in the 1970s and 1980s, "It is the only property on Beale Street the city doesn't own," Slovis said. "It's just time" for the owners to sell, Slovis added. "They would love to see a part of the history remain in whatever happens." "I think my mother realized at some point it's going to have to end," said Sam Braslow, 56, a teacher at Houston High School. His mother, the late Eleanor Schwab Braslow, was a granddaughter of Abraham Schwab. She died in 2005. Customers browsed in the store Friday, pausing over unusual items and snapping photos of each other trying on feathered hats. Dustin and Megan Doherty of Tahlequah, Okla., with 2-year-old son Jonah in tow, were enticed by a storefront armor display. "It looks interesting," said Dustin. "We just came from Tater Red's, so this is pretty mild," he added. Jonathan Dreifus, visiting from Portland, Maine, grew up in Memphis and was on Beale Street showing his children around Schwab's. The Dreifuses and Schwabs are connected somewhere on their family trees. "I hope it stays like it is." Joseph Braslow, Sam's son and a fifth-generation family storekeeper, said Memphis-themed postcards, Elvis Presley items, old-fashioned candies displayed general store style, and "the mojo-voodoo stuff" are among best sellers. Younger customers favor the armor: breastplates, helmets, knives, swords, axes. "This store is kind of random, but it works." Elliott said, "We've always been almost a bizarre mix of merchandise, so that's what we keep doing. We'll buy something and if it sells, we'll buy more of it. If it doesn't, we won't get it again." Best-sellers vary from day to day and sometimes surprise even a veteran like Elliott Schwab. "These old ladies came in, and they went crazy for these knit caps. They bought all we had, four to six dozen. We had had them for a few years. They had this old-style look to them." Over in the incense, curios, oils and lode-stones department, one could find jinx removing candles, $6, mojo bags for purposes ranging from "attraction" to "gamblers" to "strong love," $10, and a John the Conqueror Voodoo Doll, $5. Buyer beware, though. "The articles in this department are sold without any claims or pretense of any natural or super-natural powers, affects or revelations. Signed, A. Schwab."
By James Dowd, The Commercial Appeal February 18, 2011 
This is the last in a four-part series on the 2011 Society of Entrepreneurs inductees, who will be honored during a black-tie gala April 9. Growing up as the son of the man who transformed the hospitality industry, young Robert A. "Bob" Wilson ['62] learned plenty about customer service early on. And to this day he credits his dad, Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson, with instilling in him a sense of civic pride and the drive to be the best in every pursuit. As founder and president of Memphis-based Wilson Air Center, Wilson is nationally renowned and his company is consistently ranked as the top fixed-base operator in the country. He also serves as vice president of his family's Kemmons Wilson Companies, where he focuses on hotel construction, warehousing and time-share operations. In recognition of his innovations in the hospitality and aviation industries, Wilson is being honored by the Society of Entrepreneurs. He will be formally inducted into the organization April 9. "Pop said we had a family business, and so I never really thought about doing anything else. It was always my desire to grow this venture and see it thrive in different areas," Wilson said. "I love this city, I love this area, and it's been great for my family. I never wanted to work anywhere else." After graduating from East High School, Wilson headed to Dallas to attend Southern Methodist University. While there, he studied business and finance, and after graduation returned to Memphis to work for his father. Working primarily in construction, he took jobs as a roofer, electrician and framer on hotel projects in such far-flung sites as Monaco, Nigeria and Panama. Along the way, he joined the Tennessee Air National Guard and entered the pilot training program. A lifelong aviation lover, Wilson had earned his pilot's license at 16 and described the Guard program as "a paid vacation." It was that passion for flying that later led him to establish Wilson Air Center at the Memphis International Airport in 1996. "It's sort of like a big service station for airplanes, but with amenities for the customer to make the experience as positive as possible," Wilson said. "Our policy is to never say 'no' to a customer and to treat them right so that they'll keep coming back." The center has been rated as the top FBO in Aviation International News and received the Operational Excellence Award by AIG Aviation Insurance in 2002. Since its early days in Memphis, the company has grown to include more than 200 employees and expanded to markets in Houston and Charlotte, N.C. "I've known Bob for a long time and admired his ventures into all types of aviation," said Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority president Larry Cox. "He revolutionized the FBO business with his attention to detail and focus on customer service. I'm a pilot myself and I've been in many airports, but his operation exceeds any I've ever seen." Wilson has been honored by numerous aviation organizations and was inducted into the Memphis Aviation Legends Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2006, he was inducted into the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame. "Memphis is rich in aviation history, and Bob Wilson has carved out a special place for himself through his leadership and innovation in establishing Wilson Air Center here," said Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority chairman Arnold Perl. "The model he founded here has been replicated across the country, which points to Memphis as a center of aviation innovation."
By James Dowd, The Commercial Appeal February 17, 2011 
With keen insight and unwavering determination, Charles McVean ['61] remains focused on the future, whether he's trading commodities or envisioning a healthier landscape for the city. As chairman and CEO of Memphis-headquartered McVean Trading & Investments, he oversees a company that manages accounts for more than 6,000 clients worldwide. And as the innovator behind the Aerobic Cruiser Hybrid Cycle, McVean promotes state-of-the-art lithium battery-powered bicycles and touts the recently opened Shelby Farms Greenline as an attraction that could help Memphis leapfrog other cities as a tourist destination. "There's a growing desire to promote more environmentally friendly products, and the potential is here for unparalleled recreation and exercise along the Greenline," McVean said. "I believe we're in a position to define our destiny and create something special." For his varied contributions, McVean is being honored by the Society of Entrepreneurs. He will be formally inducted into the organization April 9. A native Memphian, McVean graduated from East High School and later studied philosophy and economics at Vanderbilt University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1965. After graduation, he accepted a job as a trader in the grain industry and subsequently worked with Cook Industries in Memphis and later in New York with the Louis Dreyfus Corp. McVean moved back to Memphis in 1974, taking a job with brokerage firm Refco, where he focused on cattle trading and eventually became a principal. As a futures trader, he relied on advice that still guides him today. "My grandfather was an old cattle trader, and he used to say that at the end of the day, if you're going to be in a business like this, you have to know where legitimate business ends and where gambling begins," McVean said. "I've based my career on knowing the difference between the two and making the right decisions for my clients." In 1986, McVean branched out and established McVean Trading & Investments, which today counts 80 employees and concentrates on livestock, grains and oilseeds, and global macroeconomics. "Memphis has a terrific commodities history and Charles is a leader in that area," said David Waddell, president and CEO of Waddell & Associates. "He's got a tremendous business mind and has inspired countless others, encouraging them to create an even more robust community of entrepreneurship in Memphis." One way McVean does that is through education. In 2004 he founded the Peer Power Foundation, which helps guide disadvantaged students toward academic success. The program is active in nearly a dozen schools, employing more than 150 high school and college students to tutor and mentor more than 1,000 younger students every day. In part because of that initiative, in 2007 McVean was named Humanitarian of the Year by the Memphis City Council for his efforts to improve public education. "Through his work with clients, his presence in the community and his advocacy for students, Charles exemplifies a positive role model in our community," said Pearson Crutcher, executive director of the SOE. "He's a wonderful example for all of us."
Tennessee's Advanced Placement exam failure rate inches up to 48 percent By Jane Roberts, The Commercial Appeal February 14, 2011  While the number of public school students taking Advanced Placement courses nearly doubled last decade, the number who fail in AP classes also is up, a sign school leaders are relying too heavily on AP to increase course rigor. In its annual report this week, the College Board praised its AP program "as one of the great American education success stories of the last 56 years." The board cited the growing percentage of minority high school students who successfully complete the courses designed to reflect college-level work, and the correlation between AP and college success. But in Tennessee and around the nation, an increasing number of students are not doing well enough in the classes to get college credit for their work. Last year, of all the seniors who took at least one AP course in high school, 41 percent -- about two in five -- did not pass the exam, up slightly from 40 percent in 2009 nationwide. In Tennessee, failure rates inched up to 48 percent last year compared to 47.2 in 2009. Since 2001, the number getting a score of 3 or better on the 5-point grading scale dropped 7 percentage points. A 3 is considered a college grade of B or C. A score of 1 corresponds to a grade of D or F. In Memphis, 40 percent of public school seniors passed with a 3 or more in 2009. In 2010, the percentage dropped to 33. In Shelby County Schools, 61 percent of the 2,466 students who tested in 2010 scored a 3 or higher. That’s only a slight drop from 2009, when 62 percent of the 2,240 who tested scored a 3 or higher. AP is a program of the College Board, designed to improve student access and readiness for college. The board also administers standardized entrance exams such as the PSAT and SAT. As the nation hurries to improve the math and science skills of its workforce, the haste is reflected in AP chemistry, environmental science, calculus, computer science and biology scores. More than a third of AP test-takers in those subjects earned a score of only 1 last year. While only one fifth scored that low on the physics exam, nearly 20 percent got a 2, which means half of the physics enrollees did not do well enough to get college credit for their AP work or post a significant return on taxpayers' investment in teachers and lab equipment. The College Board made specific reference to the scores this week, calling them a "troubling and emerging trend. "Thirty percent of U.S. high schools are rushing AP students into AP biology and chemistry without having them take prerequisites first," said Trevor Packer, AP vice president. AP courses are designed to follow traditional subject courses, preferably work at the honors level. "The heart of the matter, success in AP is much more dependent on the years leading up to AP than what can happen in one year," Packer said. When school leaders focus on "an array of educational improvements, AP becomes an outcome rather an a result." Between 2008 and 2010, MCS added 60 AP sections, beefing up offerings in schools like Hamilton and East where there had been few choices. Across the city, the city school district added German language, human geography, art history and environmental science for a total of 27 AP classes. Since 2008, the number of students enrolling and taking the final AP exam in Memphis increased 19 percent. "Increased access makes a difference," said John Barker, the district's chief of research and evaluation. "Research shows that even if you are not successful in the exam, participation in AP prepares you for success in college." But growing fast has unintended consequences, including a thin pool of qualified teachers. If one of those teachers leaves unexpectedly, administrators may have no choice but to cut courses, even at under-served schools. Westwood High, for instance, dropped AP English language and composition, and English literature and composition this year when the teacher who taught both transferred, erasing with one move the school's entire gain in access. The city schools have also had to train dozens of teachers for the increased course rigor. Not only is it expensive (an in-town, College Board-certified class for 25 teachers costs Memphis City Schools $11,500; the cost jumps to $1,500 to $2,000 per teacher if they have to go out of town to do the work), but new teachers usually don't get high test scores from their students immediately. "It takes an AP teacher about three years for their students to score 3 or above," says Linda Sklar, head of the AP program at MCS. Memphis also requires each student to take the exam, not the case everywhere. "In some districts, if they have children they don't think are going to do well, they may discourage them from taking the test. "We're saying, if you want students to make commitment, then we want true commitment, that you are going to work to the highest level," Sklar said.
By Sherri Drake Silence, The Commercial Appeal January 28, 2011 Shelby County Schools, which has long fended off charter schools, has been ordered by the state to approve a charter school application twice rejected by the district. The state Board of Education voted unanimously Friday to require that SCS approve a request from Smart Schools Inc. to open a New Consortium of Law and Business charter school in the suburban school system. The charter school would be the first in SCS. "I feel like the dog that's caught the mail truck," Tommie Henderson ['91 and Faculty 1998-2003], executive director of Smart Schools, said Friday. "... All we are waiting on is for the Shelby County Schools board to move forward with this decision, so that we can get rolling." The action is unrelated to the controversial effort to surrender the charter for Memphis City Schools, which would result in the merger of the two systems. Smart Schools plans to open its school to about 35 seventh-graders this fall and add another grade and 60 more students next year. A location for the school hasn't been determined. The school would be open to county students who failed the reading or math portion of the state's achievement tests or to those who attended charter schools before joining the county system. Smart Schools Inc. filed an appeal with the state after being denied by SCS. District officials gave the group's initial application a score of 54.5 points out of 100. They gave a revised request a score of 71. SCS board chairman David Pickler said Friday that he's "deeply disappointed" with the state board's decision, but said the vote is final and the district can't appeal. The board will vote to approve the application at its February business meeting. "The application had issues, but that is now a moot point," Pickler said. "Now, we need to move forward to ensure that this school is as successful as any other school in Shelby County." At a business meeting in 2009, Pickler said district leaders would be more open to charter schools if they thought they'd better serve students. Former SCS superintendent Bobby Webb, who played a major role in putting up legislative roadblocks for charter schools in the county, called them a "fad" at that time. Charter schools are taxpayer-funded public schools that are "chartered" by nonprofit organizations and operate outside of the control of local school boards. After an appeal hearing this week, Gary Nixon, executive director of the Tennessee Board of Education, recommended that the state board remand the decision by SCS. Nixon said SCS had acted "contrary to the best interests of the pupils, the school district and the community." Since 2003, the state board has heard 26 charter school cases and remanded only a handful. With approval from Memphis City Schools, Henderson opened a similar law and business charter school Downtown last year. He also started the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering in MCS.
Charter may open in Shelby County By Sherri Drake, Sherri Drake Silence, The Commercial Appeal January 28, 2011 Shelby County Schools may be required by the state board of education to approve a charter school application that the district has emphatically rejected. The suburban district, which has no charter schools, twice denied an application from Smart Schools Inc. to open a New Consortium of Law and Business for middle schoolers in county schools. Gary Nixon, executive director of the Tennessee State Board of Education, recommended Thursday that the full board vote today to remand the decision by SCS and instruct the district to approve the charter school. The decision by SCS to deny the application was "contrary to the best interests of the pupils, the school district and the community," Nixon said in the recommendation. The state board's attorney said today's vote will be final. SCS can't appeal the decision. Smart Schools' executive director Tommie Henderson ['91 and Faculty 1998-2003], who made his case before Nixon at an appeal hearing Monday, said his organization feels "vindicated" by the recommendation. "This is huge," Henderson said of Nixon's recommendation Thursday. "We're very happy about the decision." With approval from Memphis City Schools, Henderson opened a similar charter school Downtown last year. He also started the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering in MCS. SCS officials gave Smart Schools' initial application a score of 54.5 points out of 100. They gave a revised application a score of 71. Nixon said SCS officials used an outdated version of the review guide for charter school applications and didn't explain why denying the application was the right move. "Instead, SCS seemed focused on complimenting its current schools for the programs they already offer." Since 2003, the state board has heard 26 charter school cases and remanded only a handful.
By Sherri Drake Silence, The Commercial Appeal January 25, 2011 A local educator whose application to open the first charter school in Shelby County Schools has been twice denied by the district made his case to state education officials in an appeal hearing Monday. Tommie Henderson ['91 and Faculty 1998-2003], executive director of Smart Schools Inc., argued that leaders of the suburban district didn't use the correct scoring system when evaluating his organization's application to open a New Consortium of Law and Business charter school. And, he said, they didn't reveal what score is required for approval or what process they use to make their decision. "Due to this, our organization has truly been shooting in the dark as it relates to the district's charter school application process," Henderson said at the appeal hearing before Gary Nixon, executive director of the Tennessee state Board of Education. Shelby school officials rejected Smart Schools' application in November, giving it a score of 54.5 points out of 100. The organization submitted a revised application to SCS and was rejected again with a score of 71. In August, with approval from Memphis City Schools, Smart Schools opened a similar law and business charter school Downtown that serves about 35 seventh-graders. Henderson, who also started the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering charter school in MCS, said the proposed school would provide innovative instruction and help struggling students. "Shelby County Schools does use numerous interventions," Henderson said. "And we consider ourselves to be just one more intervention they can use." Charter schools are taxpayer-funded public schools that are "chartered" by nonprofit organizations and operate outside of the control of local school boards. Shelby school leaders were long opposed to the nontraditional public schools, but now say they're open to them. County school officials said they did use the right scoring system and that the application had many flaws, including an unclear instructional strategy. They said the proposed courses are already offered by the district and the application didn't include a location for the school. Margaret Gilmore, who oversees instructional programs for SCS, highlighted several intervention programs the district uses to assist a growing population of economically disadvantaged students. And, she said, county schools continue to perform at a high-academic level even as standards increase. "Shelby County Schools stands steadfastly behind the decision to deny this application and preserve the rich tradition of educating all 47,000-plus (SCS) students and acting in the best interest of all stakeholders," she said. Nixon will make a recommendation to the state board of education, which will likely vote on the appeal Friday, said Rich Haglund, the state board's attorney. If the state board reverses the decision by SCS, the district will be required to approve Henderson's application. Haglund said, since 2003, the state board has heard 26 charter school cases and reversed only a handful.
By Tom Charlier, The Commercial Appeal January 24, 2011 Melton Holt looks forward to the day he'll be able to drive down to the Mississippi River, get out of his car and stroll or ride a bicycle on a boardwalk over the river while enjoying stunning vistas of Downtown Memphis. "The view is a beautiful view, and I think it would really be an attraction," said Holt, who serves as county judge, or executive, for Crittenden County. If a Memphis group is correct, the day for which Holt and others are waiting may not be far off. It appears increasingly likely, they say, that a bike and pedestrian boardwalk can be built on portions of the 95-year-old Harahan Bridge, a still-active rail span. The Greater Memphis Greenline, a nonprofit group that champions trails for recreation and transportation, has enlisted support for the project from local governments on both sides of the river, along with a host of other groups. Working with local officials, they've identified several grant programs that could cover much of the project's cost. What's more, they say they've found documentation that the Harahan's cantilevered "carriage-ways," on which the boardwalk would be built, are owned by the city of Memphis and Crittenden County -- not Union Pacific Railroad, which owns and operates the rail portion of the nearly 5,000-foot-long span. Within the next two weeks, a local delegation is expected to travel to Omaha, Neb., to meet with Union Pacific president and chairman James R. Young in an effort to secure the railroad's cooperation. "We've got a lot of the right players on board," said Syd Lerner, executive director of the greenline group. "... We feel like it is the right time for this." The Harahan boardwalk is the highest-profile project of several new bike-pedestrian trails sought by the group in the aftermath of the opening last fall of the Shelby Farms Greenline. The nearly seven-mile-long trail from Shelby Farms to Binghamton has attracted heavier-than-expected crowds, with up to 400 bicyclists and pedestrians per hour counted passing some locations on weekends. In addition to the recreation and transportation benefits associated with other trails, the Harahan project could be a significant tourist attraction, Lerner said. "People all over the world know us for Elvis, barbecue, the Blues and the Mississippi River," he said. The northernmost of three bridges crossing the river south of Downtown, the Harahan span was built with roadways extending outward from either side of the main span to carry carriages, wagons and motor vehicles. In 1917, a year after the bridge was completed, a railroad company that owned the span before Union Pacific sold the roadways to Memphis and Crittenden County, according to property records found by the greenline group. The roadways accommodated highway lanes until the nearby Memphis & Arkansas Bridge opened in 1949. The road surfaces were later dismantled and removed, but the structural steel framing of the road beds remains. Greenline members say the boardwalk would be built only on the north side of the bridge, which faces Downtown. It could be connected to the Downtown Bluffwalk, which ends within a few hundred yards north of the Harahan span, as well as roads on the Arkansas side. The surface that would be used -- whether it's wood or some other material -- hasn't been determined. Neither has the cost, although Lerner estimated it would be in the "low to median seven digits." Kyle Wagenschutz, the bikeway/pedestrian coordinator for the city of Memphis, said there are "at least a half-dozen" grant programs supporting multi-use trails such as the one sought on the bridge. He expresses optimism that the boardwalk can be built. "I wasn't 100 percent sold on the project until I went out there and inspected it," he said. Although Union Pacific doesn't own the former roadways, the railroad's cooperation would be helpful for the project, Wagenschutz said. Holt, the Crittenden County judge, is among the local officials who have written to the railroad on behalf of the effort. Union Pacific officials haven't stated their position yet. "We are reviewing the request and analyzing how the bridge structure and the current rail operations could impact public safety," said railroad spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza. Lerner said state transportation agencies would have to be involved in the project, as would the federal Department of Homeland Security, which monitors threats to potential terrorist targets, such as major bridges. The likely timetable for getting the boardwalk built is "measured in years, not decades," Lerner said. Charles McVean ['61], a Memphis businessman and the principal in a company that makes plug-in electric moped bikes, said the Harahan boardwalk could be a link on a larger trail along the Mississippi and help define the Memphis area as a prime destination for bicyclists. McVean, who is working with the greenline group, foresees no major hurdles. "I think somebody has got to come up with a surprise for this not to happen in the foreseeable future," he said.
By Omari Fleming, WREG January 18, 2011 
FAST FACTS:
"Minor setback for a major comeback," they said in unison. The two teens are talking about the fact that court records show on Friday the Shelby County District Attorneys office dropped aggravated rape charges against them and another teenager involved in the alleged rape. In March of last year, the former Eat High School students' lives were forever changed. They spent a week behind bars after being charged with raping a fellow female schoolmate, off campus. The 17-year-old girl admitted she willingly left school with the three boys and consensually had sex with Demarious. She told police when she urged him to stop, he "slapped her in the face..." That's when she says the two other teens "came into the room and forced her to have oral sex." Demarious says he had an ongoing relationship with the girl and never hit her. "She was like who's going first. She told him why don't you got first since he's new. Because she's never performed on him," explained Demarious. Demarious and Brian were kicked out of East High and lost their jobs after the allegations. A month later they were allowed to enroll in an alternative school. Both earned their diplomas. Despite missing a month of school because of the rape charge, both teens say they've learned a valuable lesson. "Sit back and think about everything before you do and everything will come out better."
For an unknown period of time, you may also watch a video of this report from WREG TV.
By Gee Sharp, Memphis Commercial Appeal January 3, 2011  A client's trust in a personal trainer can help the trainer construct a workout that is precisely suited to the client's goals. Llana Smith Rada, 58, owner of Broadway Travel in West Memphis, has been working out with personal fitness trainer Dion Welling for 16 years. She says the success of her fitness program is due in large part to her relationship with Welling. "Dion can read me like a book," Rada said. "If I'm having a bad day, he will figure that out and adjust our workout to fit what's going on. "I truly feel the relationship you have with your trainer is of utmost importance. You have to trust each other and respect each other." Welling, 43, who trains out of the Racquet Club of Memphis, has been in the business as long as Rada has been his client. He says the relationship he has with his clients plays a large role in their exercise experience. "I have to be able to quickly pick up on (the clients') mood or mindset as soon as I greet them. Sometimes they might have had a bad or stressful day. I need to adjust their program to fit their mindset at the time," he said. "Personalities are important. I have had clients who felt as if our personalities didn't click, and so they have moved on to another trainer, or I have helped them find a trainer that might work well for their personality. As a trainer, I can't take that personally; after all, it isn't about the trainer, it's about the client and helping him obtain his fitness goals." Welling said over the years he has learned the art of building trust with his clients. He said trainers should never treat their clients merely as a source of income. "To quote (motivational speaker) Zig Ziglar: 'If you help other people get what they want, then you will get what you want.'" Trainer Adria "AD" Davis, 30, who has been at Germantown Athletic Club for 10 years, views her job as a journey with her clients. "When a client has a goal to reach, I am responsible for getting them there, and we are working together as a team," Davis said. "Over time, I begin to know my clients' bodies and what their bodies have been through, as well as what the client himself has been through. There is a lot of emotion that goes into a workout. Knowing my clients as well as I do allows me to cater to them specifically." Dee Dee Dunehew, 42, of Piperton has been training with Davis since 2006. "For me, chemistry with my trainer is what makes it work," Dunehew said. "I initially set out to train with AD for two weeks, but once I got started, I was hooked. ... Within the first year of working with AD, I lost 25 pounds, and my whole outlook on life improved, physically and mentally. AD's attitude is contagious. She pushes without being pushy." Many find inspiration in the relationship they have with their trainer. Russell Lindsey Jones, 24, a Memphis native now living in Knoxville, spent her high school years training with Marcus Santi, who had been hired as a sprint coach by Hutchison School.  "We had fun working hard, but we knew when Marcus meant business," Jones said. "Marcus always started us with a message and had a talk with us after the workout. "He would write us inspirational messages that were personal to each of us and our individual journeys. I still have some of those today, and they help me continue my drive for a healthy, happy life." Santi, who has been training since 1996 and uses a private gym, private homes and the great outdoors, said his clients range from professional athletes to weekend warriors and soccer moms. "Some like super-aggressive workouts and like the challenge of knowing one is coming," he said. "Others will get intimidated by a super-big challenge if they know it is coming. Either way, I want to help them overcome obstacles in their lives, whether I have to sneak in the challenge or make it known from the onset." Santi believes clients rise to a challenge if they trust their trainer. "I believe in an acronym I saw once: 'T.E.A.M: Together Everyone Achieves More.'" Mary Frances Vookles Pitts ['59], 70, a residential real estate agent, said she was immediately comfortable with her trainer, Gaye Keller, and the environment at Healthy Habits in East Memphis, where Keller trains clients. "It was friendly and cheerful, and I hardly noticed when I began working my muscles in never-before-known ways," she said. "Gaye has an easy manner, and the hard work is always punctuated by laughter (and a few screams). That is important to me." Pitts had surgery that left her with a titanium rod in her spine, four fused vertebrae and two fake discs. "Gaye was with me every step of the way," she said. "She prepared me for the surgery by strengthening my core muscles, and after the surgery, she took over where the physical therapist left off. When people ask me about my fabulous recovery and obvious improved fitness, I credit Gaye." Keller, 56, with 16 years of personal-training experience, said that some of her clients have become close friends over the years. "I enjoy getting to know my clients and finding out about their lives," she said. "That part is important because it helps me design a fitness program that is best for them and their goals." Said another Keller client, Pat Bernatsky, 59, of Germantown, "Because I trust Gaye, I also trust her judgment. I've left her (workouts) sore, but never injured. I don't even have to think about the workout; I just try to relax and follow the program."
By Sherri Drake Silence, Memphis Commercial Appeal December 30, 2010 Proponents of the third charter-school application denied by Shelby County Schools have filed an appeal with the state Education Department. Tommie Henderson ['91 and Faculty 1998-2003], executive director of Smart Schools Inc., said his organization wants to open a New Consortium of Law and Business charter school in Shelby County to focus on preparing students for careers in those fields of study. In August, Smart Schools opened a similar charter school with the same name Downtown, with approval from Memphis City Schools. It serves about 35 seventh-graders. Shelby school officials rejected Smart Schools' application in November, giving it a score of 54.5 points out of 100. The organization filed an appeal with the suburban district and was rejected again earlier this month. This is the third charter school to be proposed and the third to be denied in the county system. On Dec. 23, Smart Schools mailed an appeal to the state. The group expects to have an appeals hearing with state officials in January. "We understand (Shelby County Schools') initial concerns about charter schools," Henderson said. "Charter schools are about supporting a district. Our intention is to not be adversarial in any way." Charter schools are taxpayer-funded public schools that are "chartered" by nonprofit organizations and operate outside of the control of local school boards. Shelby school leaders have long been opposed to the nontraditional public schools. When denying the initial proposal from Smart Schools in November, Shelby school officials said the application didn't have a clear instructional strategy, that proposed courses already are offered in the county system and that the discipline plan doesn't comply with state law. "This application fell well short of excellence," school chairman David Pickler said at that time. Earlier this month, Supt. John Aitken advised the board to deny an updated and improved application by Smart Schools, saying his staff is concerned with the financial stability of the group and that SCS already offers the proposed courses. "We do intend to propose courses that are quite different than what the county is offering," Henderson said. "(In SCS), you don't have those classes immersed or collaborating with each other. What we offer that is different is a focused curriculum." Henderson said he hopes to open the school in fall 2011 and to educate only seventh-graders the first year. His organization would open the school to students in grades 6 and 8 the following year and add a grade of high school each year after that. Students in the Shelby County and Memphis city law and business consortium would collaborate with one another. And they'd be mentored by professionals in business and law. Henderson said he and his board are looking for a location in the county that has a need for such a school. Members of the Smart Schools board are originally from the Shelby County area. Three of the board members, including Henderson, graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Henderson founded and served as principal of the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering, a charter school in the Memphis system.
by By Richard Morgan, Memphis Commercial Appeal December 10, 2010 [Excerpts from the article] 
The nation's high school counselor of the year is Randy McPherson, a 15-year veteran of Trezevant Career and Technology Center, where students from five high schools in northwest Memphis spend half of every school day learning skills such as cooking, cosmetology, health care and forensics. The award, which comes with a trip to Washington in February for a black-tie gala and meetings with Congress, is doled out by the American School Counselor Association, which has 28,000 members nationally. McPherson was nominated by Betty Russell, a now-retired teaching colleague. Memphis City Schools was notified of the award a few weeks ago, but kept it secret for a surprise party for McPherson on Wednesday. It's fitting that McPherson, 55, is getting rewarded for helping students with the woes of young employment. He went through a lot of that himself. As a youngster in farmland near Henderson, Tenn., when he was too small to lift bales of hay, his job was to straighten out loaded bales. "I was the gofer's gofer," he recalled. Desperate, he headed into a new job field called computing. He and some friends drove to Memphis and signed up for community college classes. They jammed into a duplex and he paid bills by being a stockboy at TG&Y (Toys, Goods & Yarn). He pursued multiple degrees in education at what was then Memphis State University, all the way up to a Ph.D... "Memphis' school system is data-driven. And he always has the right data," said McPherson's principal, Milton Burchfield II [East Faculty 1997-2001].
Memphis Commercial Appeal November 11, 2010 
When asked what is his favorite flower, Van Smith ['65] of Collierville is quick to answer. "The iris, the state's flower," Smith said. Smith, who has been gardening for more than 40 years, is a member of the West Tennessee Iris Society where he is the club's treasurer. Every year, the club holds its annual iris contest where Smith shows off his award-winning flowers. Aside from gardening, Smith also is a avid golfer and spends several days a week on the golf course. "I play golf an average of three times a week," he said. "It raises your blood pressure." Are you with a gardening club? If so, which one? Smith is a member of the West Tennessee Iris Society. There is a Club Garden on West Street at the railroad tracks in Germantown. Smith is the club's treasurer. He also is the landscaping chairman for the Village of Bailey Station. How long have you been interested in gardening? Forty-five years. Average amount of time involved with gardening: On the average, Smith says he spends about eight hours a week gardening. How'd you get your green thumb? "From my parents, who even with a small city lot, always had at least a few tomato plants." Current or most recent gardening project: "I just completed a Arkansas field stone extension to a water drain off area just in case it ever rains." Favorite gardening project: "When I bought my present house there was a eroding area on the side from the rush of water coming off neighbors yard. I built an Arkansas field stone creek like drainage area about 30 feet by 5 feet long to carry runoff water down the creek to the woods. Sometimes when we have heavy rains I go out with an umbrella and watch the water rush down just like a small river." What are your favorite gardening experiences? My favorite gardening experience would be related to...growing and showing irises. What type of gardening project would you like to try in the future? "I have run out of space for new projects. All I can do is improve on what I already have." What advice would you give to someone interested in gardening? "If planting a tree, shrub or flower and watching it develop into something appealing to the eye doesn't turn you on, you're in the wrong business. I spend at least an hour a week in a meditation area in the woods beside my house looking around and absorbing natures wonders. It also lowers your blood pressure."
The East High Alumni Page November 1, 2010 The Fairgounds, Libertyland, and the Zippin Pippin roller coaster were remembered at a ceremony today unveiling a historical marker near the former site of those attractions. Ed Williams ('52), Shelby County Historian, joined other dignitaries including the Memphis Mayor and members of Remember Libertyland, formerly Save Libertyland, gathered to at least preserve the memory of the decades of festival-like attractions which once stood at what was then the Fairgrounds. Mayor A C Wharton said great cities are not made by what's going forward, but remembering what is in the past. He said he preferred to see Libertyland not as something lost but as something that was part of the transformation into something new at the site. Williams briefly told those attending about the history of the Fairgrounds and the Mid-South Fair, which he said were part of a nearly 200 year history of amusement parks in Memphis. Libertyland, the 1976 transformation of the amusement park at the Fairgrounds, closed in 2005. The Pippin, which in later years was known as the Zippin Pippin, was dismantled and parts are now being reconstructed at a Green Bay, Wisconsin, amusement park. The Mid-South Fair's lease was not renewed and it moved to Mississippi after the 2008 festival. You may read more about the Fairgrounds and Libertyland at the Landmark and Legend web site.
School signals new direction for practical education by Susan Agee, Special to The Daily News The Daily News October 25, 2010 The New Consortium of Law and Business could be a sign of a new wave of education in Memphis. The recently opened charter school takes its students through a curriculum grounded in the realities of the world of business and law. While its location – 110 N. Court St. in the mixed-used CA2 building in Downtown’s Court Square – is unusual, the school’s mission is deliberate in that it places students right in the midst of the world they are learning about. Each day starts with a classroom forum of current events and relevant topics. Classes follow, either in pairs or small groups. Business leaders and lawyers from the area visit regularly to give students a "real world" perspective on their studies. "One of our major units is about the judicial process," said principal Elana Ragsdale. "We plan to have legal professionals come in to discuss their role in the legal system so that the students are exposed to the variety of options in the field as well as obtain a realistic understanding and identification of the judiciary process." Students at the New Consortium of Law and Business charter school hang out in a locker and cafeteria area inside the school. "The students were ecstatic about what they saw: from the U.S. Supreme Court to the U.S. Capitol to the Smithsonian," said Ragsdale. "It was a trip that I am certain they will remember for the rest of their lives; they truly were inspired." The school’s founder, Tommie Henderson ['91 and Faculty 1998-2003], has done this before. He was a cofounder of the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering in 2003 and began a wave of charter school startups. His interest in education was accidental; while waiting to enter a masters program at the University of Tennessee, Henderson was invited back to East High, his alma mater, to teach in the engineering program that he had been a part of. Henderson had since earned a degree in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and hadn’t planned on teaching. East’s principal Milton Burchfield [Faculty 1997-2001] asked him to fill in while Burchfield searched for a full-time replacement. "He never found a new engineering teacher," said Henderson, laughing. "But he didn’t have to, because once I got into education, I was hooked." While teaching at East, Henderson found the motivation that propelled him toward the goal of starting a charter school. He coached five students through the process of preparing for and taking an advanced placement physics test. They all passed, the first African-American young men to do so in Tennessee. Their success led to other students feeling they could do it too, and Henderson had 20 who were willing to try. Then his program was cut. "If you’re in a traditional school system and they are pulling back the great exploration for learning, there’s got to be a better way," said Henderson. He went so far as to write a curriculum for the school he wanted to start, even though he didn’t know how he was going to start it. Then he met a reporter who heard about Henderson’s desire to start a school and connected him with the Memphis Bioworks Foundation. The organization wanted to sponsor such a school, so they teamed with Henderson in founding MASE. The Tennessee charter school admission requirements state that applicants be those in a "high priority" school, those who have received failing TCAP scores or those who qualify for free or reduced price lunches. When asked how he could take these students and turn them into students who excel, Henderson said that they didn’t teach the students a new way of studying. "We taught them a new way of being," he said. "For many of these students there was an acceptance of mediocrity; an acceptance of their ‘station in life.’ We changed the entire mindset, not just of how to study, but of wanting to study." The plan is working at New Consortium. "All of our goals and objectives are falling into place," said Ragsdale. "The students are still very much intrigued by their opportunities here. We expect much more success in the near future."
By James Dowd Memphis Commercial Appeal October 17, 2010 Trumpeting a message of triumph over adversity and promoting family over finance, author Tommy Spaulding was in Memphis recently as part of a 75-city book tour to discuss his New York Times bestseller, "It's Not Just Who You Know." Spaulding was keynote presenter at the second in a speakers series launched by Kem Wilson Jr. ['64] to inspire local business leaders to strengthen their personal and professional lives. Tommy Spaulding, best-selling author, entrepreneur and business coach, enjoys a few laughs with Willie Baldwin (left) and Roy 'Soup' Campbell during a recent speaker series. More than 200 attended the invitation-only event, which was held at the Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis. Spaulding, who is dyslexic, rose to prominence as a top sales exec for IBM and later as president of Up With People. But after years of drawing an impressive salary and traveling the world over, he left his high-powered executive lifestyle and founded a nonprofit leadership organization dedicated to helping young people reach their potential. On his stopover in Memphis, Spaulding challenged listeners to strive for success instead of succumbing to insecurity. "I used to think dyslexia was a scar, but now I see it as a gift because it caused me to overcompensate in other areas to make people see that they were wrong about me," Spaulding said. "I wasn't a good student, so I went out of my way to excel in other ways. I didn't give up and I tried harder because I wanted to prove to the world that I wasn't stupid." For Spaulding, not giving up meant taking classes every year during summer school to boost his grade-point average, committing to marathon study sessions during college, and maintaining a sense of optimism after applying to and being rejected by more than three dozen law schools. "He's a great example of the power of determination and drive," said Wilson, executive vice president of Kemmons Wilson Companies. "Everybody has a story and Tommy's is a particularly inspiring one. By telling it, he's changing the world." Persistence and a can-do attitude helped Spaulding win a Rotary scholarship, he said, that paid for graduate school and enabled him to earn an M.B.A. despite a less than stellar academic career. "I convinced the scholarship committee that I could overcome bad grades and achieve something and I kept my word," Spaulding said. "I had to prove that I deserved the scholarship and that they made the right choice." Eventually Spaulding made good on his promise and achieved considerable success as as corporate executive. But a growing desire to create a more lasting impact in his community led him to walk away from his career and use his own money to establish a nonprofit organization to help others develop leadership skills. "If I'm able to make a difference, I hope it's by inspiring people to have the courage to love one another and build relationships and strive for the best," Spaulding said. "The opportunities are out there, it's just up to us to be tenacious about pursuing them." Spaulding's message is one that people of all ages can learn from, said University of Memphis president Shirley Raines. "He worked hard in the face of academic challenges and achieved substantial success, but there's more to it than that," Raines said. "He also knew that his family loved and supported him and that provided a solid foundation for what came later. All of us should be positive influences like that on the lives of others."
George Griesbeck: Alum, Teacher, Friend Fall, 2010 As a student, George Griesbeck [Faculty 1964-1972] made good grades. He came to CBC from Immaculate Conception Grade School, operated by the Sisters of Mercy. He recalls fondly Sister Martina, "who could run a school with a long handled bell and keep things in order." The upper stories of the building had just become Catholic High School, a co-ed high school that would later become an all-boy school and move to McLean Street. The girls would remain at Immaculate Conception under that name; today it is the last of the parish high schools in the state.
 [The East High Alumni Page Editor's note: Mr. J.G. Griesbeck, principal of East High School 1964-1972, died shortly after the article was published in the Purple & Gold. An obituary is available.Mr. Griesbeck came to East as principal after East's first principal was killed in a traffic crash in the summer of 1964. It is often said that a person does not wish to follow a legend in a job, but that's the situation in which Mr. Griesbeck found himself. J.P. Snider was highly respected, his name spoken in revered tones in many homes of students of his at East. Mr. Griesbeck continued the high academic and citizenship standards at East.]
Memphis Commercial Appeal October 11, 2010 Columbia University professor Kenneth T. Jackson [associated with the Class of '57], one of the nation's pre-eminent historians and an alumnus of Memphis City Schools and the University of Memphis, will speak at 7 p.m. today at the meeting of the West Tennessee Historical Society at Memphis University School's Wunderlich Auditorium. At Columbia, Jackson is the director of the Herbert H. Lehman Center for the Study of American History and the Jacques Barzun Professor of History and Social Sciences. Jackson's seminal book, "Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States," is considered one of the most important works of history in the latter decades of the 20th century. Reprinted 29 times in paperback and five times in hardcover, "Crabgrass Frontier" was the first full-scale history of the development of American suburbia and has been described as an often critical examination of "how 'the good life' in America came to be equated with the a home of one's own surrounded by a grassy yard and located far from the urban workplace." Among Jackson's other major works are: "Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York," "The Dictionary of American Biography," "Scribner's Encyclopedia of American Lives," "Silent Cities: the Evolution of the American Cemetery," "The Ku Klux Klan in the City," "American Vistas," "Empire City: New York Through the Centuries," and the "Encyclopedia of New York City" (seventh edition due in 2010).
By Amy Barnette Memphis Commercial Appeal October 11, 2010 When more than 100 Memphians gathered Sunday at East High School to watch the Indie Memphis Freedom Series' presentation of "Heart of Stone," a documentary that examines how a principal and alumni of a troubled New Jersey high school sought to improve life for its students, the parallels to local concerns were clearly observed. Eric Harris ['91 and Faculty], principal (and alumnus) of East, said the film pointed out some of the issues he faces in making sure teenagers, whose minds and viewpoints are still being shaped, have positive role models in their lives. "(It) really reminded me a lot of East High School -- not totally, not even mostly, but the demographic shift that occurred, the student body as a whole, some of the perceptions that they had," he said. But East's challenges are not as daunting as those portrayed in the documentary. Though Weequahic High School in Newark, N.J., was one of the nation's top schools through the 1950s, racial conflict and economic downturn took their toll. When the school's primarily Jewish alumni from its heyday decided to give back to their school, they worked alongside principal Ron Stone to encourage students, setting up scholarship funds and backing trips to Europe. In Memphis, that partnership between alumni and administration can be found in the Greater East High Foundation and its offshoot, the dynamic, youth-led Peer Power program. Hosted by Bridges and the Memphis Jewish Federation, the community-minded event Sunday afternoon featured small-group discussions after the film. Student tutors from Peer Power guided the conversation to discover what participants thought could be learned from Newark's example and how it might be applied to Memphis schools. Anna Ham, who teaches math at Craigmont High School through the Teach for America program, said she thought that Craigmont and East both dealt with the consequences of suburbanization, just as Weequahic did. "I've heard stories about how Craigmont was once one of the best schools in the country, and everyone wanted to send their kids there, as well as East, but I feel like with sprawl and white flight, schools have gotten into disarray," she said. Writer Michelle Malsbury said that community involvement was what helped the New Jersey students, and that same principle could be applied locally. "They saw all their mentors, all their alum in essence become their role models, and it helped them see that if they just worked hard, they could also achieve the same things," she said. The Freedom Series ties film to the community. Each event is hosted by a different group and ends with an open discussion. Director Robin Salant said the series has been extremely successful. Each community featured has asked to be involved again next year, and other groups are clamoring to be included as well. "We've made sure (the screenings) have been kept free so we can have economic diversity," she said. "We want this to inspire everyone." Next up for the Freedom Series is "The Life & Times of Rosie the Riveter," showing at the National Civil Rights Museum at 6 p.m. Thursday. The film and discussion will focus on fair wages for women in the workplace, Salant said.
Race still dividing line for city By Richard Morgan Memphis Commercial Appeal October 10, 2010 The South is pretty big on euphemisms, bless its heart. So maybe it was fitting that it took a computer programmer in San Francisco to shake things up. Because when Memphians talk about "tensions" or "divisions" or even "issues," we are often really talking about race and, by extension, racism. In September, Eric Fischer, 37, posted a series of images to his Flickr account. Inspired by a racial mapping of Chicago last year on a website, RadicalCartography.net, Fischer took 2000 Census data and color-coded dozens of U.S. cities by race of residents. Blacks were blue, whites were red, Latinos were orange and Asians were green. The images went viral online. "I was shocked," Fischer said. "I thought things were better than this. Whatever city, whatever part of the country, there is still such division." Chiefly a black-and-white split, the maps evoke that stark, bitter presidential election in 2000 when "Red America" and "Blue America" became household terms. The map of Memphis shows a ring of whites -- in Germantown, Bartlett, Collierville, Millington, Horn Lake -- surrounding a black city core. There are isles of whites both literal (Mud Island) and metaphoric (Central Gardens, Cooper-Young, the Poplar corridor). The two most-integrated neighborhoods are Raleigh-Frayser and Hickory Hill. There is almost no orange on the map. A small but noticeable green blob, at the so-called "Little Vietnam" area around Cleveland and Jefferson, is an Asian oasis. For Asians and Latinos, government surveys routinely point to underreporting of population due to obstacles including language barriers and immigration concerns. "It's not surprising," said Mayor A C Wharton, who is black and campaigned on a post-racial slogan of "One Memphis." "But I'm not concerned with racial divisions. My job is to look at quality of life, regardless of these splits." That approach could sound like the "separate but equal" doctrine of Jim Crow, but Wharton, who lives in the center of the city, at Carnes and East Parkway South in an area he calls "West Orange Mound," quickly clarified: "Separate is inherently unequal. To the degree that we have division because of poverty or outright racism, it saddens me. We have to work on that. "But if these are divisions of choice, we have to accept that. You can't mandate polka dots." "We tried that and it made things worse," said Ed Williams ['52], Shelby County historian. "Before 1960, Memphis City Schools were superior to Shelby County schools," he said, "but then (desegregation) busing ruined that." U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., is the only white member of the U.S. House of Representatives to represent a majority-minority district. Cohen grew up in 1950s Memphis, left in 1961 and returned in 1967 to an apartment building on Walnut Grove with, he recalled, only one black family. Looking at the race-data map, he called Uptown "promising" and Mud Island "integrated," adding that there are now "respectable specks of blue" on Walnut Grove. "There's progress and lack of progress," he said, saying concerts and schools and restaurants in Memphis are still sometimes effectively all-white or all-black, and repeating the common quip that noon on Sunday is the most segregated moment of the week. "There are a lot of bad memories. And it'll take time to erase them from our collective consciousness. They don't facilitate progress, but they should breed understanding." Former Memphis NAACP executive secretary Maxine Smith, who was turned away from the old Memphis State University because of her race in 1957, this year received an honorary doctorate of letters from what is now the University of Memphis. "Desegregation doesn't make us love each other, but it brings us closer so that we can understand each other," she said. "You can't understand someone you never see. Our goal is not for everyone to have a black neighbor and a white neighbor, but just equal opportunity, equal access." She laughed. "Used to be, our barriers were legal. We took care of those. Now there are these more pernicious economic barriers. We'll get them with enough time and hard work." Bill Patton, author of "A Guide to Historic Downtown Memphis," moved here from Washington in 2006 and runs Backbeat Tours, which focus on Memphis music. "It's the locals, the folks from East Memphis who never come Downtown, who get blown away by our tours," he said. "I personally don't like thinking of white history or black history. The story of Memphis is a shared history," Patton said. "There's so much for everyone here: food, music. It's not like the Otis Redding folks hate Johnny Cash or Elvis. Or vice versa. Memphians all secretly love Memphis. But Memphians are in many ways their own worst enemies." Racial tension is nothing new to Memphis, home of the National Civil Rights Museum. The discussion has timeless sentiments, such as the one quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. in a 1959 speech he gave in Hawaii, two years before President Barack Obama was born there: "Lord, we ain't what we want to be. We ain't what we ought to be. We ain't what we gonna be. But thank God we ain't what we was."
After 32 years, library volunteer still reading, sorting, and selling. by Halley Johnson The Memphis Flyer October 7, 2010  When Sherman Dixon ['60] was in college, there was a moment when he thought he might like to be a writer.
"I mentioned it to a teacher of mine who had read some of my themes, and she said, 'You know, Sherman, some people are born to be writers and some are born to be readers.'" Remembering this, Dixon laughs. "Point well taken." Indeed. Dixon has been an avid Friends of the Library volunteer for 32 years, sorting — and reading — the library's donated books. A graduate of East High and the University of Memphis, Dixon is a retired postmaster who began his career as a buyer for Sears. But it wasn't until his late 30s when he stumbled across his first Friends book sale that he found a passion for volunteering. "I used to haunt bookstores," he says. "I just like looking at old, used books." There's a lot of looking involved. In the Benjamin Hooks Central Library basement where donated books are housed, there are more than 60,000 volumes at any given time. The rest are in the library's bookstore, Second Editions, or waiting to be priced and posted on Amazon.com. Dixon is part of a team of dedicated volunteers who each manage a different part of the process, though all do quite a bit of sorting. The volunteers — among them, retired teachers, a retired doctor, a zoo employee, and another retired postmaster — have widespread interests. Dixon's English degree means that he oversees the sorting of the literature books, as well as presiding over the art and religion sections. "We're such a small group, but we have every section covered," Dixon says. When Dixon started volunteering, the library occupied the corner of Peabody and McLean, and the Friends averaged $12,000 from two annual booksales. Now, in the massive Poplar Avenue building, they've expanded to three annual sales and year-round book sales through Second Editions and Amazon — bringing in at least $185,000 this year. Many books sell for less than a dollar in the sales or in the bookstore, though rare books bring much better returns on the Amazon site. The most valuable books, Dixon says, are the ones that go straight into the library. "We call those 'cost avoidance' donations," he says, noting that saving the library money on buying books is as good as bringing in extra revenue. The Friends do their fair share of donating as well, letting nonprofits peruse the leftover books from the annual sales, taking whatever they can use. "I've probably touched a million books in the last 30 years," Dixon says, "but I still get excited when I find something valuable." Visit the Friends of the Library's Amazon site at www.amazon.com/shops/memfolbooks1
By Wayne Risher Memphis Commercial Appeal October 6, 2010  The leader of the pack is a 67-year-old millionaire who wears a warm-up suit and a smile as broad as a kid with a new toy.
Charles McVean ['61] gestures toward a fleet of funny-looking electric bicycles parked nearby and tells his entourage "OK everybody. Let's cruise." And away goes The Mild Bunch, nine laid-back riders gliding silently down High Point Terrace to East Memphis' new railbed-turned-trail, the Shelby Farms Greenline. At the head of the column rides McVean, financial whiz and principal in Aerobic Cruiser Hybrid Cycle LLC, a maker of plug-in electric moped bicycles. The founder and president of McVean Trading and Investments LLC launched development of the Aerobic Cruiser four years ago in hopes of blending fun, exercise and profit. To hear him tell it, the long, low-slung bicycle with a battery-powered motor between the driver's legs is a cure to what ails Memphis and America. He believes it can help fight climate change, the obesity epidemic, the foreign trade deficit and a diminished manufacturing base. McVean's company is assembling the Aerobic Cruiser in Memphis, albeit from mostly foreign-made parts. "One of our objectives is to be a microcosm of the rebirth of manufacturing in the United States of America," he said. It's developing a bicycle lifestyle center a few blocks north of the Greenline, in the neighborhood shopping strip where McVean rode his bike as a kid. Cruiser's Lifestyle Center, 485 High Point Terrace at Philwood, will contain a bicycle service center, Cruiser showroom, convenience store, restaurant and public restrooms. First will come restrooms, opening in November, to provide pit stops for Greenline users. Thinking big is old hat for McVean. In the 1980s he dropped millions on a proposal for indoor racing featuring hackney ponies ridden by robot jockeys. Six years ago he started the Peer Power Foundation at his alma mater, East High School. It cultivates high achievers to boost performance of their lagging peers. McVean said he's invested "several million dollars" so far to create his own spin on the electric bicycle, a low-impact conveyance that sells tens of millions of units a year worldwide, primarily in Asia and Europe. His design combines pedal power with electric power so riders can go faster or further, climb hills or take a breather without stopping. "It has not caught on yet in the USA because nobody has built the right machine," McVean said. "I think this is it." "It's fun. It's exercise. But most of all, it's serious transportation," he added. McVean has 12 to 15 people carrying out his vision, which sees Aerobic Cruisers dovetailing with efforts to make Memphis a bicycle haven. McVean said the ultimate would be a bicycle lane atop the Mississippi River levee from Walls, Miss., to Vicksburg, with a high-speed ferry filling the gap between Walls and Downtown. Employed by his venture are bicycle mechanics, competitive cyclists and business, retail and restaurant types. McVean punctuated their cruise from High Point to the Shelby Farms visitor center with comments on marketing, economics and recent articles about the electric vehicle market. "The Cruiser is a very unique project that's exciting to be a part of," said Jeremy Reese, who started working for McVean four years ago. The Aerobic Cruiser is pricey: $5,000 for a deluxe model with well-padded semi-recumbent seat and shock-absorbing frame. The top-of-the-line can go 75 to 100 miles on a charge. McVean's company has built 20 prototypes, outfitted with high-efficiency lithium iron phosphate batteries. A lower-line model, the Commuter, will sell for less than $2,000. A three-wheeler also will be offered. Kyle Wagenschutz, bike and pedestrian coordinator for city and county governments, said the Cruiser suits people who want both exercise and transportation out of a bike, but maybe need help covering longer distances. McVean's plan for the High Point Terrace center is an example of economic activity spurred by the new Greenline, Wagenschutz said. The trail's opening has been eagerly anticipated by the bicycling public, said Daniel Duckworth, general manager of Midtown Bikes on South Main. "September was my best month all year," Duckworth said. "In my conversations with customers, it's obvious, whether they're buying new or dragging in something old to refurbish, generally most people have a high interest in utilizing that great asset we now possess." As for the Aerobic Cruiser, Duckworth said, "The only segment that product will reach is well-to-do boomers." Duckworth said purists, which covers most bike shop owners , "tend to have a general disdain for the electric bicycle. I embrace it." He sells a plug-in electric unit for about $1,500 and can put an electric motor on a conventional bike for about $1,000. "Once people hear that price, they shy away." McVean said he regrets initial prices are so high, due to the cost of batteries and components, but he expects costs to drop as production ramps up. "I hate telling the postman I don't have anything for him," he said. He plans to target upscale retirement communities such as Johns Island, Fla., and Bay Harbor, Mich. It was on an annual visit to Bay Harbor that he got the idea for the cruiser, after seeing a man drive a plug-in electric car to and from a fitness center workout. McVean views Memphis as a test market. "We're going to come in here and see if the concept has traction. If it does, we're going national fast."
The Commercial Appeal also has a video interview with Chas McVean which was still available at last check. See the video: Aerobic Cruiser.
Letter to the Editor Memphis Commercial Appeal October 5, 2010 Just as I, a 94-year-old retiree from the faculty of East High School, was about to reluctantly buy into the current disillusionment with the operation of our city and its services, I have had an experience which has restored my confidence in our city government. My frenzied call to 911 last week promptly brought a fire engine and crew from Station 13 to my home. Three young firemen, led by fireman Mike McGee, not only quickly located and removed the cause of alarm, but did so with remarkable efficiency, while at the same time calming me with their reassuring words. Their concern for my welfare and peace of mind was touching and greatly appreciated. Congratulations to our Fire Director Alvin Benson on the hiring and training of such an exemplary crew of city employees. Frances F. Marks [Faculty 1963-1973]
By Jane Roberts Memphis Commercial Appeal October 3, 2010 Steve Bares minces no words when it comes to what it's like to run a charter school under Memphis City Schools. He says MCS officials withhold money, obfuscate on issues and so effectively control who gets approved -- and who doesn't -- that charter operators are effectively silenced. "When charter school principals got together and realized our kids were getting deep-fat-fried funnel cakes and sugar for breakfast," Bares said, "no one said anything. "To be blunt, we are in a very awkward position. If you argue, you get threatened." As chairman of the Tennessee Charter Schools Association, he's pushing for creation of an independent board to oversee the state's charter schools, including how they are approved and funded. Of the 40 states with charter laws, 21 have some kind of statewide authorizing body. In most cases, it is the state board of education. Bares' biggest beef is that MCS does not fairly fund charter schools. The city of Memphis has 22 charter schools, including seven that are new this fall. Together, they educate more than 5,000 children, or about 5 percent of the city schools' student population. The charter schools got none of the $90 million grant awarded to Memphis City Schools last November by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They saw little, if any, of the $57 million -- about $670 per Title I student -- that MCS received in federal Race to the Top dollars this summer. The district has not decided whether it will share the roughly $200 per student it received this fall in a $23 million stimulus project to save teacher jobs. "Here's Congress saying this is additional support for public schools nationwide. But if you are going to a charter school, you don't count," said Matt Throckmorton, executive director of the state charter association. MCS has heard the argument many times. It says it allocates funds and services based on the same formula used for its schools. Tennessee law says local school districts must pass 100 percent of the state and local per-pupil funding on to the charters. The law is murkier on the allocation of federal money. Last year, the district received $10,394 for every child in Memphis City Schools. It passed $7,630, or 73.4 percent, to the charters, excluding money for capital projects, as defined in state code. Metro Nashville Public Schools received $10,495 per student and passed $8,090, or 77 percent, to the charters. The difference fuels the argument that MCS withholds too much money on one hand and charges the charters for services the federal government pays the school district to provide, including lunches, bus transportation and special education services. Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering, the largest charter in Memphis, stopped buying school lunches from MCS this fall, saying it could provide better-quality food on its own and shave $100,000 a year off expenses. Bares, who is chairman of the board of directors at Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering, says MCS pockets the profit and keeps "a separate P & L" (profit and loss statement) charters are not allowed to see. Not every charter operator is as vocal, but when pressed, most say they wish MCS distributed funds, particularly federal dollars, more evenly and that they had a voice in how funding decisions are made. For instance, charter leaders whose schools received computers and professional development training this summer through funding from MCS said they didn't realize it was a trade-off for thousands in stimulus dollars. "We essentially have two professional development programs going on, funded by two different sources," said Tommie Henderson ['91 and Faculty 1998-2003], head of New Consortium of Law and Business charter school. "But we've found ways to make it work," he said, adding that MCS is "transparent and open" about funding. "It definitely means we understand why they are spending the way they are, but does it mean we are always happy? No." Rev. Anthony Anderson, who runs Memphis Business Academy in a converted Kmart in Frayser, says funding is a loaded issue. "I was disappointed that there weren't as much stimulus funds passed down for facilities, especially," he said. Memphis Business Academy, with one of the lowest per-pupil costs in the city, bought the vacant store in foreclosure for $986,000 last year. It borrowed $1.9 million and invested $400,000 of its own money to cover renovations. If it were a traditional MCS school with 250 students, it would receive roughly $691,000 a year for capital expenses. Instead, charter schools get $600,000 in start-up funds over the first three years to cover facility costs. "Most will go to curriculum, textbooks and desks," said Throckmorton. "Some of that money -- $20,000 to $30,000 -- may be used to cover remodeling. There are so many other expenses in opening up a school." Anderson says it's not enough to cover school buses, lunches and capital costs, "but it's legal. It's a state and legislative issue." Bares says the community, and specifically Supt. Kriner Cash, should do more than cling to the law when the issue is a matter of integrity. "These are all public school kids. Where is the leadership? This is an opportunity to say are we going to be an organization that is in for reform or not? Are we leading by integrity or not?" State Rep. Harry Brooks, R-Knoxville, chairman of the House Education Committee, says the funding argument comes up "in spurts" when charters are struggling with cash-flow problems. "I think there is need for clarification on the funding language," he said, adding that even legislators tend to see charters as separate from public schools. "What has to come across is these are not private institutions." Greg Richmond, chief executive of the National Alliance of Charter School Authorizers, says it's easy for charters and school districts to come to blows when they compete for the same students and dollars. When the school districts are also in charge of overseeing the charters they approve, the water can get even bloodier. "School districts exist to directly run schools; most are not structured to oversee autonomous schools they don't run," Richmond said. "Many superintendents would rather focus on running their own schools; that's why statewide authorities can make some sense." The issue cooled this summer when charter operators say Cash struck a conciliatory tone by delaying a plan to withhold 3 percent of the charters' funding as an administrative fee, saying he wanted to hear from them first and was open to compromise. "I want to forge a different conversation here in Memphis with the charters," Cash said last week. "I want us to be more we, not us versus they .... and I am going to take leadership in that regard. We will continue to find good common ground so that all children in Memphis can have good schools." The goodwill evaporated when the district told Throckmorton that unless the service fee is agreed on, MCS could no longer afford to pay charters in 10 equal installments, and instead would pass the money on as it is received. The district says it has discussed the possibility with the charters since the City Council withheld funding from MCS in 2008. "The reason for the conversations was due to cash-flow implications to the district," said Pam Anstey, MCS chief financial officer. "MCS could be forced to have these conversations again." If the change happened now, charter schools say they would receive less than half of what they are expecting between now and late winter. "It would bleed our charter schools dry," Throckmorton said. He's wants an independent board for other reasons, including that it would make charters possible in cities where they are now politically unpalatable, including Knoxville. "Three out of four charter applications are rejected in Tennessee now. And in some places, it's four out of four," he said. A statewide authorizer gives the power to start charters to a group beyond the local school board. "We think school districts should have the power to authorize, but then there should be another authorizer in the state," said Richmond, so charter operators have another option if their application is rejected by the school board. Over six years, a handful of states have created statewide independent authorizers, including Colorado, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Idaho. "It's definitely a discussion that is happening in more state legislatures now," Richmond said. Cary Booker, co-founder of Omni Schools, says he "would be inclined to take a very close look and consider it. "I'd want to lay the plans next to each other and compare them." But Anderson would rather be aligned with MCS, saying he's not sure a new organization would commit to serving the neediest students, as Tennessee law now dictates. He's also not sure another group could pay retirement benefits to teachers and staff and provide the service he gets from MCS. "I'm fortunate that I can get $4 million to run our school, and for the most part, break it down the way I want. That's the most benefit to our kids."
TV Program: Ophra 
September 18, 2010 [The following was republished on September 18, 2010, in the Memphis/Mid-South Memories item in The Commercial Appeal, originally published September, 1951.] 
Yellow fever left mark on Memphis; historians disagree on impact By Michael Lollar Memphis Commercial Appeal Posted September 11, 2010 It began in the filthiest part of the filthiest city in America and turned into a plague of Biblical proportions. "You can't take the kind of hit Memphis took and believe that it didn't matter," says historian Dr. John Harkins, referring to the 1878 yellow fever epidemic. Harkins, who taught at the University of Memphis and Memphis University School, encounters a chorus of dissenting historians when he argues the city might have become "the premier city of the South" if not for the 1878 epidemic. It killed then faded away with the first frost of 1878. People had no idea what caused it, but it took more lives than the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake and the Johnstown flood combined, says author Molly Caldwell Crosby, who wrote "The American Plague" with Memphis as the focus of the country's search for the cause of plagues like those that came to Memphis seven times between 1828 and 1878. It would be 22 years after the 1878 epidemic before the cause was traced to a virus transmitted by mosquitoes. This weekend, dubbed Martyrs Weekend, recognizes victims of that deadliest outbreak in 1878 and the people who came to their aid, often dying in the process. Twelve Catholic nuns, 9 priests, 4 Episcopalian nuns and 10 Protestant ministers died. Survivors had to face the city's bankruptcy, the loss of its charter and an image that Harkins says steered immigrants away from Memphis for years. Many of the immigrants who had helped the city to grow are in what Elmwood Cemetery's assistant director Jody Schmidt calls a "trench grave," holding 1,500 caskets placed side by side and end to end. Another 1,000 marked graves are scattered through the cemetery. They made up less than half the city's victims. The population had been roughly 50,000 before about 30,000 fled at the start of the epidemic on Aug. 5, 1878. Of the 19,000 who stayed in Memphis, 17,000 came down with yellow fever, and 5,150 died. Memphis had been a magnet for German and Irish settlers looking for jobs along the heavily traveled river. "I think there's a chance Memphis might have rivaled Atlanta if it had continued to attract a cosmopolitan mix of people. Memphis became more provincial," says Harkins. What visitors found at the start of 1878 was a city growing in spite of itself. There was no city sewer system. Water was collected in cisterns, and maimed animals were left rotting in Downtown streets made of ill-advised cypress paving blocks that rotted and caved in, creating chasms that broke the legs of horses and mules. It was as if the Medieval Era had been dropped onto the Mississippi River bluffs. People were proud of their sweet-smelling magnolias and roses, but the city was also a pestilence-ridden rathole. It stunk so bad people knew they were nearing the city when they came within five miles of it. "Cologne, that European city of a thousand disgusting smells, backs down before Memphis," wrote a visitor from North Carolina in 1867. Memphis was designated the nation's most unhealthy city with the U.S. surgeon general referring to sanitary conditions here as "shameful and a disgrace." Shelby County historian Ed Williams ['52]agrees with Harkins up to a point about those who fled. "The German element of the population prior to the epidemic was substantial and included a lot of merchants and business people who were middle- and upper-middle-class." Many of them fled to St. Louis and Cincinnati, he says. But Williams also agrees with University of Memphis Bureau of Business and Economic Research director John Gnuschke that the effect of any wholesale migration in 1878 would "largely have dissipated" over a few decades. If the epidemic forever scarred Memphis, Gnuschke says, historians would have to explain why the Chicago fire or the San Francisco earthquake didn't forever hamper the growth of those cities. Memphis began to recover quickly after 1878. Its artesian water supply was discovered and turned into one of the purest water supplies in the nation in the 1880s. Its charter was restored. Its sanitation and sewer systems became models for other cities. Between 1900 and 1950, Memphis almost quadrupled from 102,350 to 396,000 residents. Historian Dr. Robert Sigafoos, retired from the University of Memphis, says many of those who left the city returned soon after 1878. But a major difference in Memphis and other cities in the South, he says, is that "Memphis has always had an underclass of rather sizable proportions." Its burgeoning population in the early 1900s was primarily from surrounding rural areas. Many had been sharecroppers. While Memphis focused on cotton, St. Louis focused on manufacturing and Atlanta got a head start on Memphis as a rail hub. It's largely a speculative issue from a historical standpoint, Harkins agrees. But for those who argue the city's 1878 descent was an aberration and that Memphis returned to an unaltered course, he says, "I tend to disagree."
By James Dowd Memphis Commercial Appeal September 10, 2010  Joking that he was in the presence of "every outlaw in Memphis," Kem Wilson Jr. ['64] on Thursday joined about 150 relatives, friends and business executives to celebrate what he considers the most important thing in the world.
Family. Wilson, executive vice president of Kemmons Wilson Companies, hosted a luncheon at the Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis featuring Louis Upkins Jr., author of "Treat Me Like A Customer: Using Lessons from Work to Succeed in Life. The invitation-only event was designed to inspire area leaders to focus as much attention on their home lives as on their corporate careers, Wilson said. "Everyone at this event knows what it takes to be successful in the business world, but sometimes we need to be reminded to take that acumen and use it to enrich our families," Wilson said. "Family is the most important legacy." Through personal anecdotes and observations, Upkins advised business executives how to use professional expertise to succeed in personal relationships. Of primary importance, he said, is respecting loved ones as much as clients. "All of us understand what it means to value, respect and even lose a customer, whether you're working at Mapco or running the White House," Upkins said. "The tragedy occurs when you spend so much time on your business that your family life fails. You can build a political career, fail and start over, or build a business, fail and start over, but you can't always start over if you fail with your family." Upkins practices what he preaches, devoting most of his time these days to spreading the family-first message. After publishing his book earlier this year, Upkins stepped back from his global branding agency -- which has included such clients as Bono, Whitney Houston and Oprah Winfrey -- to addressing business audiences and faith communities. Among his suggestions for building stronger familial relationships: Turn off mobile devices when spending time with loved ones, take note of what they are saying and respond. In other words, treat family members like A-list clients. "When you're with your family, really be with them. Remember that it's OK to let your phone go to voice mail sometimes," he said. "As a community, the fabric of family is the most important, and to wear it loosely is a dishonor." Duncan Williams, president of local investment banking firm Duncan-Williams, plans to take the advice to heart and hopes others do, too. "I've got three young children and I'm trying to aggressively grow my company, and I appreciate hearing such a successful executive encourage us to make family a priority," Williams said. "It helps us redefine what constitutes success."
By James Dowd Memphis Commercial Appeal August 31, 2010  A half-century ago, Memphian Kemmons Wilson's Holiday Inn enterprise was flourishing with an average of one new property opening every week.
Leveraging the company's national success to benefit his local community, the entrepreneur -- along with his wife, Dorothy, and his mother, Ruby -- created a philanthropic arm of the business solely dedicated to charitable giving. In the decades since, the Kemmons Wilson Family Foundation has awarded about $20 million to more than 450 organizations in the Greater Memphis community. Today, on the foundation's golden anniversary, family members are excited about continuing that tradition for the next 50 years and beyond. "Everything we do continues the legacy of giving established by our parents," said Spence Wilson ['60], president of Kemmons Wilson Companies and a member of the foundation's board of trustees. "That tradition connects us as a family and in broader sense it connects us to this community that we all love." The foundation awards grants to a variety of institutions, said Lauren Young, the organizations's executive director. The five grant categories are: Advancement of Education; Community Outreach; Enrichment of Youth; Faith-Based Ministries; and Health and Research. Recipients have included the Memphis Pink Palace Museum, the Memphis Zoo, the Salvation Army, Streets Ministries and Youth Villages. "Kemmons and Dorothy were active and faithful members of this congregation and the family has been extravagantly generous to worthy causes in Memphis," said Dr. Maxie Dunnam, interim senior pastor at Christ United Methodist Church. "They're involved in so many areas." In addition to its financial contributions, the family-run foundation sponsors regular meetings for staffers to assess pressing needs of the community and offers employees paid time off to volunteer at nonprofit organizations. Jim Boyd, president of Bridges, praised the foundation's focus. "They're constantly looking for ways to build up this community and they've been generous supporters of Bridges," Boyd said. "The family's heart is evident throughout the foundation, not just in their financial contributions, but also in their commitment to creating a better environment for all Memphians." And that's an integral part of the foundation's mission, said Bob Wilson ['62], executive vice president Kemmons Wilson Companies and a member of the board of trustees. "Dollars are important, but money isn't everything. We also strive to be actively engaged in and positively affect our community," he said. "Our parents encouraged us to give of ourselves and we continue that tradition today." Kem Wilson Jr. ['64], executive vice president of Kemmons Wilson Companies and a member of the board of trustees, agreed. "I learned a long time ago that you can't just write a check and expect things to improve. It works better if you get involved and work for positive change," he said. "Because of our parents we've been very fortunate and our family is committed to helping others succeed, too." Kemmons Wilson Family Foundation Established: Aug. 31, 1960, as the Kemmons, Ruby and Dorothy Wilson Foundation; renamed the Kemmons Wilson Family Foundation in 2003 Board of trustees: Betty [Wilson '66] Moore, Carole [Wilson '67] West, Bob Wilson ['62], Kem Wilson Jr.['64], Spence Wilson ['60] Impact: Donations and grants of about $20 million to more than 450 organizations Online: kwilson.com/wilsonfoundation.php
By Marlon W. Morgan Memphis Commercial Appeal August 31, 2010 Spence Wilson Sr. ['60], president of Memphis-based Kemmons Wilson Inc., said he would ideally love to see the Memphis Redbirds sold to a group of local investors. That's why about 10 local businessmen, including Wilson, have been gathering facts about what it might take to purchase the team from the Memphis Redbirds Foundation, which owns the Redbirds and AutoZone Park. But Wilson is quick to point out that Kemmons Wilson Inc. is not leading any such pursuit of the team. "We happened to have a meeting in our office and we're just kind of learning and trying to figure out what's really taking place and what the opportunities might be," Wilson said. "Obviously, we, like all Memphians, would love to see some stability take place with the team and the stadium. If there's something we can do to help in that regard that makes sense, we'll probably hold our hand up and be willing to participate. We're not going to lead any effort. We'll be a small player." Wilson said there is also an outside party that has talked with the group of Memphians, whom he declined to identify. They are currently in a fact-finding mode. John Pontius, treasurer of the Redbirds Foundation, said he was aware of such talks, but confirmed that the foundation has not been approached with any bids. "I had a conversation with Spence about (the meeting)," Pontius said. "I asked him if I could answer any questions for him and he didn't (respond). That's really all I know. To my knowledge, none of the groups are advanced enough to make a bid." The Redbirds have had about a half-dozen groups express interest in buying the team over the last two years, Pontius said, including the St. Louis Cardinals, who began talks in 2008 but withdrew when the economy entered a recession. No one has come close to making a bid on the team. But when that time comes, Pontius believes one or more local groups will likely be part of the deal. "I would think most anybody who would buy a minor league baseball team would want some local representation," Pontius said. "Minor league baseball is a very local activity. It's very much part of the local fabric. Most everybody wants somebody that lives here as part of their group. "There's no question I'd love to have local ownership. The Redbirds have approached professional sports unlike any other. It's very much a civic endeavor. Having a local partner who understands the value of that is very important." Since defaulting on a $1.625 million bond payment in March 2009, the foundation has entered into an agreement with its bondholders this year that will allow it to make bond payments of just over $1million this year. That has allowed the club to not only remain current with this year's bills but also to pay off some of its previous debt in hopes of making the club more attractive to suitors. Earlier this summer, Pontius predicted the club will owe about $2 million, mostly to its top 10 vendors, down from $2.5 million a year ago.
By Jane Roberts Memphis Commercial Appeal Posted August 20, 2010  The East High principal who was suspended with pay last spring after nearly 600 laptops went missing is now assistant principal at Cypress Middle School.
Fred Curry [Faculty 2005-2010] was suspended after an internal audit showed the laptops were missing, hundreds of dollars could not be accounted for in a school candy sale and a teacher expense account was overdrawn by $1,225. District spokeswoman Staci Franklin said she could not comment on personnel issues. In an e-mail about the missing money, she said, "I'm familiar with the computer situation but not any missing money." The audit was released to the public June 22 through Franklin's office. In Curry's comments in the audit, he said one student was charged for stealing 200 computers April 22. Franklin did not know if any additional students had been charged. She said it was her understanding "that those students who were responsible are going through their due process in the legal system." She referred to the statement Supt. Kriner Cash made when the audit was released. Cash listed a series of changes he was making at East, including removing Curry and making security and safety assessments. "It is important that parents and community members know that the well-being, academic achievement and safety of our students are always priority one, and I will continue to hold all staff to the highest standard in educating our students." When he announced new principals in June, Cash said Curry "was not on my radar. I don't know where he is; he's not on my screen." Curry had been principal at East since 2005, the school's fourth principal in five years. Tuesday, several parents and school volunteers supported his work. "A huge ovation at graduation occurred when one of the students quoted Mr. Curry's motto, 'Failure is not an option,' " parent Jill Piper wrote in an e-mail. "Because our son had such a positive experience at East High, we were distressed that MCS chose to put (Curry) on administrative leave," she said. "If a bunch of knuckleheads decide to ditch out one of East High's 28 doors with a cartload of laptops, that is not Fred Curry's fault." Eric Harris, former assistant principal at White Station High, was moved to the East High principal's job. On Friday, Harris was indicted by a Shelby County grand jury for failing to report a student assault last fall at White Station. "Mr. Harris is an alumni of East and he certainly has shown that he was the right selection," said Bill Sehnert, director of Peer Power, the tutoring program businessman Charles McVean started six years ago at East. "Being a principal is like being a pitcher. I may strike out the first batter, but I need to get 26 more outs. And I need my team to support me with some hits and runs," Sehnert said.
By Jane Roberts Memphis Commercial Appeal Posted August 20, 2010 Two city schools principals were indicted Friday by a Shelby County grand jury for failing to report a student assault last fall at White Station High School. David Mansfield, White Station principal, and Eric Harris [Faculty], now principal at East High, failed to report an incident that allegedly left a 17-year-old student bleeding on the floor after being beaten by several students, according to an affidavit. Harris was an assistant principal at White Station when the incident occurred last September. "I would like to make it clear that both principals have my full support, and they will remain in their respective positions as they go through their due process," Memphis City Schools Supt. Kriner Cash said in a statement. "These administrators deserve the opportunity to have this matter heard in court, and I ask that the community reserve judgment until that process has been completed." The mood at White Station Friday was somber as word traveled among pockets of angry students and parents who believe the two are being made an example due to White Station's high visibility. "Mr. Mansfield and Mr. Harris are men of extraordinary character and deeply committed to the education of their students," said parent Susan Edleman. The crime is a Class A misdemeanor. If convicted, Mansfield and Harris face a maximum fine of $2,500. Last fall, the girl's mother told police her daughter had been beaten and kicked by a male and four female students inside the school shortly after the day was over. The mother said the girl's knees were scraped and bruised from being dragged and that she had contusions on her chest and back from being kicked. One of the students was charged and found not guilty in Juvenile Court. "There are two reasons for this," said Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons. "There was contradictory testimony as to who was the primary aggressor in the fight." Some evidence suggested the victim was the aggressor, he said. "Two, because of the failure to report, there was no crime scene evidence. This incident occurred on a Friday. The Police Department was not able to conduct their investigation until the next Monday. By that time any blood or other evidence had been cleaned up." Gibbons said the not-guilty verdict in Juvenile Court had no bearing on the case involving the principals. "Which of the students was primarily responsible for the altercation and whether or not they should have been charged has absolutely nothing to do with the responsibility for the school officials for properly reporting this." The girl's parents reported the incident to police Friday night. School footage of White Station's homecoming game that night shows her in uniform, performing with the band's flag carriers during halftime. In the spring of 2009 -- after a school administrator had been charged with erasing sexual content from a student's cell phone and several alleged school-related rapes were not reported -- Gibbons said he would not tolerate school officials investigating incidents on their own and/or destroying evidence. At Cash's request, a letter Gibbons wrote on April 23, 2009, was sent to faculty and staff to clarify the law on reporting issues. The principals waived their Juvenile Court hearing, pleaded not guilty and asked to have their cases transferred to Criminal Court. With no prior criminal record, both are eligible for diversion, a special form of probation in which their records would be cleared, likely in a year, if they meet certain conditions, Gibbons said.
Parent says procedure was improperly done By Ron Maxey Memphis Commercial Appeal August 21, 2010 North Panola School District officials are investigating a search of students at North Panola High School to ensure proper procedure was followed. Oscar Love [Faculty, 2001-2002], conservator for the district, said there's no question some students at the school were searched on Wednesday. "The question is how it was conducted," said Love, who is overseeing the district while it is under state control because of low test scores. Love is a former principal at Raleigh Egypt High School, East High School and Trezevant Vocational Technical Center in the Memphis school system. A parent of one of the students involved said her son, a junior, and other students -- she wasn't sure how many -- were searched after a police K-9 unit dog picked up a scent on a backpack as part of a routine search. "The boys were taken into the boys' restroom and the girls were taken into the girls' restroom, and the principal had them take their shoes off and put their hands on their heads," said Linda Hall of Sardis. "Then they were told to drop their pants and they were patted down." Love would not characterize the search as a strip search or comment on whether proper district policies were followed until the district completes an investigation into exactly how the search was conducted. He also would not comment on whether a particular incident prompted the search or what agencies were involved. "We want to make sure it's a safe environment for learning, so yes, there was a search," Love said. "We won't know more until an investigation determines details of what happened." Hall said she filed a report with the Sardis Police Department. Chief Marcel Jojola confirmed that his department took a statement from Hall, but said that because Sardis police do not provide security at the school, which is in Sardis, he did not know any more about the situation than what Hall said in her statement. "She was agitated and upset," Jojola said of Hall. "Due to the fact that we have received information, we took a report and an investigator will check to see if anything is wrong." A spokesman for the Panola County Sheriff's Department said the department's in-house attorney is conducting an investigation and had no further comment. Hall said she has four children in the school and will keep them at home until the situation involving her 17-year-old son is resolved to her satisfaction. "It was the first time something like this has occurred," she said. "I think it was handled wrong all the way around."
By Michael Sheffield, Memphis Business Journal August 22, 2010  More Teach for America Inc. teachers will be working in Memphis City Schools this fall than have ever worked in the city, progress that has a special meaning for Barbara Hyde, president of the Hyde Family Foundations. Hyde played an integral role in bringing the organization to Memphis in 2006.
Teach for America, which recruits top college graduates for two-year commitments to teach in inner city schools, has placed slightly more than 300 teachers in Memphis with a retention rate of more than 40 percent since it added the city to its ranks in 2006. This fall, the organization will bring 100 teachers to MCS, with plans to triple its total number of teachers by 2013, according to Irving Hamer, MCS deputy superintendent. Hamer says MCS wants to tap into the "terrific and robust network" Teach for America provides, especially in the areas of math, science and second languages. Plus, he says the teachers tend to be placed in high schools, which are more difficult hires. "They have math teachers that would have a higher degree of math knowledge because they’ve majored in math in college," Hamer says. "That’s particularly useful in high school where they have to focus on that." Public education has long been an albatross for economic development officials trying to sell companies on moving to Memphis. Teach for America and other new initiatives, including large grants that have been awarded in recent months, have many Memphians optimistic that MCS could turn the corner in becoming a better educational system. Athena Turner, Teach for America’s executive director in Memphis, says the organization brought in 49 new teachers in 2009 and the increase in numbers for 2010 puts Memphis in the middle of Teach for America cities in terms of size. Larger areas like Dallas began with 100 teachers, while Nashville started with 60 teachers. "What the district realized was it would take an effort from everyone to really effect change in the district and they could maximize us in their work to achieve that goal, if they really wanted to," Turner says. Hyde says when the foundation first approached Teach for America about coming to Memphis, it had to sell MCS as a viable option. Since MCS has received $90 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that will be used to study teacher retention and effectiveness and $70 million from the federal Race to the Top program in the last year, perception has changed dramatically. "When we first spoke to (Teach for America founder) Wendy Kopp, she said they only came to cities where they felt the conditions for success existed and at the time they weren’t convinced those conditions existed in Memphis," Hyde says. "Since then, Tennessee has emerged as a state on the forefront of education reform. Having them come to Memphis was a sign we were ready to move in a more progressive direction." For Ashley Foxx, a Memphis native and Teach for America corps member who will teach at Memphis College Prep, teaching in Memphis would be the beginning of a career she hopes extends either into starting a local charter school or working in educational policy. She heard about and became interested in Teach for America while in graduate school at Columbia University. Two of her classmates started schools in Connecticut and New York. She decided doing the same in her hometown would be the best move. "I wanted to come back to make the city better," Foxx says. "The best way to do that is to invest in the children who are here and will be the next leaders." Hyde says the transition of Teach for America teachers from the classroom to administrative positions helps spread a wealth of skills at a variety of different levels instead of taking resources from one place to another. As more teachers come into the fold, there’s no reason why they can’t do both. However, the organization isn’t the only source of effective teachers. MCS, she says, does a good job of hiring teachers through traditional means, but organizations like Teach for America and New Leaders for New Schools or The New Teacher Project should be seen as ways to reinforce what the district is doing. "It’s all about supporting the best, most talented people that are already teaching and bringing more talent into the district at every level," she says. Having taught in Kenya for a year after she graduated from college, Hyde has used that experience as a starting point for her advocacy of public school education, but says all Memphians have a "moral obligation" to find ways to provide opportunities for young people in the city. She cites several different ways of involvement, from mentoring or tutoring students or sponsoring a Teach for America teacher to simply getting involved and being informed on school board races. "Memphis is at a watershed moment that it has never had to create fundamental, transformational change," she says. "We have a chance to not just play around the edges, but to change education for generations. Every one of us needs to find a way to help make it happen."
Memphis Commercial Appeal August 4, 2010  FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- Dan Williams ['05] passed the conditioning test, gasping his way through the drills at the 7,000-foot elevation of the Arizona Cardinals' training camp on Tuesday.
Now, the first-round draft pick will try to beat out 36-year-old Bryan Robinson for the nose tackle position. Robinson, Arizona's starter for the past two seasons, has vowed to help the youngster all he can. No one helped him when he broke in, Robinson said, and he promised that would not be the case if the roles were reversed. "I just remembered that if I ever got in that position, I would never not try to help a rookie succeed," Robinson said. "In the case of Dan, he's going to be here regardless of whether I help him or not. ... The more he knows, if he knows what I know, it gives us a better chance to win. I'm a team player." Williams, the 26th draft pick overall out of Tennessee and a former star at East High, said Robinson's help since minicamp "is a huge advantage for myself." "The guy has been in uniform for a long time and has done his job well for a long time," Williams said at a news conference. "I really think it's big toward my development. He's been very willing, showing me the playbook, showing me different techniques. For everything he's been showing me, I've been very thankful. But he also tells me 'I'm not giving you nothing.'" Williams said he stayed in shape by working out at local fitness club, doing the workouts that Arizona strength and conditioning coach John Lott had provided. "I was just waiting for that call telling me to come back out here to Arizona," he said. "I just watched what I ate and didn't eat anything after 6 o'clock. My biggest thing was eating late at night. So I just stayed away from the table. If I felt hungry, I just went to sleep." Coach Ken Whisenhunt said the stocky Williams weighed in at 325 pounds, a few pounds under what he had been in the summer workouts. Williams played in a 4-3 defensive system in college. He will be between Darnell Dockett and Calais Campbell in a 3-4 set with the Cardinals. The nose tackle gets little glory but fills a significant role in freeing linebackers to make the big plays. "I know this," Whisenhunt said. "Those linebackers love it when they have a big nose tackle in front of them because it makes their job easier to not only see the play but it usually causes the offense to use up two blockers, which allows them more freedom to make plays." Players to fill that role are "few and far between," Whisenhunt said.
By Michael Lollar, Memphis Commercial Appeal July 30, 2010  His mentor is technically a "Big Brother," but William Terrell once invited him to his elementary school Father's Day program.
It was one of the "proudest moments" of attorney Richard Glassman's ['64] life. Fourteen years since they met through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Memphis, Terrell, 23, and Glassman, 63, have become the longest-lasting match in a program that has taken them through two graduations -- with one more to go. Glassman once had to fire Terrell as a runner at his law firm. The attorney calls that moment one of the few "bumps and hard spots" of watching a little brother grow from a 10-year-old boy to a 23-year-old law student. William, who shortened his name to "Will" while an undergraduate at the University of Memphis, is set to enter law school Aug. 15. The U of M has been part of the pair's bond from the beginning. Both are diehard fans of Tigers basketball. On Saturday, they'll serve as co-hosts of SportsBall 2010, the biggest annual fundraiser for the organization that brought them together. "This is the first time a 'big' and a 'little' have served as co-chairmen of the SportsBall," said Adrienne Bailey, president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Memphis. Matches between bigs and littles "age out" when the little reaches 17. On average, a match lasts two years. For Glassman and Terrell, it didn't end.  "I've never considered it a father-son relationship. Will and I are friends. We go to a lot of ballgames together, eat a lot of popcorn," said Glassman.
He doesn't have to go far to watch his "little" grow up. Will moved into the Glassman family's Germantown home a little more than a year ago, after the youngest of the Glassman's four daughters left for college. Inevitably, the family is asked about parallels to the Hollywood story of Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, Memphians who invited hard-luck student Michael Oher into their home and eventually adopted the NFL-bound football star. Terrell was not an athlete, nor was he a hard-luck case. He was an honor student at White Station High School, earning a full scholarship to U of M. "I've always been in Will's life. He's always had a solid home," said Will's mother, Vera Terrell, a journalism graduate who worked as a communications manager for the FBI, then for FedEx. She now is working on an MBA degree online. After a divorce, she signed Will up for Big Brothers Big Sisters when he was 10 because he was growing up in a family with a sister, two step-sisters, a grandmother and two aunts. "He was around women all the time," she said. At about the same time, Glassman complained one night about "crime and youth. My wife said, 'Why don't you do something instead of complaining?'" Will remained with his own family, only moving in with the Glassman family about a year ago after his roommate got married. For the Glassmans, it was great timing. "My wife, who had done almost a full-time job raising our girls was suddenly relieved of her position. She needed somebody to mother," says Glassman. Susan Lawless-Glassman, had grown up in a family of eight children and welcomed the prospect of another young person in the house. "Having kids around is great," she said, especially one who "loves to eat anything." Glassman and Terrell are among about 65 percent of Big Brothers Big Sisters who are racial cross-matches. There are 127 black males on the waiting list now, along with 37 black females, an Asian male and two multiracial males. The cross-racial match was never a problem, says Will, who became especially close to the Glassman's youngest daughter, Zoe, three years younger than Will. "I always introduced him as my big brother," says Zoe. "People just looked a little bit confused," she says. Will invited friends to the Glassman home to play video games, watch TV and hang out. "It was a little weird at first. Friends would say, 'How did you know this guy?' But they never felt uncomfortable here," he says. "I think the most looks we got was the day I took him to get a haircut off of Vollintine," says Glassman. "I don't think they had seen a white person in there for a long time." Will was fired by Glassman for jeopardizing a legal case by failing to deliver time-sensitive documents on time. It was a lasting lesson in responsibility, they say. In a speech prepared for the SportsBall, Will tries to sum up his experience: "Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Memphis Inc. is grounded in the willingness of families and volunteers ... to travel outside of the traditional family structures to try and give children the best possible opportunities to succeed in life. The Big and Little have to be willing to be open-minded and perhaps travel outside of their comfort zone in order to make the relationship successful." 
By Wayne Risher, Memphis Commercial Appeal July 20, 2010  Charter school founder Tommie Henderson ['91 and Faculty 1998-2003] and developers of Court Square Center met over lunch last summer at a Downtown awards program that honored them as visionaries.
Henderson started the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering, a highly successful charter school where test scores and graduation skyrocketed. The developers saved a chunk of Downtown skyline by renovating Lincoln-American Tower and the Lowenstein Building and raising the new CA2 building from the ashes of a devastating fire. A year after their meeting at a Center City Commission luncheon, Henderson and the developers have a new vision. It's a potentially innovative charter school led by Henderson, the New Consortium of Law and Business, in commercial space developed by partners Yorke Lawson, John Basek and Willie Chandler. The school is on track to open Aug. 7 on the ground floor of the CA2 building, 110 N. Court, with 30-35 seventh-grade students. As it grows by one grade per year, it will occupy Lincoln-American Tower's third floor as well. The school will immerse students in legal and business communities. "I immediately knew Downtown was the place to do it," Henderson said. Lawson called the school a "perfect dovetail" with federal tax credits that helped finance Court Square Center. It represents "what the mission of the New Market Tax Credit program is all about, which is community development," he said. The credits are aimed at stimulating economic development in depressed census tracts. Henderson said all of the students registered qualify for free and reduced-price school lunches. "It's a great example of a good project," said city director of Housing and Community Development Robert Lipscomb, who kept the redevelopment on track at City Hall. "Tommie Henderson has a track record, and at that location, it's going to be a perfect fit and an opportunity for the students to be right where the action happens," said Center City Commission president and CEO Paul Morris. The school is seeking a $5,000 office incentive grant from the Center City Development Corp. on Wednesday. Henderson nurtured MASE from a startup in 2003 to an 89-senior class with a 100 percent graduation rate in 2009. He left to pursue an MBA from the University of Memphis and, starting this fall, a doctorate in educational leadership from Harvard. Henderson's nonprofit Smart Schools Inc. and Court Square Partners LLC are finalizing a lease of 4,700 feet on CA2's ground floor. It will have an amphitheater-style courtroom for mock trials and discussions, a cafe and lounge where students can mix and mingle and a board room where students will run businesses. Students will get laptops with wireless Internet access for classroom and home use. Curriculum and textbooks will be online. Henderson envisions the school growing to about 200 students. The high school experience will include internships, shadowing of professionals in business and legal communities and real student-run businesses. For starters, seventh-graders will run mock restaurants online, read novels and enact courtroom scenes and hear from a procession of speakers: breakfasts with business executives and lunches with lawyers. "Unlike a lot of models, where you call yourself something but you never actually do that thing, we're going to be doing it from Day One," Henderson said.
Students inspired by teacher at East High By Emily Greenberg, Memphis Commercial Appeal July 15, 2010  For Mark Scott [Faculty], history is not about decades or centuries.
"For me, it's not a time period. It's a place," said Scott, a history teacher at East High School. Recently, Scott was named Tennessee's 2010 Preserve America History Teacher of the Year for helping his students preserve one such "place": a one-room segregated schoolhouse which stood until the 1960s on Presidents Island. The schoolhouse, which was primarily used to educate the children of sharecroppers, was built in 1921 and relocated to Presidents Island from its original location. More recently, the schoolhouse was displayed at the Mid-South Fairgrounds, where it faced possible demolition. As part of the preservation project, students wrote letters to community leaders, conducted research at the Memphis library and compiled oral histories. They held meetings with public and private organizations. Some students built a scale model of the schoolhouse. Others started a blog and wrote a skit. Eventually, the students hope to relocate the schoolhouse to East High School and turn it into a museum. With help from East High School alumni, they also hope to build an amphitheater for lectures. Together, the museum and amphitheater will educate the community about the evolution of equality in education, said Scott, who hopes the schoolhouse will serve as a "point of reference" for the city's progress. "I think our community would be well-served (seeing) the juxtaposition of the one-room schoolhouse in front of East High School," said Scott. As for his students, he hopes they will make connections between history and their own personal identities -- as he did when he first began his history studies. Originally, Scott became interested in history while researching his family tree. He says teaching was a natural fit and he began his career in 1987. Scott has taught at Memphis City Schools since 1990 and at East High School for the past 13 years. Currently, he is the chairman of East High School's social studies department and teaches honors and Advanced Placement U.S. History. In addition to American history, Scott also teaches Facing History and Ourselves classes and was honored with Facing History's 2010 Margot Stern Strom Teaching Award. As the state Preserve America History Teacher, Scott will receive a certificate of recognition and a $1,000 award. The East High School library will also receive an archive of classroom resources presented in Scott's name. This fall, Scott will represent Tennessee in the National History Teacher of the Year competition. Although the competition offers a $10,000 prize, Scott won't have much time to think about it. In August, he and his students will resume work on the preservation project.
By Wayne Risher, Memphis Commercial Appeal July 13, 2010 Sixty students from five inner-city schools are the newest foot soldiers in businessman Charles McVean's ['61] fight against school failure. They've enlisted with the Peer Power Foundation, which trains and pays high-achieving students to serve as tutors for their classmates. After intensive academic and leadership training, which began Monday at the University of Memphis, they'll join 100 other high school and college students earning $10 to $12 an hour as tutors in the Peer Power program. McVean, an East High graduate who made a fortune trading commodities and futures, started the program at his alma mater six years ago. He was not on hand for an opening session at the Holiday Inn University of Memphis, but program veterans quoted McVean liberally. "The world is competitive," said Cortney Richardson ['07], 20, a U of M senior majoring in organizational leadership, who started tutoring as a sophomore at East. "Mr. McVean wanted to bring that competition into academics. "We knew our school needed help. We asked what we could do. They made it clear how much power the upper end of the inner-city youth had to help the others. That upper end has made a change not only at East High but at other schools in the city." Peer Power Foundation director Bill Sehnert said the program gives incentive for bright students to achieve mastery of subject areas and share it with others. "It makes more sense for them to work as tutors than to go to work at a burger place," Sehnert said. A fringe benefit is typically higher scores on college entrance tests, which translates into larger scholarship awards. Tutors have increased ACT scores 15-20 percent, Sehnert said. After beginning at East, it has spread to Whitehaven, Northside, Westwood and, new for the 2010-11 school year, Manassas High. It has been picked up in the Mississippi communities of Shelby and Como. Officials from Pontotoc-based Three Rivers Planning and Development District attended Monday's event to evaluate Peer Power's applicability to grooming a skilled work force. "The idea of using your peers to help tutor our students and to pay the tutors for that service is just a very exciting concept to me and one that I believe will bring additional success to our students in North Mississippi," said Three Rivers official Bill Renick. Sehnert said the program reaches about a dozen schools including middle schools, and has another half-dozen waiting for expansion, when funds can be found. Manassas junior Will Redmond, 16, is glad a teacher recommended him for Peer Power. "It's a good way for me to help others and get better as a student myself," he said. "We need more tutors at Manassas." Whitehaven High principal Vincent Hunter said Peer Power has clearly made a difference. Scores on standardized math and writing tests have increased significantly. "The data speaks for itself," said Hunter. "It was utilizing the resources we had in our building: the children who were already excelling."
By Peggy Burch on July 9, 2010, "The Shelf Life" blog, Memphis Commercial Appeal July 9, 2010  Critics have lavished exuberant praise on the work of Memphis-reared fiction writer Steve Stern ['65]. Still, his book sales have always been modest.
An editor at The New York Times described the Stern phenomenon in 2005, under the headline "He's a Literary Darling Looking for Dear Readers." Stern's spectacular novel "The Angel of Forgetfulness" had just been released when Peter Edidin wrote: "He has received critical praise in the places that matter, won his share of prizes and is devoted to his work. ... But he remains largely unknown to readers at a time when even the most gifted writer, if he does not sell well, may have difficulty finding a publisher for his next book." The highly regarded but under- appreciated literary hero returns to his hometown this week for an appearance at Burke's Book Store from 5:30 to 7 p.m. July 13. He'll read from and sign his latest book, "The Frozen Rabbi" (Algonquin, $24.95). The San Francisco Chronicle began its review of "Frozen Rabbi" this way: "It has become something of a literary tradition, when reviewing a new book by Steve Stern, to mention that he is not as popular as he ought to be. Back in 1987 Gordon Lish, the renowned editor and literary kingmaker, was already calling Stern 'far and away the greatest of our unrecognized writers.' " Unfortunately, Stern said by phone from his home in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where he teaches creative writing at Skidmore College, "unrecognized writer" still sort of describes his situation, though he has received O. Henry Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Jewish Book Award along the way. He compares himself to the Kevin Costner character in the movie "Bull Durham," a great player pitcher unaccountably stuck for eternity in the minor leagues. "I get really, really tired of the reviews that start 'much neglected, possibly this book will bring him the attention...' "It's never gonna happen. My expectations have always been very minimal; I'm just pleased to be acknowledged." His cheerful pessimism bleeds into all areas of his life. He recently had a hip replacement, about which he said: "I've gone from a walker to crutches to a cane to Walter Brennan in three weeks." He shares homes in upstate New York and Brooklyn with his "spousal equivalent," the comic artist Sabrina Jones. The relationship has what he calls "a hitch," one that some might consider a blessing. Jones's family is French, and she inherited a house in the countryside there. "I have such a low beauty threshold," Stern says of his trouble adapting to visiting France. Though he moved to Saratoga Springs in 1987, his stories still have Memphis settings. Stern himself grew up near East High, but he found his writerly bearings in The Pinch -- the neighborhood on North Main Street that formed an East European Jewish ghetto in the late 19th century -- which he discovered while he was working at the Center for Southern Folklore in the early 1980s. "I did an endless series of interviews with old survivors of the North Main Street neighborhoods, and it began to reassemble itself in my mind." He agonized in advance about his homecoming this week: "I don't handle these things well. I see people I haven't seen in years. It's overwhelming. I like to think most of them have forgotten me."
By Jonathan Devin, Memphis Commercial Appeal July 9, 2010  The name of Elizabeth Anne Brown's [class association undetermined] Performing Arts of Germantown is readily recognized by a half-century's worth of young dancers and vocalists, even if it confuses delivery drivers.
For one, the programs for Brown's 50th anniversary celebration show in June were sent four blocks down Exeter Road to the similarly named Germantown Performing Arts Centre (GPAC). "We get along great (with GPAC), but some of my parents have mailed their tuition checks to them and then GPAC will call and say 'we've got a check for you,'" said Brown, who is sole owner of the studio. Another time, Brown arrived to find that a plumber, whom she hadn't called, had just repaired a toilet that wasn't broken. "Then one day I came to work and there were 50 eight-foot tall ficus trees everywhere," Brown said. "My doors were open, and men were bringing them in. They said, 'We're delivering the trees you ordered.'" Brown hated to tell them that they would have to load all the trees back in their truck. Despite the confusion with GPAC, Brown's name comes with a long legacy of keeping things in step. Brown started teaching dance, mostly tap and jazz, 50 years ago at the age of 18, when she was a senior at East High School. "Back then you went to a small town to open your dance studio before you moved to the big city," Brown said. She and a friend, Karen Dover, who still teaches with her today, drove Brown's 1958 Impala convertible to a rented skating rink in Senatobia every Saturday at 6 a.m. They taught about 30 students from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. before returning to Memphis. A year later, she moved her operation to New Albany, Miss., catching the Greyhound bus from Lamar Avenue for a two-hour ride each way. In 1963, she opened her first Memphis studio in a house in Raleigh in which the one-car garage served as her main ballroom. Now her 2,400 square-foot studio in Germantown has two ballrooms and a voice studio, enough space for about 200 students, mostly between the ages of 3 and 16. She has been there since 1981. Students pay $70 per month for one-hour classes each week, or $65 per private lesson. Extra workshops in acting and other forms of dance, such as hip-hop, are offered on weekends. If it sounds unusual to offer both dance and voice to the same students, Brown said that was a throwback to her dreams of auditioning on Broadway, where performers must be able to sing and dance. Brown went to New York City at age 17 to audition for the Broadway production of "Sweet Charity," but was cut during the ballet portion of the audition. "That got me on the road to realizing how important ballet is," Brown said. "Now at my studio, whether you're doing tap, ballet or jazz, you're wearing a black leotard, pink tights, and hair slicked back in a bun -- and it's been that way since 1960." In 1980, she joined forces with vocal instructor David Francis, after numerous meetings at various local talent competitions. "The winners at the competitions were either David's vocalists or my dancers, so we just got to talking," Brown said. Francis moved to Los Angeles 10 years later, but voice is still taught at Performing Arts, by Cindy Barrett. "The thing that drew me to Elizabeth was her attention to detail and technique and the quality of her performers, year in, year out," said Debbie Branan, a volunteer organizer of the Mid-South Fair's Youth Talent Contest, whose daughter, Whitney, started taking lessons from Brown at age 2. "Her studio seemed to fit the niche for my child." Branan said she too met Brown after several years of watching Brown's students win awards in the Youth Talent Contest. Brown herself took the stage at the June 16 anniversary celebration, performing alongside her daughter, Misty. She has no plans to retire. "What would I do?" said Brown. "Sit at home and plant flowers? Not me."
If anyone can identify the correct East High graduating class with which Ms. Brown was associated and the name by which she was known at East, please send that information to editor@EastHigh.org
By Barbara Bradley, Memphis Commercial Appeal June 29, 2010  Susan Sanford, president and CEO of the Mid-South Food Bank, will retire at the end of this year after almost 20 years at the helm. She will be succeeded by Estella Mayhue-Greer, senior vice president and chief operating officer, who has been with the Food Bank for 14 years.
Susan Sanford will retire at the end of the year after nearly 20 years as leader of the Mid-South Food Bank she has helped expand.
Sanford will serve as a Food Bank consultant for two years after she retires, and then perhaps consult for other nonprofits and businesses and serve on civic committees. "I'm not a good sitter-downer," she said. To many, Sanford, 65, is the Food Bank, said board member Carol Prentiss. Chairman Gwendolyn Tucker called her "a great leader both at the Food Bank and in the community." "When I was first there, it was a folksy catch-as-catch-can organization," said board member Clifford Lynch, president of the logistics consulting firm C.F. Lynch & Associates. "But she has given it professionalism and structure that has really helped us do well. One thing she insisted on was letting the donor base know what's happened to its money." Since Sanford joined the Food Bank in September 1991, it has doubled its food distribution to 10 million pounds. The agency now serves 31 counties in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas and feeds an estimated 186,500 different people annually. Few realize, Sanford said, how strictly the Food Bank monitors use by its partner agencies of scarce resources. Sanford recruited professionals for the staff, and board members who could supply missing expertise, including media executives who did much to raise the agency's profile. She brought in new corporate sponsors and motivated others. Dick Tillman, then-president of Kroger Delta Marketing Area, was accustomed to people asking him for things. Sanford went to him and asked what he expected of her. "Kroger really stepped up in a big way," she said. Programs added during her tenure were Kids Cafe, where boys and girls get hot meals and a nutrition lesson twice a week in a restaurant-like setting, and Food for Kids BackPack Program that sends kids home for the weekend with food they can fix themselves. Last year the Food Bank began picking up perishable foods nearing expiration dates in a refrigerated truck and started the Mobile Pantry that delivers food to rural pantries too small to stock large amounts and distributes it directly to qualified recipients. Sanford is a founding member of the Safety Net Collaborative, a group of eight essential services organizations in Memphis. She is a past president of the Memphis Rotary Club, a former chairwoman of the board of directors of United Way of Greater Memphis, and a recipient of the 2009 Legends Award from the Women's Foundation. She feels confident about the nonprofit's future: "We are finishing a strategic plan that makes me feel so comfortable." About Mayhue-Greer, she said: "I told the board I've mentored this brilliant woman for 15 years, and you can't do better." Looking back over her career, Sanford noted she is often touched by notes people send with their contributions. "I feel the generosity in the Mid-South poignantly, and I feel fortunate."
 [This photograph has been cropped and otherwise adjusted from the originally published photo.]
Memphis Commercial Appeal
By Jane Roberts, Memphis Commercial Appeal April 30, 2010 About 6,500 community volunteers showed up at city schools Thursday, pen in hand, ready to grade student artwork, engineering projects, computer programming and sophisticated themes. East High School seniors Devin Mcbe, 18, (left) and Shakila Boyd, 17, explain the layout for the future site of the restored one-room schoolhouse once at Presidents Island that will be moved to the East High campus. At East High School, they nearly dropped their score pads over work to move and restore the one-room segregated schoolhouse that in 1964 -- a decade after Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education integrated public education -- was still serving African-American students on Presidents Island. "I was so impressed. I was just blown away," said Donna McCraw, juror in the fourth districtwide student exhibit. "I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I don't think the students have the life history to realize what an impact their work is going to have. "Years down the road, they are going to be able to say they did that," she said. The exhibit's image was retooled this spring with the pro bono help of Clear Channel and Red Deluxe, which created the name ThinkShow! and produced and placed billboards to tell the story. District officials say the campaign attracted 500 new judges. "We had a lot more professional people sign up this time. I think Stinson Liles with Red Deluxe has really helped us a lot," said Judy Jackson, director of project-based learning. If plans go well, the city of Memphis this summer will move the one-room schoolhouse to East, and build a foundation under it to shore up the dreams students are sketching out, blogging about and acting out in skits. "We hope to one day have an amphitheater outside the museum for lectures and programs," said Daphanie Johnson, 17. "This project means a lot to me. I'm grateful for what I have. I think a lot of students might look at this and say they don't care because this old building doesn't mean anything to them. "But it helps me see how far we've come." At schools across the city, teachers and jurors said the work was more sophisticated than when the show started in 2008. "In real life, you're not often given a simple task like adding up a column of numbers," said Sam Shaw, principal at Berclair Elementary. "If you're buying a car, you have to consider economics, aesthetics and practicality and make a judgment about style. That is the real world." For East history teacher Mark Scott [Faculty], the school house lodged in his brain back in 2008 when Memphis Heritage used a picture of the school in its calendar. The idea crystalized when Scott found June West, head of Memphis Heritage. "This is a once in history thing as far as I am concerned," she said. The school, long displayed at the Mid-South Fairgrounds, lost its home when the fair moved. "Not only are we looking at preserving one of the only artifacts left, but we're also educating the youth of the city of the importance of historic preservation." The building "is on wheels, ready to move," she said. Most of what the students know about it -- the last one-room schoolhouse in the county -- comes from a 1964 news clipping they found in the Memphis Room at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. "These pictures will help us restore it," said Jaylyn Johnson, 17, tapping the clipping showing African-American children in the school with no electricity or plumbing. "This has helped me realize how bad it was. Even though the government said it was illegal, black people were still left without equal facilities."
 Read a summary of the
student proposal written by the students themselves.
[The following is compilation of news stories regarding the suspension, then removal, of Mr. Fred Curry as principal of East High School. These are in reverse chronological order, most recent first.]
June 23, 2010 - A newspaper article Wednesday, June 23 reports on the audit of former East High Principal Fred Curry's [Editor's note: Monday night Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash told The East High Alumni Page the report was "available," but declined to otherwise comment on it. Tuesday, an e-mail was sent to the e-mail address linked on the City Schools web site as being the director of Communications requesting a copy or access to the report. The link and the listed address were not the same. The City Schools e-mail system reported that the linked e-mail address was not in their system.]
May 15, 2010, The East High Alumni Page - Mr. Harry Durham is serving as interim principal at East during the paid suspension of Mr. Fred Curry while the school system conducts an audit/investigation into issues at East High. Mr. Durham, a city school principal, also served as interim principal at East 2002-2003 after another principal was removed from the position.
April 28, 2010 - Television news report: Audit of principal Fred Curry's administration at East High completed:
WHBQ-TV
April 19, 2010 - Television news report: suspended principal Fred Curry says he's proud of East High: WREG-TV
April 19, 2010 - Television news report: superintendent is reported to be "very worried about the culture and safety" of students at East High: WREG-TV
April 16, 2010 - East
High Principal Fred Curry
was suspended with pay Thursday, April 15, by the Memphis City Schools
superintendent pending an internal investigation by the school system.
East has recently been in the news when about 10 girls got into a fight
in a hallway requiring the use of pepper spray by security personnel to
bring things under control and after a girl and several boys left
campus during the school day, with 3 boys eventually being charged with
rape.
[A Helen Levy, now Helen Tower, is a member of the Class of '62.]
I am very proud of the students and the direction the program is going. However, we need support. After several discussions with the Band Booster Club, we are trying to come up with a plan of action to get a Music Building built on campus--possibly in the space left by the demolished annex building. This building would be built according to MENC Opportunity-to-learn Standards (www.menc.org) It would have sufficient space for a Choir, Band, and Orchestra Rooms as well as sufficient storage area, small ensemble rehearsal space, and offices. Both the choir and "band" rooms are inadequate. The Orchestra rehearses in the choir room. They need their own space. The choir room is band. However, the band room is riddiculous. It is very, very small, the ceiling is too low, there is no adequate storage area, no practice rooms, and no acoustical treatments what-so-ever. With the size of the band growing each year, it will soon (maybe next year) be too small to accommodate the band at all. The low ceilings and lack of acoustical treatments make hearing the music correctly impossible. So much so, we had afterschool rehearsals in the Auditorium so I could hear what is being played. The auditorium isn't readily available. The lack of storage space makes things worse. Furthermore, EVERY high school in MCS has an adequate band room except East. I find this unacceptable. I would appreciate any help or advice to this end. Please call.
Musically Yours,
Ollie Liddell
Three teens charged in rape of 17-year-old East High student
Guns at Memphis city schools ring alarm bells
Television news stories are also available from WMC-TV and WPTY-TV.
[If anyone can adise the subjects Ms. Henry taught, the specific years she was at East Junior High, and her name then, if different, please send that information to editor@EastHigh.org.]
The East High Alumni Page Editor's Commentary: This is more like it: multiple alumni receiving recognition.
There are additional stories about Mr. McVean below.
There are additional stories below about Mr. Henderson, a 1991 East High graduate and a faculty member at East 1998-2002.
Editor's note: Mr. Liddell's profile is scheduled to be posted with the next batch of updates near the end of the month.
Editorial: Support your school! Please consider attending East High functions and don't hesitate to tell administrators & faculty you expect East to be the top school again soon.
Editorial: Support your school! This and similar events, often free and open to the public, are great ways for alumni to show current East students and faculty we care about East High and expect great things from it. Please consider attending East High functions and don't hesitate to tell administrators & faculty you expect East to be the top school again soon.
Memphis Memories
Sounding a musical note at his wedding reception at the University Club on April 12, 1969 is Charles Kemmons Wilson Jr. ['64], who was locked in a chain adorned with bells after the wedding in Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal Church. His bride is the former Norma Caruthers Thompson, daughter of Mrs. Norman Thompson of 4150 Kriter Lane and the late Mr. Thompson. Mr. Wilson is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kemmons Wilson of 3615 South Galloway Drive.
Name: Dawn LaFon
[See the story on Eleanor Gandy immediately below.]
|
or go online at 
<(Faculty 2005-2010) administration. "East High School principal replaced for lack of control; student funds, laptops missing" can be read in 
Emily Tubb [Faculty, listed as Emily Magill on the East High web site], 33, who also is known as Emily Magill, was indicted earlier this month on federal drug charges.
The late lodging industry pioneer Kemmons Wilson would have felt right at home in a hotel room made of plastic key cards.
DeMarious Moore, 18, Brian Bland, 18, and Martavious Humphries, 16, are facing charges of aggravated rape.
Television Reports
As president of Kemmons Wilson Companies -- established by and named after his late father, who also founded Holiday Inns -- Wilson oversees an expansive operation that has included investments in more than 400 different ventures.
from www.nba.com
Most people these days probably think of Cybill Shepherd ['68] as mainly a TV and movie actress. And who can blame them, after some really fine roles in the movie The Last Picture Show and then on television with Moonlighting (with Bruce Willis, back when he had hair) and later, Cybill.
By Jane Roberts, The Commercial Appeal
DALLAS -- Cassius Vaughn ('06) can remember meeting with three friends that day, all Memphis-area products who, like him, were bound for Ole Miss. He convened with Greg Hardy, Cecil Frison and LaDerrick Vaughn at one of Downtown's finer dining establishments -- "Hooters," Cassius Vaughn said -- for a signing day party in February 2006. They signed their letters of intent, and the future was theirs.
Republican Shelby County Commissioner 
WHBQ-TV also did a story on Jim Munn's return to Memphis to thank paramedics. It can be viewed from the 
The Commercial Appeal files, The Commercial Appeal
Army Sgt. Deneva L. [Sledge ('96)] Payne has been named Noncommissioned Officer of the Quarter for the 261st Signal Brigade.
Hundreds of people crowded into the BRIDGES building in Downtown Memphis on Saturday for a congressional town hall meeting that quickly deviated into a raucous shouting free-for-all, requiring extra law enforcement officers to watch over the scene.
He and his four siblings cut the ribbon on Aug. 1, 1952, for their dad's first Holiday Inn on Summer.
As I was born in June, I guess it is only natural that I take exception with the late writer's initial take on summer; it is my favorite time of the year. I love the summer for the obvious reasons: the warm temperatures, the longer days, the leisurely pace, the scant clothing. (And lest anyone accuse me of lechery, let me clarify that a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops are my own standard attire in the summer, though I must admit pretty women in shorts are an added perk.)
Besides, who wants to shush students thrilled beyond reason to be calculating the molecular weight of copper sulfate or defining imagery's place in literature?
Egwuekwe now works as senior software architect for Memphis-based Lokion Interactive. A boutique software agency, Lokion "runs the gamut in terms of what we can do. We create digital experiences that help companies generate brand awareness, customer loyalty, and growth."
maintains even the number of remaining herds is questionable.
More than 30 East High students, along with faculty director Jeffrey Murdock and accompanist Dr. Leo Davis, presented a Spring Choral Concert and Piano Recital Tuesday, May 5, 2009.
East High School held its first annual Silent Auction and Dinner tonight with an estimated 100 attendees enjoying the elegant ambiance of the foyer of the school. Auction items included a wide screen television, art work, sports memorabilia from recent teams, Persian rugs and many other items. Guests were greeted by the student leaders at the door and serenaded by the Chamber Singers during a meet and greet session at which cider and cheese were available. Much of the bidding on the auction items occurred during this time before the dinner. A free dinner was served in the cafeteria, the wait staff were East student leaders. Dinner music was provided by student cellists. After dinner, people lingered and visited as auction winners picked up their prizes.
The old CSX railroad right-of-way, which, in the East High area, runs along and north of Walnut Grove Rd., Waynoka Ave., N. Waynoka Cir., Del Glade Dr., Aurora Cir., Rosedale Dr., Hilldale Ave., and Princeton Ave., will be converted into a paved walking and bicycle trail by the end of the year. It will extend from the Union Avenue viaduct to Shelby Farms park (the former Penal Farm). Shelby County government agreed to purchase the 7.04 mile corridor with $4.775 million given for the purchase by the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy to cover the purchase, design, and bridge improvement. The Conservancy rasied the money through private fundraising activities. An additional $1.5 million for construction of the trail will come from a federal surface transportation grant and local "matching" funds of $375,000.
COVINGTON, TN (WMC-TV) - Turner Dairy's will stop making ice cream at the company's Covington plant, officials said Monday.
The spitting image of Kemmons Wilson's first airplane is dredging up fond memories for the late Memphis business legend's family.
Thompson said the Aeronca C-2 and C-3 are popular display items in vintage aviation museums. "People who know anything about them would love to see them again, and they're just nice to look at."
"My mother said I could stop after one year, but I had to take it," said LaFon, 52, one of two Latin teachers at White Station High School. "And I fussed and fumed. Then I got in there and I really liked it. It's like a big jigsaw puzzle."
On February 18, 2008 The Commercial Appeal Memphis Memories section republished a photo from 1951 that included some East alumni (then students).