Category: Clipsheet

NEWPORT—A drive through the beautiful Cosby area offers a relaxing glimpse of country life, where time slows to a crawl: gorgeous mountain scenery, waterways, old houses on curvy roads that trace a stream. These otherwise picturesque scenes, however, are punctuated by strange warning signs: “We don’t want to be Pigeon Forge,” or, “We don’t want to look like Gatlinburg,” and, “Broadband when?”

The signs mark a shared suspicion of uncontrolled growth, outside acquisitions, and issues residents fear could arise from spurious foreign investment, like heavy traffic. With no rules in place to reassure them, it is not unreasonable to see people using their land to make a statement. Better a sign out front, than gridlock on a country road. Overheard conversations turn tense, or even hostile, when residents hear each other talking about improvements to the county, because there are no rules in place to control growth, however well intended or positive the outcome may be.

On the other hand, there are no rules protecting residents from having rock quarries built next door, or commercial-scale burn operations adjacent to residential houses, both of which are taking place around the county now, which holds the dubious distinction of being one of just two counties in Tennessee with no zoning laws whatsoever, leaving Cocke County open to further exploitation.

Municipalities where natural beauty is paramount walk the line between protecting that beauty while maintaining a healthy and functional economy. Simply having no rules has done well to drive out mature business owners that want to see their investments protected, property attorney Jeff Greene told the General Committee during a July 14 meeting at the Chancery Courtroom in the Annex. If growth is inevitable, he says, that growth can be controlled.

“The only way to make sure that happens is if we have some rules in place before the growth starts,” Greene said. “Without it, I can put a billboard on every parcel running up and down Cosby Highway, I can build a five story hotel, I can build a junkyard beside it.”

Commissioner Gayla Blazer was turned around in her chair to hear Greene. She leaned forward to address him.

“But it’s sort of like a conundrum,” she said. “You say, ‘Before the growth starts,’ but then again, we’re not growing because we don’t have those [zones] there.”

Developers need reassurances that they can operate in a location, Greene responded, but with zoning in place they are also required to go before the county for permission to make changes. He used the example of roads.

“Roads are a huge issue. Gravel roads, ways, lanes, things like that out in the county. Can you divide off of them? Can you not?” he said. “Zoning, again, now when someone wants to do this, they’ve at least got to come before the county and say, ‘I’m going to build a new road.’”

He said zoning would help in sub-developments and ensuring everyone has a good title, including access to utilities and water on their lots.

Cocke County Partnership President Lucas Graham attended the meeting to talk about his role in developing a mode of zoning that would best serve Cocke County. By now Graham has heard all the criticisms, complaints and encouragement available to a person tasked with bringing business into a county that desperately needs money, but does not want the changes that might come with it.

Whether any zoning rules are put in place or not, Graham has used a $120,000 development grant to hire engineers – the same minds responsible for helping zone the Cherokee nation, as well areas of Asheville and Knoxville – and work on a community study that would end with recommendations for how the county might possibly be zoned.

He is taking a conservative approach to that process, being careful not to go too far, too fast.

“We’re going to have to look at a ‘training wheels’ version that would provide some protections,” he said, “and then the least that we could do is some planning, along with that. So they have recommended what you call, just a permitting—or we implement a zoning policy, but by permit.”

Graham said such permits would define general commercial district areas.

Commissioner Gary Carver, also in attendance, said in other counties the most basic of zoning tools at their disposal allow county governments to identify commercial corridors, and the rest is either residential or agriculture. He said it is up to individual counties how loosely they want to define those areas.

Part of the grant process Graham is involved with invites public input, giving county residents a say in how the government should proceed with guidelines from the engineers recommended by the state.

“You don’t even have to do what they say,” he said.

There are $144 million in new state roads coming, which bring about change whether counties want it or not. The idea, Graham said, is to get ahead of those changes through planning, lest it turn into a nightmare. The state has advised the county to have a plan.

Chairman Forest Clevenger interjected to clarify that zoning has nothing to do with ordinances telling people how they can use their own land. Later, Greene would add that existing properties are grandfathered in and nothing would change there, either.

“A lot of people do confuse ordinances with zoning,” Clevenger said. “We’re not trying to dictate what someone can do with their property. It’s more like protecting you, and your property. As it is right now, I mean, somebody could build a chemical plant right over here behind the sub-division and there’s absolutely nothing that we could do to stop it.”

Clevenger said that people have been coming to him with complaints because he openly supported some development in Hartford.

“Yeah, I do support smart development in Hartford, but like I said, we have no control over that, and they can be as angry as they want to with the CLB,” Clevenger said. “Of course, you know they’re going to blame us for anything that happens, but we have no authority to stop or start anything.”

With zoning in place, it would be incumbent upon the public to show up to government meetings and give their input, and often times it is the public who must go up against corporations when it is time to resist those changes, but it also provides the best legal means for controlling changes in a given area.

Greene said the community study would need to be completed to determine how to zone, but that zoning in other counties where he has worked has improved conditions in those areas, bringing growth to cities and counties. He said the debates in those areas included people who were against zoning, those who were for it, and those who wanted to see a more nuanced approach. He said zones are intended to build communities while protecting them from the excesses of growth.

“Because now, this area over here is set aside for an industrial park. You can’t build an industrial park over here in the mountainous region of Hartford where we want to protect our beauty and everything else,” he said, in reference to hypothetical zones.

“You could put a development district in Hartford—just district that out as its own special development district, have a commercial, have business zones. You could do multipurpose zoning. But what you don’t want to have happen is – and the reason things don’t develop as quickly, in my opinion, is – we put sewer in, we have Hyatt come in and want to build a hotel here. Well, Hyatt wants to know if, next door on that 100-acre tract, am I going to get some commercial development here, or am I going to get an industrial park, or am I going to get a pig farm? That zoning would help when someone wants to come in and develop a different piece of property, they would at least be able to determine what would come in around them.”

“I think that helps us recruit business and would help Lucas be able to recruit business, but like he said, and like you just said, this is not land use ordinances. This is zoning. This is, ‘This section of the county is more agricultural and we want to keep it agricultural, so we’ll do this here.’ You know, you do a residential and you do a business section, and from there, you would be able to then decide, ‘Do we want to delineate those into a smaller type of zone?’ But I think we really just need, like he says, the basic zoning overlay of the county, and then from there work on the districts that we want to see developed. You know, if we don’t want this district to develop, zone it so that development really can’t go quickly there. And if we’ve got a district that—an area that we really want to see grow, zone it so that you can put businesses in there that will come into that zone and grow.” —Greene

“I don’t think it restricts the county,” Greene said. “I’ve seen that argument, and I’ve seen it play out over a 10-year period, that it actually – after time – really does help the county draw in more people than run people off.”

Blazer asked Greene if there is a county nearby that does not have some type of zoning.

“There is not,” Greene said. “It’s not that people don’t want to come here. It’s that they don’t want to put $50 million into a project not knowing … they have no protections for their land use whatsoever.”

Graham said that is referred to as “investor confidence” in his office.

Greene said Cocke County is decades behind the rest of the state in adopting zoning.

In his summary statement, Graham balanced his desires to see economic growth in the county with the concerns of citizens who are opposed to change or development.

“Relevant to the upset folks that are up in the Cosby corridor right now, because of 321,” he said, referring to the proposed expansion of a five-lane highway through the area, “a reasonable concern, but that’s not—it doesn’t matter if that road’s five-lane, six-lane or 10-lane. That has nothing to do with what that corridor’s going to look like, and right now there’s absolutely zero—the only way that they’re going to get what they want is if we have a plan, or at least a commercial corridor, that restricts somewhat.”

As Graham finished his statement, Blazer continued.

“The way it is right now, they could just—anybody could go build, do whatever they want to do up there,” she said, “and they have no recourse at this time at all.”

Clevenger said he thinks there will need to be “many more” public meetings like this one, before anything can be put into place.

The work of putting together a committee, seeing that stakeholders are on that committee and hearing input from others with a vested interest, will fall on the next mayor.

NEWPORT—The Friends Animal Shelter of Cocke County published a statement on Facebook and sent a letter to Mayor Crystal Ottinger saying they will not be renewing a contract that expired on June 30. The no-kill animal shelter, which has taken in more than 2,250 cats and dogs since beginning their contracts with the county, said in their statement that the county’s recent refusal to increase their annual budget by $11,000 to meet the rising costs of sheltering the animals played a role in the decision.

However, in Thursday interviews with The Newport Plain Talk, Friends Animal Shelter board member Alison Chiaradio and her husband Bob said pressure from the county to begin euthanizing animals also factored into their decision.

In every sheriff’s report involving an animal that gets picked up, deputies write that they delivered the animal to Friends Animal Shelter, where an after-hours run is provided to the county, as well as mandatory spots to be left open should the county bring more. They are extending their service to the county by one month to give officials a chance to find a new shelter before the end of July.

Alison said that last week, on June 24, Bob received a text from Commissioner Forest Clevenger suggesting the county is picking up too many animals for the shelter to continue maintaining its no-kill status.

The text read: “Just my opinion maybe the no kill just isn’t possible with the number of animals we are getting.”

She said that is when they knew it was time to let the county go.

“We’re okay to part ways, because their direction is something we can’t go to,” Alison said. “We just can’t go there. It was an easy decision once we heard that.”

The Friends Animal Shelter, which is a nonprofit organization, is being renamed to Smoky Mountain Humane Society, and they will continue to serve residents of Cocke County, without county funding and without the contractual stipulation that they be able to take in dogs from county Animal Control Officers.

Friends Animal Shelter Vice President Sara Kenney said she and her organization – about 12 employees, not counting leadership – want to continue to educate. She said they will continue to advocate for spaying and neutering pets, as well as vaccinating animals.

“Recently we’ve had comments from the CLB that the no-kill shelter isn’t working, suggesting that we needed to move toward the kill shelter,” she said. “We weren’t ready to do that, at all.”

Kenney said they are optimistic about the future, and that their organization has enjoyed overwhelming public support, so the loss of county money – while daunting – is not a threat to the organization.

The same people will continue operating in the same way, from the same building where they have always been. Only now, they are not beholden to the county and the county must find another way to hold cats and dogs picked up by ACOs.

Alison said the mission of their shelter is more important than county money.

“It doesn’t give us happiness,” Alison said. “This is not any kind of joy for us, because I don’t like the thought of what they might do, but this is what we had to do to protect the animals in our population. We will still help the community and the animal overpopulation, still, but now it can be at our own pace without them demanding so much from us, and then not even funding us properly to do it.”

For just $138,000 per year, Cocke County has received, in exchange, a facility that costs more than $290,000 annually. For less than half of the total operating cost, the county has enjoyed a clean, humane animal shelter where strays and unwanted pets are safely housed, fostered, fed and treated with dignity and respect. Sometimes they are transferred out of county, covered by the operating costs.

Their request for $11,000 in additional funding was not enough to outrun inflation, but was denied anyway, their statement says, because a commissioner said they received enough last year.

A tour of the facility revealed cats living together comfortably, separated by age, with windowsills to sun on, and clean furniture to crawl around in. The dogs outside, although noisy, are clean and protected from the sun, with parallel runs if they want to leave their kennels and go outside, accessed at will, through individual panel doors. Inside, puppies are washed, separated, and many were standing up against the doors, trying to see out the window, each vying to see who might become their new masters.

The rest is covered by fundraising, as well as costs which are not factored in, such as the approximately $32,000 in veterinary costs and surgeries. While fundraisers are the stated, official main sources of income, the Chiaradios have operated the shelter at great personal expense.

Alison said the additional county money would have been used to transport the animals north, to other shelters, so that Cocke County could continue sheltering animals humanely and without having to kill them.

Clevenger first made the suggestion to begin euthanizing animals during a March 2021 meeting of the Public Safety Committee, when the Chiaradios were brought in during an emergency meeting to discuss the shelter, because complaints came in when the shelter was full and could no longer accept unwanted animals. Even now, the shelter is at maximum capacity.

Alison said she asked for guidance after the committee did not entertain her suggestions for new laws.

“I go, ‘Where do you want us to put these animals? I mean we have 43 runs. It’s simple math. Where do you want us to put it?’” Alison said. “He goes, ‘Just bring them around the back of the building, and just shoot them.’ I said, ‘That is very caveman, and we’re not doing that.’ This is the mentality we’ve been dealing with.”

Another witness said Clevenger used the words “put a bullet in them.”

In a text to The Newport Plain Talk, Clevenger said the $11,000 still would not have been enough, a reality that the Chiaradios and office managers at the shelter agree with.

“The $11,000 would have fixed nothing and we would have the same problem overcrowding,” Clevenger writes. “I personally have donated hundreds of dollars. But unfortunately they don’t get enough funding to operate as a no-kill shelter.”

Alison said that during the March 2021 meeting she had been trying to explain to the committee that the solution to unwanted pet population is not euthanasia, but spaying and neutering.

“We have to educate the community and offer free spay and neuter, and maybe this will help our shelter in some way with not being so full,” she said. “That’s when Forest said, ‘No, you just go around the back and you shoot ‘em.’ He was trying to be funny, but it wasn’t funny to me.”

Alison said although the board does not get paid, they take their jobs seriously. She said they are passionate about the shelter.

“We’d just got done working a full day, and then going over there to explain ourselves,” she said. “I asked them, ‘What can we do? Our way is doing this,’ and they were like, ‘It’s not our problem, it’s yours.’”

Now, she says, it is the county’s problem.

She said Clevenger had asked them at the March 2021 meeting to come and talk about what new laws could be put on the books. She described him as hopeful.

“I said one of the laws I would like is maybe we could just say you have to spay and neuter your pets. You have to vaccinate your pets,” she said. “They just laughed, like, ‘That’s insane.’”

During that meeting, Bob Chiaradio extended Clevenger the benefit of the doubt that he was only joking.

“It was probably tongue-in-cheek, to be – you know, the way he is sometimes – to be outrageous in his comments, but it really wasn’t appropriate for that kind of meeting,” Bob said. “I’m not telling you we actually believed he suggested that, but he actually said it in an open meeting.”

The shelter currently controls 160 animals. Alison said on average they have been taking in between 84 and 90 animals per month since last year. On the last day of their contract with the county, the shelter was at full capacity, with signs up informing people they could not take in anymore animals. To combat overcrowding and take in more pets, she said the shelter has been putting animals in foster care to help with overcrowding. Bob said they provide food to the foster families helping out.

Alison said it is a relief to no longer have to answer to the county, but it is also an anxious time as they continue their mission protecting the county’s animals.

“We know how people feel about us. They want a no-kill shelter in this county,” she said. “We have over 13,000 followers, and they’re not all from here, either. They support us and they don’t even live here.”

No dates have been announced yet, but a county meeting is expected to take place mid-July to address the need for a new county animal shelter.

NEWPORT, Tenn. — After more than 14 years leading the congregation at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Newport, Reverend Jesse L. Jones, Jr. has left to pastor at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Morristown.

Jones was celebrated at the Community Center in March, where more than 70 people came to send him off and wish him well. Perhaps the most exciting part of that day – and least expected – came when City Mayor Roland “Trey” Dykes, III presented Jones with a proclamation stating that March 19 will be a day of celebration in honor of Rev. Jesse L. Jones, Jr.

Melinda Goodrum is a member of the church who says she had many great conversations with the reverend and considers him close. She said he was touched by the proclamation, and fellow church member Shedenna Dockery said the gesture brought him nearly to tears.

“He was like, ‘This was so nice guys, I didn’t expect that,” Goodrum said. “He’s one of those people that you can’t do enough for him. He deserves any flowers you can give him.”

Jones was asked to pastor in 2007 when Macedonia Baptist Church was looking for a pastor. Now, as they look again, Jones thanks the city of Newport and the congregation of Macedonia Baptist Church.

“I want to express our gratitude – Jacqueline and I – to Macedonia Baptist Church for allowing us to minister to them over these 14 and a half years,” he said. “I cannot stress the love that Jacqueline and I have for Newport, for Macedonia and our sister churches. I really would love to express that to the highest: that it was not an easy thing to do for us to trust God in this fashion, and we truly miss and love our Macedonia family and our community, and to keep us in your prayers as we endeavor to continue to do what the good Lord would have us to do.”

Jones has worked to unify the community across denominations and different churches as part of Unity in the Community, a movement of the Holy Spirit to mitigate division and bring the community together.

Jones also serves his community as Student & Family Support Coach at Austin-East High School in Knoxville, where he lives with his wife. He serves the school system through Project Grad, a project for helping children reach their potential, which he says keeps him busy.

“I thoroughly enjoy that ministry as well. I call it a ministry because that’s what it is to me,” he said. “Helping our children and their families with their social challenges, just helping support our families, whatever social needs they need in order for the children to get to school safe, to be nurtured, to receive their education, to graduate and to move on to college, or technical school.”

Although the work of Project Grad is well known, and well-received in the press, Jones practices the love that he preaches in his community, even where there are no guarantees of recognition, but where he is needed nonetheless.

Dockery said even if a person was not a member of the church, Jones would show up for them.

“He would just be there,” Dockery said. “If someone was sick, or someone else had died, there was Reverend Jones.”

Goodrum nodded along.

“He has done more funerals for people he don’t know,” she said, laughing, to which Dockery agreed and interjected, saying he is an all-around good guy.

“It’s not like, ‘I’m going to show up on Sunday, and then I’m going back home to Knoxville,’” Dockery said. “No! He was two or three times a week, like, ‘What are you doing here?’”

Dockery said over the years Jones showed up unexpectedly in her own life.

“My aunt’s funeral in Knoxville, I didn’t know he knew her,” she said. Again, Dockery asked him, “What are you doing here?”

Goodrum said Jones passes all her personality checks.

“I am not a nice person,” she said. “If I don’t like you, trust and believe I will tell you. Jesse Jones—I can not find a reason not to like this man. He’s just a good person, and he likes me, in spite of myself.”

Jones said he was sad to leave Newport – observing that there are no differences between God’s children here, and those in Morristown, where he started working in late March – but that it was here where he learned the love of the community.

“I’ve really been graced in love, love of the community,” he said. “I am speaking of all the churches in and around the area. I’ve had a wonderful opportunity and time to fellowship with so many various congregations and churches there in Newport. You have family and friends, from church to church, and it did not matter if they were Baptist, or Methodist, or AME Zion, or even nondenominational. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the pastors in the community, the people in the community, and our families in the community. Very special.”

It was the Holy Spirit that brought him to Newport in the first place, Jones says, and it is the Holy Spirit that continues to guide him to his new work in Morristown.

Final statement from Rev. Jesse L. Jones, Jr.:

Sister Jacqueline and I would like to thank God, the Macedonia Baptist Church, our sister churches, ministers of the gospel, and the Newport community for your prayers, love and support for us over the past 14 plus years. It has been an honor and a blessing to be in service and fellowship with you and we thank God for you all.

Rev. Jesse Jones

NEWPORT, Tenn.—After being awarded a significant scholarship, a senior student from Cocke County High School will be attending one of the top universities in the country, beginning this fall.

17-year-old Destiny Jenkins has been awarded the Questbridge National College Match Scholarship for the University of Chicago, where she will major in Global Studies, minoring in Human Rights.

Questbridge is a nonprofit based in Palo Alto, California. Since 1994, the organization has connected exceptional, low-income high school students with top colleges.

Through the scholarship, and through recognition of her discipline and hard work, Jenkins will be joining the same prestigious school that has turned out 94 Nobel laureates, including Milton Friedman, Charles Huggins, and Albert A. Michelson, who measured the speed of light in 1907, becoming the first American to win the Nobel Prize.

It is a school that turns out historical figures nearly as consistently as the diploma itself. Former President Barack Obama was a professor at the University of Chicago Law School for 12 years, until becoming president in 2008.

Getting into the University of Chicago is difficult, as the school is among the most selective in the nation.

In order to be considered for acceptance, a prospective student must show a 4.48 grade point average. Even still, the acceptance rate for students wishing to attend is just 7.3% of all applicants. For reference, Harvard is 5% and Duke University accepts 7.6% of prospects.

Getting accepted to a top-tier university seems to have been easy for Jenkins. Teachers say she had already done all the hard work in school, where she is currently taking three dual enrollment courses and spends less time each day at the high school than spent working on college-level material. The more difficult task, as is often the case, was coming up with more than $300,000 to pay for it.

“I had looked at University of Chicago before, just because of their human rights program,” Jenkins said, “but I was like, ‘I just don’t think I can go there. It’s like $80,000 a year. No way!’ But then I applied for [Questbridge] and I was a finalist.”

Being a Questbridge finalist did not mean she had secured the scholarship, however, and she expressed some doubts to her older cousin, Brandy Strom, who has played the support role of a caring adult in Jenkins’ life. Strom said Jenkins told her she was worried she would not make the second cut. Out of more than 6,000 applicants, Jenkins was one in 145 matched to the University of Chicago.

“When she first got into the program, she was like, ‘I can’t do it, I’m not going to make it,’” Strom said. “I was like, ‘Girl, you are going to make it.’ It feels so good to see her come so far.”

Jenkins said she believes it was the attitude in her essays that got her a match to the University of Chicago. Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of the conditions for needing a scholarship, Jenkins wrote about the positive things she learned, and how she grew as a person from difficult experiences. In the essays she expressed gratitude to the family who let her down, as well as the family who picked her up with her brother, without a second thought.

“I feel like a lot of people when they’re writing their college essays, they’re like, ‘Feel bad for me!’” Jenkins said. “I wrote about my mom and my dad, and all that, and I wrote about like, human rights, why I want to do that, but I like, focused on the positive aspects, instead of all the negatives so I feel like they liked that.”

She is accustomed to helping people through her love of writing, by looking over friends’ material or helping her brother construct his own essays.

Jenkins explained in an essay for Questbridge that since she wants to help people, she was first drawn to medicine. However, she later explained that she found her purpose after taking a government class she liked in school. At the same time, she said the events in the summer of 2020 and rise of the Black Lives Matter movement for equality and police accountability got her interested in civil rights.

She made that point in her essay where she stated that she wants to “help those who can’t help themselves, those who have been wronged for simply having a different skin tone, having a different religion, or even for loving someone of the same gender.”

Jenkins said she would like see change in the healthcare system and immigration system, but she sees herself becoming an attorney, working to improve the justice system.

Jenkins is an understanding friend, said Kaylee Large, a freshman at East Tennessee State University.

“I’m going to miss her so much,” Large said of her best friend. “I go to her for everything.”

Large said she and Jenkins have common experiences, and she had never met someone who understood everything she has been through.

“I think she deserves it more than anyone else I’ve ever met,” Large said. “If anyone’s going to change the world, it’s her. I feel like this scholarship just really helps her get to that point.”

Jenkins said one day she was in class discussing crime and race, when a student raised a common misinterpretation of crime statistics as his reason for avoiding East Knoxville.

“He’s my friend now. I set him straight,” Jenkins said, laughing out loud. “But he was like, ‘Well, on the news, you know, it is mostly Black people who are the criminals.’”

Jenkins disagreed with the premise. She said in many cases Black communities within cities don’t receive the same resources as other groups because of the color of their skin, which leads to systemic failures that produce crime, inevitably forcing them into the news, and people do not care to challenge that as a representation of the entire group.

“First of all, you don’t see a lot of Black people shooting up schools, shooting up banks, shooting up churches,” Jenkins said. “Second of all, most of these Black people live in poor communities and they don’t have the resources or support to do better things, so their first go-to when they need money – but they don’t have job opportunities because people don’t—they won’t hire Black people, you know? Then they have the high schools in the cities they were raised in. They don’t get the education that some white people or even other Black people might have – and then so their first go-to is, ‘Oh, I’m going to deal drugs because it’s easy money. Easy way – they have people teach them how to do it. Then they get busted, and then they’re in jail, so then what? If they have kids, and their kids—their father’s in jail, so they don’t have anyone to raise them, and then the cycle just keeps going, going, and going, all because they didn’t have the support that other people might have. So I was like no, it’s not only Black people.”

She said she got through to him.

“He was like, ‘You’re right, you’re right.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I am right.’”

Jenkins, whose mother is white and her father is Black, wrote in her essay that she has encountered racism directed toward her. During her interview, she said because of her complexion she does not experience as much, but said her friends face discrimination, and her brother has, too.

“I have a twin brother, but we look nothing alike,” she said. “Even like, 7th grade, you know, he was getting called the N-word. My little cousins in 7th grade don’t even know what that means. They just never really heard it around. We don’t say that at the house, so—and they’re white.”

Jenkins has already visited the school in Chicago, and said she likes it. She said she is happy that she will soon be able to work and learn in a more open, accepting environment.

“I feel like people don’t care to be who they are there. It’s very different,” she said, smiling. “A lot more culture there. A lot more diversity. It’s huge. It’s like Hogwarts.”

Jenkins herself does not feel pressure to be anything other than who she is, but observes that others living in the region face pressure to fit a certain mold.

“I’m pretty average,” she said, “but maybe for someone else, who’s a little more – I don’t know – not what people here see as normal, they might not feel very open to being who they are.”

She said racist and homophobic slurs are still commonly used among students in the halls at school, and that even some teachers convey racist attitudes.

“I feel racism is a big thing in Tennessee, anyways, but yeah there’s obviously people who go to school who, you can just tell, sometimes. And then some teachers, too, they act different toward students.”

She told the story of a fellow student who was excited about starting a career with Dollywood’s Splash Country after the company sent representatives to a job fair at the high school. She said his enthusiasm was met with a racial “joke” from one teacher.

“It was one of my friend’s brothers, actually. He’s Black,” she said. “He was like, ‘Well, I’m going to work at Splash Country,’ and they were like, ‘What do you mean you’re going to work there? You can’t swim,’ all because – you know, he’s Black – which is very, very out of place. You know, like he saw it as a joke, but then people—I feel like a lot of people here don’t realize what they’re saying can even be racist, or sound as bad as they think it does.”

Jenkins is on good terms with her teachers. Katie Banks has been Jenkins’ math instructor for two years at Cocke County High School, and she says Jenkins’ hard work and perseverance are paying off, but that she has remained a humble student.

“I just think it’s absolutely amazing, especially since I’ve recently read some articles about that college, and it’s very, very difficult for anyone to get in there, more or less somebody from out of state,” Banks said. “She did a wonderful job.”

Jenkins thanks her family for supporting her and making her who she is today. Although she was not mentioned in this article, in addition to the other sources she named her maternal grandmother Nanay, Angie Jenkins, as being instrumental in her success. They live together in Sevierville.

Jenkins is in a group chat with other recipients of the scholarship who are going to her school. They are sharing experiences and coordinating a possible meet-up upon arrival in September. Jenkins will graduate from the University of Chicago in 2026. She plans to attend law school.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.

NEWPORT, Tenn.—Nine men graduated from an addiction program Friday at the Lincoln Avenue Baptist Church, and are now advancing to the next stages in their recovery. They are not to be considered out early, but have instead earned their place back in society through layers of hard work, proven sobriety and a commitment to improving themselves, by way of a new recovery system in the county jail, known as the Tennessee Jail Chemical Addiction Program, or JCAP, which started last summer.

Newport native William Dalton Hall, 25, is the youngest of nine men to graduate Friday night. A musician with a range of talents, Hall told an audience of about 100 how his struggles with addiction took relationships from him.

“I’ve burnt bridges, whether it’s been my family, my friends, my wife—but I believe God’s going to bring all that back together,” Hall said, to exclamations of praise.

Someone called out from the congregation. “Come on,” he said loudly, with jubilation in his voice. From the middle of the room, another man shouted, “Amen!”

Hall continued.

“This class has really taught me you have to put God first. You have to have something that is going to be your driving force, and once you get God in your life, then you’ll be able to put yourself there. You’ll be able to tear down the strongholds. You’ll be able to examine yourself: all your bad flaws, all your bad habits, and then you’ll be able to take control of them so you’re not living in the past no more. You’re just going to be focused on your future, and where you’re going.”

With a stern demeanor, Hall said he wants to attend trade school, get a house and rejoin his family. Six graduates from the previous class – the first of its kind – sat behind him on stage, quietly supporting from the choir section. To be allowed back on the stage, they are also passing drug tests, and adhering to all program rules.

All men on the stage overcame many barriers and challenges to get where they are today, but continue to face stigma, said Westcare Tennessee Program Director Shandi Hill during her speech to the audience and graduates of the program. Standing on stage, she turned around and thanked them for overcoming those challenges, and working with her and her team.

“They do not have to talk to us about their problems, but they did,” Hill said. “They opened up to us. For us being women, for them to open up to us, is huge. That’s big. That’s another barrier that they had to take down.”

She said their challenges continue, as graduates from the program must now press on in the shadow of their histories, as they attempt to live, and find work, dragging behind them the social perceptions, and misconceptions, of addiction.

The National Institute of Health says that for people with a substance abuse disorder, stigma may stem from antiquated or inaccurate beliefs that addiction is a moral failing, rather than what science has shown: Addiction is a chronic, treatable disease from which patients can recover and continue to lead healthy lives.

The institute states in literature and on their website that feeling stigmatized can reduce the willingness of individuals with substance use disorders to seek treatment. NIH research has shown that stereotypes around such disorders can lead others to feel pity, fear, anger, resentment, and will often cause others to distance themselves from people struggling with addiction.

“They are now a different character,” Hill said to an audience of about 100, holding back tears. “They have wisdom. They have self-discipline. Please don’t judge them and continue to put that barrier up on them. Please uplift them and uplift their spirit, because these guys have changed, and we have seen it.”

The privilege of being enrolled in JCAP can be best appreciated by being in the room at the courthouse jail where the work is being done, where students study literature, self-care, and actively participate in their own rehabilitation. In stark contrast to the rest of the jail – where men and women sleep for most of the day, read, talk, or watch television – the JCAP wing at the western end of the jail is attentive, awake, lively and distinctly optimistic. The men wake up at the same designated times each morning, get up and out of bed, complete assignments, read, create art and keep journals documenting their studies and progress. The environment is clean, forward-thinking and hopeful.

Leading up to the first JCAP graduation, which took place in October, work getting the project off the ground was eight years in the making, said TN JCAP Coordinator Dan Williams, of the Cocke County Sheriff’s Department. Williams said the biggest logistical obstacle to instituting the JCAP program in the jail was finding the space.

Because the jail is so old – dating back to 1932 – modifications had to be made, converting their unit from a cold punishment facility into a dormitory, classroom, art gallery, bible school and space of quiet rehabilitation.

He said the jail nurses researched colors conducive to education, and wanted to provide them with an environment more conducive to bettering themselves.

“And then if you’ll notice, inside the bunks it’s a different color,” he said, “and they did research on the colors that were conducive to rest and relaxation, so we painted the inside of the bunk rooms where they sleep, that color.”

He also had to cut out the bars, creating an open plan, offering more space for a boardroom setting, as well as freedom of movement within the JCAP unit itself.

Chief Deputy C.J. Ball said he liked Williams’ idea to transform the jail, but that he did not know how he was going to do it.

“During that time, I get these phone calls,” Ball said, from people wanting to know what was happening. “After everything in the courthouse was smoked up, fire alarms going off, everything worked out well.”

Modern fluorescent light fixtures now hang from the remnants of iron bars.

The program supports 12 inmates from the jail, Ball said, but 125 beds are needed.

“We’re going to try hard to keep on getting that to where it will work out,” Ball said during his keynote address. “We must provide as much help as possible, OK, and it takes us all to do that. We want to see every single person that comes into our facility walk out the door with some form of help from our staff, the rehabilitation programs, jail ministries, and assistance from you all.”

The space needed to be as close to free standards of living as possible in order to prepare the men for the real world, since all nine men who graduated Friday have since reentered society with full-time jobs, with benefits and regular schedules.

“These guys graduated class on Friday, and we had them at orientation for their job on Monday,” Williams said.

Next, they will move into a sober living house, continue passing drug tests, and demonstrating their ability to sustain a life of duties and obligation without substances. This phase lasts for about six to nine months, which the graduates must complete before exiting the final phase of the program, thus completing their legal obligation to the state of Tennessee.

However, Williams emphasized that although his graduates are legally obligated to that six-to-nine-month period, they are not limited to it.

“Once they complete their six to nine months with us, they do not have to leave. We don’t pack their stuff and say, ‘Good job, you know, go find you a place to live,’” Williams said. “They are allowed to stay here as long as they pay rent – pay the normal rent that we charge – and go by our rules. They’re allowed to stay here until they’re financially or mentally ready to move out on their own.”

Full video of the graduation ceremony is available at the Lincoln Ave Baptist Church Facebook page.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.

NEWPORT, Tenn.—County officials decided to reevaluate their contract with First Call Ambulance after a Tuesday meeting of the Public Safety Committee, in which members met with medical executives and emergency responders to discuss the conditions responsible for poor ambulance response times and coverage gaps. Unreliable ambulance service has led to confusion, uncertainty, and at least one death when an ambulance that was promised never arrived.

The Chancery Court meeting of 27 people was one in a series of discussions around the ongoing arrangement with First Call Ambulance, the ambulance service with an exclusive contract to service the county. With that contract coming up for renewal in June, the committee is taking a hard look at the exclusivity clause, a stipulation in the contract preventing Cocke County from hiring another company to pick up the slack.

In January of last year a Cosby family lost a loved one to cardiac arrest. The family was told First Call was on the way; however, they received another call saying Gatlinburg EMS was dispatched. In fact, no one came, and that person died.

At the time, all four ambulances available to the county were on other calls.

Response times under the current arrangement are unacceptable, said Forrest Clevenger, Vice Chair of the Public Safety Committee. Clevenger said a previous Newport Medical Center executive emailed him a range of data showing high response times.

“I understand we’ve got an exclusivity contract that won’t allow someone else to come in. I’m wondering how we are going to be able to work then, where that’s not going to be a problem,” he said. “I don’t want someone sitting here at the dialysis office waiting two and three hours for transport because the service we have doesn’t have an ambulance. I don’t want someone waiting to be transported out of your hospital for emergency or non-emergency for several hours because we can’t get another truck from somewhere, another county, or this county. I’m wondering if we get our attorneys to look at that exclusivity clause, uh, have some sort of a lenience that it goes out the window after an hour, two hours, whatever, that if they can’t produce someone in the next couple hours to make this call, we can go on down the list.”

Clevenger said there have been ambulance services in previous years that have offered to pick up the slack and take nonemergency transports, but were rejected on the basis of the exclusivity clause of the county contract with First Call.

“That’s money. I understand that. I mean, that’s bread and butter, but it’s also people’s lives,” Clevenger said. “It’s also a great discomfort and disservice to citizens if they’re having to sit four hours. You’ve got a person on dialysis that’s having to wait in a lobby for four hours, before they can get a ride back? That’s unacceptable.”

The committee heard suggestions for putting new measures in the contract that would hold the company accountable in the future, such as fines when the service does not meet expectations within a certain time.

The current terms of the contract do not work, said Scott Williams, CEO of Newport Medical Center.

“The contract you’ve got right now, the best ambulance service in the country would fail,” Williams said. “It just won’t work.”

He said it is not the job of the county to decide on the number of ambulances or EMTs on retainer, but simply to state the county’s needs in terms of response times and quality of outcomes, and that by contract the ambulance service is charged to provide it. He said the committee needs to adjust its contract terms to clearly state the county’s needs and that it should include measures to be taken if those needs are not met. He also told the committee to get ready to meet the added cost of a bolstered contract.

“Consider funding it, because you get what you pay for,” he said. “This is life or death.”

Williams said the county should reassess its priorities. He said the county spends more on the dog pound than its ambulance service, although his claim could not be independently verified at the time of publication.

“The ambulance has trouble when they’re tied up on calls and we don’t have anybody to take that person to Chattanooga, or to Knoxville, or to Johnson City,” he said. “I would implore you that in the contract that there’s things put in the contract, that those resources are available that we can transport patients to that higher level of care, and save lives.”

Williams said the ambulance team, with only two trucks in the county, faces the inherent challenge of being called around the county, containing about 800 miles of road, while also being tasked with longer transports to higher level care centers.

“This is the one public service that you need, and you need in a hurry when you really need it, because minutes matter to a stroke patient, to a cardiac patient,” Williams said. “That response time is what’s so, so very important.”

After more discussion between Williams and Clevenger around the logistics of using such a small number of ambulances, Clevenger said the county had been threatened with litigation after expressing a need to hire on extra help to bridge the largest gaps in coverage.

“What I’ve heard from one place, which will remain anonymous, is that they were having to wait three to four hours, and when they threatened to call another ambulance service, they were told by First Call that they will be turned in to the state, there’ll be a lawsuit, and threatened,” Clevenger said. “That kind of bugs me, I’ll be honest with you. We’ve got a person, one of our citizens, that just went through dialysis, who’s sitting on a hard chair in a waiting room for four hours, trying to catch a ride, and then when they’re told that we’re going to have to get somebody else, um, out of threat of losing whatever moneys that ride is going to provide, they’re going to threaten with a damn lawsuit. Get this person home. You know, get them home. Don’t threaten to sue them. You know, that right there shows me where your heart’s at, you know? Get—Get in your car, go over there, and you transport. Don’t threaten to sue this man, or this person. That is just unacceptable.”

Williams presented leaders with sample contracts in use by other states and counties, many of which contain the provisions for which Clevenger is asking.

“You all are charged with the hard task of, ‘Where’s the balance between the money, and the lives?’” Williams said. “I don’t envy you.”

Clevenger said First Call should not take all the blame. He said the county must take responsibility for its role in accepting a contract on terms that max out the company’s half of the agreement to provide, keeping First Call medical personnel busy, yet unable to meet the full needs of the county.

“The contract’s bad right now, in my opinion, but we didn’t do that,” Clevenger said. “We have the opportunity to fix that, correct that for the county, and that’s something that we really need to take seriously.”

The discussion later turned to the specific terms of the exclusivity clause, or “non-compete clause” as people began referring to it during the conversation. Mayor Crystal Ottinger attempted to clarify whether the clause still allowed individuals to source their own ambulance services, besides First Call, and trying to ascertain that the main point of the clause was that only 911 operators are restricted from asking another company to transport patients.

At that point, newly-elected Chairwoman Gayla Blazer invited the public to clarify any misconceptions or misreadings of the contract. Her gaze moved to a man in the back.

“Is that correct? You’re here,” she said, gesturing to First Call President and CEO Scott Yates, who appeared unprepared to be called upon. She asked again. “Is what I just said correct, or not correct?”

Yates stood up at his place in the back of the room, introduced himself, and from there spent three minutes agreeing with the consensus that there is a need for stretcher vans in the county. Then, for the next two minutes he addressed the terms of the exclusivity clause, stressing that Priority Ambulance is the largest service provider in the state, having acquired First Call, and saying First Call follows state regulations and protocol.

He responded to a previously expressed desire by the committee to find another provider, by emphasizing the company’s ability to pay fees and meet state regulations, suggesting the county’s options are limited.

“All ambulance services operate under state rules, right, and every ambulance service has to be licensed in an area within the state. That sometimes, that could be a city, sometimes it’s—and most of it is the county, and uh, in order for an ambulance to provide service to citizens in a county, the c—the service has to be licensed in the county, so it’s a bit of a—it’s not as much, sometimes, First Call is not saying, ‘Hey, nobody else come in.’ Uh, it’s the state regulates this. We pay a lot of fees to the state, for—by ambulance, and for our county license for Cocke County, and all the counties that we serve, so there’s some issues there … I can tell you, for First Call – and we’re part of the Priority family of—family of companies – so we’re all over the state, you know, look, I can’t think of any circumstance ever, where we’ve said, “Hey, we can’t do this but you can, and a patient needs it, please provide the service, whether that’s a transport from a hospital to another hospital, or from a—from a nursing home to a dialysis clinic. You know, sometimes they have to, you know, make sure that we’ve got—we’re following the state protocols and there’s good communication. But, uh, we get asked all the time to do things where we’re not licensed to, but you know what I do? I call the MS Chief in the county, and I say, ‘Hey, we’ve got this request, uh, is this OK for us to come in?’ and just about every time, they say, ‘No no, we’ve got it covered. There must have been some miscommunication.’ Say, ‘Fine, call us back if you need us. We’ll be happy to help out, if we’ve got resources.’ That happens all throughout the state, First Call, and pretty much everyone in this organization. So I just want to make sure you understand, kind of, some of those protocols.”

His remarks were met with silence.

“Thank you so much,” Blazer finally said with a laugh. “Who was next?”

There will be another meeting of the Public Safety Committee at the Chancery Courtroom in the Annex on Monday, Feb. 28, at 6 p.m.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.

NEWPORT, Tenn.—An administrator from Cocke County High School addressed the Board of Education (BOE) on Thursday, to let them know she is in talks with Rep. Jeremy Faison to propose legislation that would integrate 10 “hybrid” learning days into the annual high school school calendar, in order to accommodate state testing.

Under present conditions, CCHS Curriculum Coordinator Nancy Brawley told the board that students are faced with interruptions, bell schedules and other distractions not conducive to testing for the End of Course (EOC) or ACT tests, which take several hours to complete.

“You have to interrupt the bell schedule, at this point, for four days, because ELA has two extended tests that are 85 minutes and 95 minutes,” she said, referring to the English Language Arts portions of EOC testing. “When you’re testing four blocks a day, you can only do two blocks a day, because you have to disrupt the bell schedule, which means you disrupt the lunch bell schedule. I mean it’s—it’s crazy, and that’s just to do ELA.”

She said it would be simpler if educators could have days when they bring only the students who are testing to campus, in order to establish a proper testing environment. She said she came to the conclusion to approach Faison about submitting a house bill, after discussions with the board, and with people versed in state law, who informed her that the code clearly states certain students can not be asked to stay home while others use the campus for testing.

She said students coming into the school who are not testing, and remaining on a bell schedule, can be disruptive. She cited other logistical barriers to successful test taking, such as testing rooms being adjacent to noisy cafeterias or gyms, which also improved testing during COVID, when students were distanced and allowed to test without the disruptions of daily school life.

“When we did EOC testing, when we were in COVID, we simply brought all the test takers into school that one day, and we did all ELA in one day, and all the math in one day, and it was all done in one great swoop,” she said. “I was like, ‘Well, can we not just do that again?’ Well, I can’t.”

At the meeting, Attendance Supervisor Dennis Balch clarified the law.

“It’s in the law that every student has to be in school for 180 days,” Balch said. “Any change to that calendar has to be approved by the state. In the law itself, it simply says that you can not have a student not attend school because of testing. That’s what she’s trying to address.”

Brawley said by utilizing remote learning to create 10 “hybrid days” per semester, she would be keeping students in school – and within state guidelines – by having teachers conduct their classrooms via Zoom, like they did during lockdown, to provide a more efficient testing environment. She said with effective use of technology, the lessons could be of the same quality as what the students are receiving in school.

She stated via text that she and other Cocke County educators are proposing to have test takers on campus no more than five days per semester, and that non test takers will have a remote assignment.

Because of strict State Department regulations, Brawley said rather than go ahead with their own schedule changes, and risk losing their license, she and her colleagues prefer to stay in compliance as they go through the proper channels and get a dedicated allowance for testing days, where students who are testing come to school, and others stay home.

She said one of the positive outcomes of COVID accommodations was remote learning. There was some additional discussion among herself and board members as to whether online learning, a capability that has come out of COVID restrictions, could supplement students who are not testing and are instead staying home on those days, but the consensus in the room was to get a more clear response from legislators, as well as a lasting solution.

“Cocke County is actually following the law because we can’t tell kids they can’t come to school,” she said. “Well, I want to argue that we’re not telling them that they can’t come to school. We’re just telling them they can’t come to school on campus. OK? But the state says that Mr. Moore doesn’t have the ability to grant that as like, a hybrid day.”

Brawley in her address was referring to Director of Schools Manney Moore, whose attendance at the meeting took place on a large screen via Zoom, as a precaution following COVID exposure. At several times during the meeting, Moore expressed support for her efforts.

“I guess I’ve come to the point where it has to be state legislative change in order for this to happen,” she said. “Everybody that I’ve talked to outside our district has been on board.”

She said she has been in correspondence with Faison and Sen. Steve Southerland. She said Faison told her that he would write a bill in her name, and have her speak at the 112th General Assembly, which convened Tuesday, and try to enact legislative change.

In other BOE news, Moore said COVID numbers are up. He said 12 staff and 60 students have now tested positive.

“The bad part of that is 49 of those students are this week, and nine staff,” he said. “That’s pretty high numbers, relatively speaking, from where we were, at times, in the fall.”

Speaking from a room with a taxidermy buck in the background, and fish mounted on the wall, Moore said following his own exposure, he is still feeling good, and testing negative.

The Cocke County COVID-19 Task Force met this week, according to Assistant Director of Schools Casey Kelley.

“Right now the hospital’s fully staffed,” he said. “There are 27 out of 27 beds, five out of five in ICU.”

Kelley said the school system watches the hospital with their task force as partners in the community, paying attention to the availability of medical services.

Moore said the Supreme Court blocked a temporary OSHA mandate requiring workers at businesses with 100 or more employees get vaccinated or submit a negative COVID test each week to enter the workplace. He said they had been advised via email that until further action by either the government or the court, there is no vaccine mandate for public schools.

The board agreed to meet with architects at a later date – either January 29 or February 5 – a 9 a.m. meeting to address building projects and use of ESSER third-round funds.

Three CCHS teachers were tenured and recognized for outstanding performance: Health Sciences teacher Darlene Shepherd, Deborah Livesay, who teaches Art and beautifies the school, and Amanda Marion, an AP Biology instructor who travels from Greeneville.

They were met with applause from the public and congratulations by the board.

On Tuesday, February 8, Kelley said there will be a school safety summit involving all department heads of all emergency response units, to discuss how to respond to random, specific incidents and explore relationships among first responders.

“All of our sheriff departments, fire departments, police, ambulance, hospital, road department—everybody that possibly could respond to an event that may happen at a school,” he said. “Each of you are invited.”

The group will decide on a hypothetical event, he said, citing examples such as an emergency happening at a building, a gas leak, or a chemical spill happening across a road near Edgemont Elementary School. He said plans could expand to include a live drill at a later date.

The event takes place at noon, lasts about three hours, and a luncheon will be provided by Smoky Mountain Home Health & Hospice. Kelley is asking that people reach out to him so he knows how many plan to attend.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.

NEWPORT, Tenn.—Officials from Newport and Cocke County gathered to break ground on the Newport Bypass Project, a road connecting Greeneville traffic to the west end of town, that was first proposed more than 20 years ago. They were joined by Tennessee Department of Transportation representatives and legislators.

The road will allow traffic to bypass the downtown area of Newport, with the stated intention of reducing the number of transfer trucks passing through town. The project, 4.7 miles long and involving four bridges, will link Highway 321 near St. Tide Hollow Road to US 25-70 near Thinwood Drive.

Cocke County Mayor Crystal Ottinger and Mayor of Newport, Roland Dykes, III were joined by Sen. Steve Southerland and Rep. Jeremy Faison, speaking before an audience of 32 people.

Southerland said the project is a major step in the improvement of Cocke County. He said in his 28 years as senator, he made several calls asking when the project would begin.

“Cocke County is a diamond in the rough. It needs a little bit of polishing,” he said. “In the next five years, you’re going to be seeing a big change in Cocke County.”

Rep. Faison said he loves working with Charles Blalock and Sons Inc. of Sevierville, the contractor for the project, because of their effectiveness and efficiency. He said the project is a wholesome use of government money, praising the combined efforts of business, government and the community.

“Politically I’m very conservative,” Faison said. “I believe in a very limited government. That’s who I am politically, but I will say this: Part of a right and good, wholesome role of government is to build infrastructure.”

He said he is excited about the coming change for commuters.

“If you happen to live in Parrottsville, and you’re trying to get to town, and it’s busy—holy smokes, how bad—I mean, you’re all the way up to Old Town, have you seen the line of cars, all the way up to Old Town?” he asked. “This right here is going to completely resolve that. What a great day for Newport and Cocke County.”

Mayor Dykes, who said he was born and raised in Newport, has heard about the project for nearly his entire life, and is excited about new opportunities for economic development and anticipated housing developments.

“I think it’s going to open up a lot of opportunities down our 25 W corridor, it’s going to open up a lot of opportunities for economic development along this route, and throughout the city and the county,” he said. “Of course, it’s going to relieve a lot of the issues we have going on through our downtown.”

Mayor Ottinger thanked everyone who came together to bring the project underway.

“We’re finally at a point where the perseverance is finally paying off,” she said. “Seeing regional support for this project, going to the RPO meetings and having other counties who have their own projects see the need and importance of a project and vote for your project over their own, you just can’t imagine what that means to a community.”

The project, costing $63.2 million, is divided into two sections. The first 2.4-mile section, according to documents published by TDOT, will be four lanes with a center turn lane, plus 12-foot shoulders. This section extends to the east from US 70 to Rankin Road.

The second section extends for about 2.3 miles, from Rankin Road to the south of St. Tide Hollow Road.

“This will include two 12-foot travel lanes, one in each direction, with 12-foot shoulders on a four-lane divided right of way,” a TDOT press released stated.

TDOT Community Relations Officer Mark Nagi stated in an email that setting of signage for the project has begun, and – weather permitting – work will begin immediately afterward.

Nagi said the project has an expected completion date of June 30, 2025.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.

NEWPORT, Tenn.—For more than 120 years, the Conagra food processing factory in Newport had been in steady operation, servicing the nation’s food supply, empowering the local economy and providing a stable source of income for generations throughout eastern Tennessee.

Activity tapered over recent years, as executives from Conagra Brands moved production around the country, piece by piece, until the operation officially ended on the morning of October 22. Exactly one week prior, Conagra sold all of its Newport properties to the commercial real estate firm Phoenix Investors, for $8.16 million, according to state data. In its final week of production, the plant acquisition changed the running question from ‘who will buy the factory,’ to ‘who will rent it?’

Now, as Conagra slowly exits the facilities, Cocke County and Phoenix Investors are working together to find the right tenant, or multiple tenants, for the plant, warehouse and associated properties.

Agents from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based real estate firm bring their own lists of industrial contacts to be included alongside those of Lucas Graham, Economic Development Director and Cocke County Partnership President, who says that a larger company with marketing resources, industrial contacts, and a national outreach gives him greater hope for 2022.

“With the number of prospects that have already inquired about it, and are continuing to look at it, and look at it now, I have very high confidence that we’ll be able to fill the building,” Graham said. “It’s not a matter of if, it’s just when, at this point, and some of that is just depending on when Conagra is out of there.”

Graham said that although another potential company wants to tour the facilities by mid-January, because of COVID and logistical delays, Conagra has been slow to exit the warehouse, raising even more uncertainty about the immediate future of the plant.

However, the questions do not end there. For more than 300 former Conagra employees who have been laid off, the question of their futures go unanswered as insurance runs out, bills add up and severance packages begin to dwindle.

Furthermore, legally binding nondisclosure agreements have silenced former managers and supervisors in exchange for their own severance packages, preventing them from talking about their work. Ambiguous clauses in severance paperwork have made even the hourly employees hesitant to publicly discuss their own experiences at the plant, the nature of the shutdown or the impact of the Conagra withdrawal from Newport.

After contacting more than 20 former Conagra workers, only four would tell their stories to The Newport Plain Talk, and just one was willing to go on the record using her name.

Kim Brown, a Cosby native living in Dandridge, worked at the plant for 15 years until its closure in October. For the first 12 1/2 years she ran a palletizer on the bottle line, until the initial stages of the coming closure, when those operations were moved out of Newport, at which point she moved to the labeling department for the remainder of her career with the company.

“Conagra was a place, when you started working there, you retired from there,” she said. “You stayed there. That was my plan. 15 years of my life down the drain,” she said, sitting at a table in the back of Milano’s Pizza on Broadway, after a gathering of former Conagra workers. “There were people there who had 40 and 50 years seniority.”

Now, as she applies for other work, Brown is still processing the loss.

“It’s hard to explain what 12-hour days, five and six days a week, will do to you, when it feels like it’s never-ending and then all of a sudden it comes to a dead stop,” she said, “because we worked 12-hour days until the end, until that was it – until they were done – and it was rough.”

She said some people were working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, up until the factory shut down.

“I feel like nobody really knew what went on in there except for those of us that were living it,” she said. “It wasn’t a secret. It just wasn’t a well-known secret. The way we worked and the way we were treated.”

She compared loss of the plant to the death of a family member, and being in an abusive relationship.

“That’s exactly what it’s like. Everybody on the outside thinks they’re a great person, but you know that they’re not, and you can’t get away from it, and then every time you try to get away from it, they pull you back in,” she said. “Then, when you finally think you can get out, they get the news that they’re dying, and if you leave now, you’re a bad person. So do you stay or do you ride it out?”

Brown rested on the table with her elbows. She looked down at her hands, folded together.

“Those of us that rode it out are just glad it’s over with, honestly, because from the day that they announced we were losing the plant, morale just bottomed out. It was awful. We didn’t get treated differently by our own, but you could tell upper management – I’m talking like, corporate level – it was the total opposite, like we didn’t matter anymore. That was heartbreaking, because we showed up every single day for them, even after they fired us. It was like being fired and then still expected to show every day.”

Brown said the looming sense of abandonment was exacerbated by a lack of material support from above, forcing workers to make do without proper implements.

“We could tell the difference in like—it was hard for us to even get parts for the machinery to fix it when we needed it,” she said. “We had a lot of catastrophic breakdowns because we didn’t have the parts, because we were fixing to close the doors.”

Even then, she said, the Newport Conagra plant was outperforming all others in production.

“Even on our worst days, we would run circles around the other plants with our numbers. They couldn’t beat us. They couldn’t touch us, and we still got closed down. It doesn’t make any sense,” she said, “and I think that was the hardest part about it, because we knew that we were good people, regardless of what they felt, or how they saw us.”

Brown said she thinks people are afraid to talk about their feelings or opinions because of possible repercussions.

“Not that there would or could be any, because once they terminated us, that was it,” she said. “This is nothing I haven’t said to everybody else. I’m not sugarcoating anything, and I’m not making anything up. It’s just the harsh reality.”

Another former Conagra worker, a Newport woman who spent 13 years at the company and asked not to be named for legal reasons, said she felt the company was attempting to buy her silence, and does not believe people understood the terms of the severance papers as they signed them.

“You’re going to see on there, basically that we can not sue them, and that if anything negative comes up that we have to stand up for them,” she said. “I don’t know if other companies do that or not.”

She said her insurance benefits expired a week after being laid off, and now she and her two children have no medical coverage. She said when she went to the American Job Center in Morristown, seeking unemployment benefits, she was transferred to Sevierville because at that time, Morristown was inundated with new applicants.

“They said they’ve had a couple of plant closings, and so the lady who I talked to in Morristown transferred me to the one in Sevierville, because they had more people, I guess.”

Now, to stretch her savings, she works part time at a grocery store.

Between what she currently has in the credit union, and her severance pay of about $10,000, she said she has enough money to survive for one year. However, because she is enrolled in a 20-month computer certification course at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology, she will have to cash out her 401(k) to make ends meet during that time, before she completely runs out of money between careers.

Her husband, who retired from Conagra after 40 years, but before the plant closure, said he was not treated well at the company, adding that Quaker – the previous corporation to own the plant – treated workers with dignity.

“They could have done better than what they did,” he said over the phone. “Conagra don’t care about its employees like Quaker and Stokely did. Quaker would give you awards for good work you done, and Stokely’s would congratulate you and everything, but Conagra never would give nothing to nobody.”

In a parked car by the edge of Cosby Highway, she clutched a blue Gateway laptop computer to her chest as she spoke – a Christmas gift from her daughter for school. She said she does not want to have to cash out her 401(k) but there is no other way to survive.

“My expenses each month are around $2,000 a month. Right now, I can not get it down any further. I don’t have cable. I don’t have satellite. I don’t have internet except through Verizon Wi-Fi, and I have a data plan with a hot spot on my phone,” she said, her voice getting smaller and beginning to stammer. “It ain’t good. I mean, I would love to know what Conagra was like, thinking, but I mean it just is—they ain’t going to tell you anything.”

Another former Conagra worker, a male who cased product at the plant over four years, asked not to be named for personal reasons, and now works under the table for a neighbor. He said he lost his insurance and is now facing thousands in medical bills.

“I had to go to the doctor on Friday,” he said. “It cost me $600 for four x-rays and two shots, plus my medicine at the pharmacy.”

Brown confirmed via text that signing up for insurance following the closure had become a convoluted process, marred by inefficiency as well as Conagra coming up short on promised payments to help cover the cost of a private insurer.

“They told us they were gonna give us money to cover for 3 months of extra coverage,” she stated via text, “then at the end they only gave us half of what they said they would. Some of us were about to get insurance because of the company laying us off, but the guy signing people up was so swamped that he couldn’t get to everybody so more people than not were left without coverage. And the premiums for coverage skyrocket on Jan 1st, so it’s either find a job with insurance or go without.”

The male Conagra worker said during his time at the plant, 12-hour days were normal, and it was not unusual to work 16-hour days, up to 96 hours per week.

“If you went in early four hours on another job, and they was overtime on your job, you was forced to take that, so that forced you to work 16 hours a day,” he said. “It’s a shame that they shut the plant down, you know? They said that plant was the number one producing plant for the whole Conagra, outrunning every other plant that Conagra had.

“When you work 12 hours a day, you get to know the equipment and how to run it, and they can put the product out. They said the other plants are only running like 300 to 400 cans a minute, and that one was running 900 to a thousand. I mean, it was putting it out, it was. Sometimes labeling couldn’t keep up with us because we were running too fast.”

Like others in his position, he is still adjusting to the gap in his daily schedule.

Brown said she, too, is adjusting to the collapse of her routine.

“I still wake up in the middle of the night,” she said. “I was having to get up at 1:30 in the morning, be at work by 3, and work 3 to 3, and then come home, try to get whatever I needed done, and be in bed at a decent time, and it never happened.”

Leading up to the closure, there were extensions put in place by the company to meet increased demand as a response to COVID.

“I told the plant manager, and I told the HR manager – because we were already on overtime at that time – I told them if y’all are going to throw money at me, I’m going to take it. I did not know it was going to be extended three more times,” she said.

She said people on the outside who only knew how much Conagra workers were often paid, failed to see what employees sacrificed in order to remain there.

“You tell people you work at Conagra, and the first thing they say is, ‘Oh, you make all kinds of money,’ and it’s like: I bet you enjoy your holidays and weekends off, don’t you? You get to enjoy birthdays. You get to enjoy graduations, and get-togethers, and all the holidays. We have to give that up. That’s what we’re there for. We’re there to make money,” she said. “People that don’t work—” she stopped to correct herself, “that didn’t work there, didn’t see how much we had to give up to get that. And now it’s like, ‘Oh, we don’t need you anymore.’ What do you say to that? It’s awful.”

She said jobs at the Conagra plant were sought after, because people knew they could make money at it, and that a person could even retire from the company, but she said most people do not understand how far their sacrifices went.

“I had a terrible quality of life. I mean yeah, I got my bills paid and everything. That’s—that’s great,” she said. “But all the stuff that I’ve missed over the years: I missed my niece being born. I missed, I don’t know how many, graduations. I don’t know how many holidays. Family functions. All that stuff. I remember one time I took the day off – I actually had to take the day off – to go to my nephew’s birthday party, and I saw a picture of me later, and I looked just exhausted. I had worked until 3 o’clock that morning, and then I had plans that day to go somewhere, for something, and then go back to the birthday party, and the look on my face, I just—I was just exhausted. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t have to do that now.’”

Brown said the photo was taken almost 10 years ago, emphasizing that she worked mandatory overtime for the entire 15 years she worked for Conagra, and that everyone was subjected to the same expectations of a poor work-life balance.

“That’s what we have all had to deal with,” she said. “It’s not just been one person or another, or one job or one department, or anything like that. It’s the entire plant.”

As the closure became more imminent, and more workers retired, Brown said demands climaxed upon the remaining workers, holding out for their severance pay.

“Gosh, I’m telling you what,” she said, placing the palms of her hands against her forehead, and rubbing her face. “It completely changed the way it felt. I can handle overtime, but to be fired, but still expect to show up every day for 12-hour shifts, and do the job of two and four people because we were so short-handed, it was insane.”

She said the day when it was announced the plant would no longer be producing bottles, was the same day Conagra Brands acquired Pinnacle Foods, in June 2018. However, they would only hear about the acquisition by word of mouth, which she and some of the other workers believe indicates that the company was already making moves toward a total closure, well in advance of when executives chose to tell the workers. A man in a suit, accompanied by guards, had come to inform them.

“The guy that came to close us down hated Newport with a passion,” she said. “He came in to deliver the news both times, with armed guards, because other places he had closed down like, threw chairs at him and stuff. He came to us with armed guards, and we were all like, ‘What are we supposed to do with this?’ You know?”

She said before he showed up, they had already heard rumors about him.

“Sure enough, he showed up with armed guards. Actually left out the back door,” she said. “He was just there to shut us down, because his pick was a plant in Ohio.”

Brown said his name is Bill Gates. Not to be confused with the co-founder of Microsoft, the Bill Gates of Conagra Brands has been with the company for more than 20 years and is listed on LinkedIn as the Vice President of Manufacturing at Conagra.

“I’m pretty sure that’s his name,” Brown said. “I’ve had to use the words, ‘Not that Bill Gates.’”

Even without guards, Brown said a man in a suit looked out of place at her 120-year-old factory. She said his guards wore suits, and although no guns were displayed, she said they had a way about them that seemed to indicate they were armed.

“They drew attention to the situation,” she said. “They didn’t draw attention to themselves.”

Brown said between the workers and management, she and her colleagues were not treated badly, but she did not like how the corporation treated the workers of Newport. Still, Brown said she would like for people to not focus on Conagra closing.

“There’s other things out there, than just Conagra. The end of Conagra is not the end of this area,” she said. “It’s really not.”

She said she does not consider herself to be in competition with the 300 people who lost their jobs in the plant closure. She said that number is closer to 200, because so many either retired or are waiting longer to find something.

“As big of an employer as it was – at one time we had almost 500 people before we lost bottles – 500 people is not that many people when you sit down and you look at the numbers of this county,” she said. “But look at how many people—there’s a ripple effect, OK? You’ve got the utilities that, I’ve heard for years, that Conagra was 60% of the Newport Utilities. It was a huge number, but look at everything else around it: Land taxes. You’ve got the businesses like Brock’s and Jabo’s. You know, people would eat there every day. The fast food places around town, people would eat at every day. You’ve got the families of the people that work there.”

Brown said that although she moved to Dandridge years ago, she still conducted much of her business in Cocke County.

“Grocery shopping, whether it was Food City, or Walmart, or what-have-you. I’ve still got a post office box here. You know, if I’m buying gas or whatever, you know, it’s a big impact, and when you start taking that away, and things start rolling downhill and dwindling down, you finally see it may have been 500 people, but it affected everything,” she said.

“I feel like just because it’s effecting everything doesn’t mean you have to let things die with it. Branch out. There’s plenty of places hiring. It may not be what any of us want right now, and that’s OK. Doesn’t mean you can’t try something else.”

She said she has heard of her former coworkers getting new jobs at the Ball plant, Eternal Beverages and Ole Smoky Distillery. Brown said she has applied to a few places, including Ole Smoky, and hopes to hear something back soon.

“However you want to look at it, I’m not worried,” she said. “I’m really not, because if I don’t get hired there, I’ll go somewhere else.”

Workers said it was possible to follow Conagra, working at one of their other plants, but Brown said she would not consider offers to follow Conagra to another plant after the closure.

“I also didn’t hear of anybody talking about doing it. If it were me? No. You cut my throat once, why would I give you the chance to do it again?” she asked. “I’ve even went so far as to tell people don’t pick up the Hunt’s product, the store brand’s better, you might want to get something else. Honestly, I have. I’ve done that more than once.”

She smiled. Brown said she, her friends, and former colleagues, have always used Conagra products in their food, and still have some at home in their pantries, but after it runs out, they will not be purchasing more.

“We said once we’re done using it, we’re not buying it again. It sounds petty. It seems petty, but why would I support a company that just cut my throat?”

Graham said the number of prospects looking at the Conagra facility has grown to 12, several of which are seeking a partial lease, not needing the entire facility. While the majority are full scale operations, he said there are at least four companies showing an interest in smaller sections of the full plant, splitting the plant and warehouse, and other uses of the buildings to be leased by Phoenix Investors.

“Instead of having one big company that if they leave like Conagra did, it’s going to have this massive impact to the economy at one time, it busts up the risk,” he said. “So if one of those tenants were to have a bad year and go under, for example, then it would only be a portion—it would be less of a hit to the local economy than what we just experienced with Conagra leaving.

He said there is a high probability that in the next two years the county will surpass expectations of job losses or breaking even, and eventually see a net increase in jobs.

“We need to have some numbers and offers on the table, so I know what numbers I have to work with, so I’m not giving away the farm,” Graham said. “I don’t want to give away anymore tax dollars and incentives than I have to.”

Representatives from Conagra did not return email, or phone messages left at the office. Alan Jones, a representative for United Steelworkers, did not return numerous messages left on his cellphone. Representatives from Phoenix Investors did not return calls to their office.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.