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.

NEWPORT, Tenn.—Five years ago, a Cocke County man filed bankruptcy after a tree fell on him, he suffered injuries and was handed a medical bill for $350,000. Although significant enough on its own to stun anyone, a large portion of the sum came as a surprise fare, owed to an ambulatory helicopter ride to the hospital, costing $50,000 by itself.

However tragic, his story is hardly unique, and follows an American trend: nearly two thirds of all bankruptcies in the U.S. take place in response to medical expenses, adding up to about 530,000 medical bankruptcies each year.

The former Conagra worker, a man in his thirties who asked not to be named for personal reasons, said he was cutting down a large tree at the edge of his property, when it suddenly collapsed, knocking him unconscious and trapping him underneath in an instant.

In many cases a person may be coherent enough to decline an ambulance and even get themselves to a hospital. In severe cases like his, however, sometimes immediate air transport to the nearest trauma center is the only recourse. It becomes a choice of life or death, and it was not his choice to make.

“When I woke up, this arm was over here, like behind me, over there, and I was pinned,” he said. “The tree was on top of me. I could not move. I hollered for 30 minutes.”

He said after he was found by a neighbor, it took another 45 minutes for paramedics to arrive. They told him he would not have made it much longer.

“I was about to go into shock, and they cut the tree off of me,” he said. “They used my saw to cut the tree off of me. The tree was as big as a tractor tire. It was humongous. They didn’t know how I survived. Somebody was watching out for me. I like to think, Mom.”

He was transported from the scene by helicopter, to Johnson City, where he stayed and received treatment for severe injuries.

Following that traumatic event, Conagra has since closed their plant. He said he lost his insurance, and now has to pay several hundreds of dollars out of pocket, into the thousands, for routine hospital visits and follow-ups. Bankruptcy, he said, clears in seven years, but it still hurt his credit and does nothing to alleviate the high costs of presently needed treatments or preventive care.

For a person faced with life-threatening injury, the hospital stay – even with insurance – can be expensive. However, many do not consider the extravagant cost of air ambulatory services, which can come in the form of its own separate bill – and a surprise – especially to those who have never been transported to a trauma center before.

In the last five years, air ambulance costs have increased by more than 30%, according to data published in a September report by FAIR Health, a nonprofit organization that analyzes healthcare costs, market rates and insurance information. The study addresses both fixed-wing and rotary-wing air ambulance transport costs.

Their four-year study showed that the top diagnoses associated with helicopter ambulance rides in that period include cerebrovascular issues and diseases, heart attack, body injury, head injury and stroke.

The study showed that in a three-year period, the charges associated with helicopter ambulance transports for those events – like those used to service eastern Tennessee – increased by more than 22.2% to an average of more than $30,000 per flight.

Rates have increased so fast that the Biden Administration proposed new rules on September 10 requiring greater transparency in air ambulance costs, and how agents and brokers are compensated.

The proposal, announced through the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, states that new rules would allow HHS to collect data to analyze market trends to address exorbitant air ambulance expenses.

“No one should avoid seeking health care for fear of receiving a surprise medical bill,” the statement read, quoting Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “The new consumer protections released today are critical to shielding consumers from the devastating financial impacts that may occur as a result of an unlawful surprise bill, and CMS is committed to vigorous enforcement of these protections.”

Because insurance may not cover the total cost of emergency treatment, and out-of-pocket costs like deductibles or copay still apply, the providers of these services usually offer annual subscription services, a product resembling insurance, against the high cost of their ambulatory services.

Depending on which hospital a patient is delivered to, the air ambulance helicopters are branded differently, but in eastern Tennessee, both are covered by a single provider, and they offer annual membership plans that cover the full expense of the flight.

In Cocke County and the surrounding areas, that service is called AirMedCare Network, and they charge $85 per year per household, or $65 for seniors age 60 and above, and their households. The program covers the full cost of the flight, regardless of insurance status.

Med-Trans, a participating provider in the program, covers flights from Newport Medical Center and areas around Cocke County either to Knoxville or Johnson City. If a patient needs to go to the trauma center in Knoxville, UT LIFESTAR brings them by helicopter. Someone destined for the trauma center in Johnson City would be transported by HEART, which replaced Wings Air Rescue last year.

A dispatcher for First Call Ambulance Service confirmed that all their requests for an air ambulance go through AirMedCare.

“We do have more than one helicopter service,” Chad, the dispatcher said, “but they’re all owned by the same people.”

Air transport is often covered through insurance, with a copay. Humana is a for-profit American health insurance company based in Louisville, Kentucky. Because Humana is contracted with the federal government to provide and administer Medicare plans under the Medicare program, many people in Cocke County, and across the U.S., access their Medicare benefits through Humana.

Based on accounts in their system, a Humana representative working in El Paso, Texas said Humana members are charged a $250 copay for a helicopter flight, same as a ground ambulance, with an additional $250 copay required separately for any medical services performed onboard the aircraft, or at the hospital.

“Overall, they’re not just paying that 250,” the representative said. “It doesn’t include treatment. Whatever they’re doing to them inside the ambulance, or whatever they do to them after the fact that they got dropped off, that will probably be its own separate bill.”

Christie, an account sales representative with AirMedCare Network, said their membership covers both the costs of the flight, and treatment received on the aircraft, with no copay.

“If you’re ever airlifted by us, we will bill your insurance or whoever is responsible to pay for your medical care,” she said. “We’ll take what they pay as payment in full, then the membership covers the rest.”

Christie’s advice that the flight would be covered, as well as treatment performed onboard, could not be independently verified.

Global Medical Response is the holding company over the program, and Shelly Schneider, Director of Public Relations, said she is not sure if HEART is considered a “traditional model,” meaning the helicopter, pilot and mechanic are provided, but the medical crew would come from the hospital. This would generate two separate bills.

“Or if it’s a community-based model—so Air Evac Lifeteam is also in Tennessee, and those are community-based models,” Schneider said. “So Air Evac has the pilot, the mechanic and the med crew – the nurse and the paramedic – and so that might be billed differently.”

Schneider said she would find out how HEART and UT LIFESTAR are billed, but did not follow up by the time of publication.

Federal data being collected on air ambulance services could shed light on the other unknown or lesser known costs associated with air ambulance services in the future, according to the September HHS report.

The department stated that information would be used in a comprehensive, publicly-available HHS and Department of Transportation report to increase transparency and help inform future policy development aimed at addressing these costs.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.

NEWPORT—Citizens gathered at Newport City Park on Sunday to meet a Memphis city councilman who is seeking the Democratic nomination for Tennessee governor.

Speaking to an audience of about seven people, 34-year-old Memphis City Councilman JB Smiley, Jr. said he wants to reduce crime, see more people vaccinated, and increase mental health funding to distressed regions of the state—money which he said can be shifted to suit the purpose.

Smiley said during his career as a lawyer and councilman, every piece of legislation he has proposed in Memphis has received support from leaders of both parties.

“I’m a Democrat, but before anything else I’m a lawyer and that means I’m in rooms with a lot of different people who may or may not agree with me,” he said, “but once you’re able to find common ground and focus on the issues that improve the lives of folks, you can move the needle.”

He said despite partisanship, his progressive legislation often had the conservative-leaning chairman’s name on them, because finding common ground and shared goals have allowed them to cooperate, regardless of party affiliation.

“People assume Memphis is a progressive place,” he said. “It is not. The chairperson of our city council was the fundraising chair for Donald Trump.”

Although his status as fundraising chair for Trump could not be verified at the time of publication, Memphis City Council Chairman Frank Colvett, Jr. was elected to the city council in November 2015, became the 2021 Chairman of the Memphis City Council and – according to his campaign website – Colvett served as Treasurer of the Tennessee Republican Party. Colvett is now listed as nonpartisan, or unaffiliated, but retains the support of the Tennessee Republican Party.

Last month Gov. Bill Lee signed legislation outlawing vaccine mandates for schools and government entities. Smiley departs from that approach on his own gubernatorial platform, saying he does not want to “preempt” people, a legal term that he says when applied to Tennessee, suggests vaccine mandates should be handled at the local level and not at the state level.

“I don’t necessarily agree with preempting folks,” he said. “You encourage people. Preemption is when the state comes in and says we’re going to supersede whatever the local municipalities put in place for their constituents. Local control is important. They understand their issues better than anyone who resides in a different county. You come to Shelby County, and I’m going to understand Shelby County better than someone who sits in Nashville. You come to Newport, same thing.”

He said there are, however, cases when the state should step in. He said no amount of additional police, for example, will address the root causes of crime, whereas education and early opportunities are proven to play a role in reduction.

“What the state doesn’t do – when we talk about homelessness, when you talk about folks addicted to drugs, the state has not provided funding for mental health institutions,” he said. “If we provide funding for mental health institutions, we’re going to get a lot of those folks off the street, get a lot of those folks off the drugs, and if we’re able to do that, we’re reducing crime.”

According to data released by the FBI, the crime rate of Newport – although decreasing yearly – is 246% higher than the national average, where residents are faced with a 1 in 13 chance of becoming a victim of crime. Newport is safer than just 2% of American cities. The solution, Smiley said, is to care about people through compassionate policy and legislative action.

“The goal of government is to provide for the general welfare of its people,” he said. “We’re the third most violent state in the country, and we aren’t taking any measures to address it. We’re actually doing the opposite. We’re putting more guns on the street. We’re not providing funding to help folks with drug issues. I’m just saying we’re hands-off. Taking it one step further, we’re moving funding from early childhood education. Well guess what happens when you remove funding from early childhood education? You’re perpetuating the school-to-prison pipeline. Why? Because we’re funding private prisons.”

Smiley said Tennessee’s hands-off approach to crime, social programs, and funding to distressed areas is a reflection of missing social attitudes at the state level, a skill set he claims to possess and wants to apply to state legislation.

“It’s about how you talk to people,” he said. “I’m not asking about any political philosophies. Let’s sit down and talk: ‘how’s your wife?’ You know, ‘What’s going on in your community? What’s your pain points? Oh, I understand, I have the same issues here.’ Once you get to know someone as a person, you figure out how to work together collaboratively, and nine times out of 10, we get them to move the needle, and the goal is to move the needle for everybody.”

Marjorie Ramsey, Chair of the Cocke County Democratic Party, said of the voters in attendance, some people had come in from Sevier County to hear Smiley speak. She said The Newport Plain Talk was the only press in attendance for the event.

“I told them they might sell some better newspapers if they quit putting them Republicans on the front page, and editor’s page,” she said. “There’s a lot of Democrats in Cocke County that’s quit taking his newspaper, and I’d tell him that right now.”

A woman from Ramsey’s church, who asked not to be named, said it was the first time she’d seen the candidate, and had never heard of him until she was asked to attend.

Smiley joined a Democratic primary race in September that now includes Dr. Jason Martin, a Nashville ICU physician and critic of the state government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Carnita Atwater, a gentrification opponent and owner of the Kukutana African-American History and Culture Museum of Memphis.

An assistant for Smiley said he would campaign next in Greeneville, Chattanooga and Nashville.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.

You might have seen their ad in The Smoky Mountain Trader, but if you have never stopped by the I-81 Flea Market on a weekend then you are not only missing the best prices available on goods in Hamblen County, you may have overlooked a cultural mainstay of eastern Tennessee.

The I-81 Flea Market – open from the first Saturday in March, through the last weekend of November – is half a mile north along 25 E, from Exit 8 off I-81. Vendors can expect to rent a table for seven dollars a day, and buyers can expect to find all manner of goods, including antiques, food, tools, home appliances, decorative goods, clothing, jewelry, homemade blankets and dresses, and everything in between.

Mary Knight started the I-81 Flea Market in 1981 with her late husband Don L. Knight and their business partner, Tommy Horner. For 40 years, hundreds of people have walked the grounds each weekend. On its busiest days, the flea market could see upwards of 1,000 people.

“I enjoy people, and some of the nicest people in the world are right here,” Knight said. “Really and truly they are. That’s what I like about this market. Everybody’s kindly on the same ball field, and they look out for each other.”

A central theme of her management style, Knight said she does not allow anything to interfere with the enjoyment of the youngest and oldest age groups who visit the flea market. She categorizes herself somewhere in the middle.

“I figure the ones in between, like myself, we can take care of it,” she said. “I figure we can handle whatever comes up, but you got to take care of those two groups.”

She describes the flea market as a family-oriented place. On a sunny weekend, there are dozens of children from all backgrounds running around in the grass, playing together, and helping their families.

“Got a lot of kids here,” she said. “Got a lot of older people here, where this is their social life.”

On a cold, rainy Saturday morning in November, just before sunrise, one finds a group of men under the first covered shed, preparing for the sale, talking, laughing, making early trades, and carrying on with each other. On this particular morning, rain was making life difficult, but the die-hards were already out working that day, setting out goods on their reserved tables, and talking among themselves.

“Where are you going for breakfast?” a bearded man asked his friend, Roy. “Why don’t you ever eat your wife’s breakfast?” he joked, opening the meal she had cooked earlier that morning and sent for him and his son, but not Roy.

“Roy eats at Hardee’s,” someone said back. “He likes their country ham.”

“That salty country ham sure is good, but you’ve got to watch your blood pressure,” the bearded man advised, pointing at Roy for emphasis.

His name is T.J. Noah, and he has been in the trade since 1977. Knight says T.J. and his son Thomas have been selling merchandise every weekend at the flea market for the past several years. They are often the earliest vendors to open on Saturdays, and even show up in the rain, on days like today, selling name brand foods, snacks, cookies and drinks. A pack of soft cookies that sells for $4 in stores, for example, T.J. offers at his table for just 50 cents. Chips can go for a quarter a piece. Even his bottled drinks are not expensive, but the stories are free.

In the late ‘70s T.J. said he first got into business running his own auctions.

“Remember I used to have that sign on my door?” T.J. asked of his nearby friends. “‘T.J.’s way or the highway?’ Remember I told that woman don’t let the door hit you on the ass?”

Everyone laughed who already knows the story.

He said even though he was the one holding the microphone to a PA system, a woman had been talking over him, and disrupting the sale, which he ran out of a building at his home in Tazewell.

“You couldn’t auction for that woman squalling, and going on,” T.J. said. “I told her to shut up. She said ‘I’ve been throwed out of better places than this.’ I said, ‘Don’t let the door hit you on the ass when you leave.’ Said it over the microphone. ‘Probably a bar room, what you’ve been thrown out of.’”

T.J. noticed that other people began listening to his story, drawing closer to the van to hear what’s so funny. He went into greater detail.

“I said, ‘You need to shut up so I can have a sale,’ you know?” he said. “That building I sold out of, every little noise – wasn’t it Roy – was louder?”

Roy nodded in agreement, although he was not there at the time.

“In the basement of my building, it just echoed in there,” T.J. said. “You could whisper in the back, and I could hear it up there. She was cackling, going on, and telling jokes or something. I said, ‘You need to quieten down a little bit.’ She started running that mouth. I said, ‘Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.’ She had me mad. You couldn’t embarrass this woman. No shame. She’s dead now. Her and her husband used to play Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus at Walmart over there. She was one of them kind of women you couldn’t embarrass, you know?”

At this point, most of the group shared another laugh and dispersed. They went about setting up their own tables, exchanging remarks about the miserable weather, and seeing what the others had for sale.

T.J. continued his story. He said in a six-month period, his computer and accounts had been hacked eight times and he does not feel comfortable putting his finances online.

“They took our auctioneer license because we didn’t renew them on the computer,” he said. “We’ve been hacked and everything. You think I’m going to put any money out there on the line? State took it. If I decided to have one, I’d still have one. State can kiss my ass.”

Here, however, was another story. Showing greater deference to Mary Knight in the office, T.J. adheres more to her rules than those of the state of Tennessee, or so he said, concluding the conversation.

“At the flea market, it’s Mary’s way or the highway,” T.J. said.

She laughed at the comment. On this patch of land along 25 E, Knight sees that everyone is in compliance with not just her rules, but Tennessee law.

“They pretty much know that out here,” she said. “I don’t put up with a bunch of crap. They can either go by my rules or go somewhere else. They’re not written in stone like the Ten Commandments, and you can kindly bend with some of them – but a lot of them, no I don’t bend – and they know that.”

She said she stays firm on the most important tenets, like staying within the bounds of the law, and keeping the environment safe for children.

“I don’t allow anyone out here drinking,” she said. “I’m not going to have any drugs. None of the pornography on the tables. I just don’t allow none of that stuff. The world today—the kids can probably teach me a lot of stuff, but they’re not going to learn it here.”

Knight said that although every day is different in her business, she does not usually have to reiterate or enforce her rules. It takes a courteous, respectful, and diverse group of people to give her flea market the character and qualities hundreds of people enjoy each weekend.

She knows her vendors as intimately as they might know each other. Gesturing out the window of her office, she begins telling their stories as they file in early, preparing to set up for the coming weekend.

“God love him. I believe that’s that little guy…” She trailed off, watching as he parks his car.

“I really worry about him. Sometimes he comes down here. He’ll stay all night tonight, and he’ll stay, of course, tomorrow. Sometimes he stays Saturday night, and then leaves Sunday,” she said. “But he comes, and sometimes he’s come and had no money, had no food, and the people I was talking about who come in from Kentucky, they normally have got a little hot plate, and they cook on it, and they always fix him something to eat, too. Or different people around buy him something to eat.”

Knight said this, too, is what she loves about her market. Among herself and the vendors, there is a strong sense of community, loyalty, and mutual care.

“Most of the people are good people. If I have any problems it’s the people who are coming in, looking. They’re just here to agitate somebody,” she said. “Just like one old guy out here last year talked pretty rough to one of my female vendors down here, and she called me.”

Knight said she asked the woman if she could still see him, and to identify him. She pointed him out.

“I went down there,” she said, “and he was one of these guys who had the tattoos – I reckon people think those tattoos make them look tough – with the wife beater shirt on. I said, ‘Hey, I need to talk to you.’”

The man said, “Yeah, what do you want?”

Knight said, “Where’s your vehicle?”

He said, “You see that black truck right there?”

“Yeah, I see it,” she said.

“That’s mine.”

“OK. You can either walk to it, and get in it, and leave here, or I’ll drag you up there to it, and put you in it,” she said. “He was about to—I said, ‘Nope, don’t even start running your mouth to me. I’ve done heard from too many people what you said – what you did – so you’re out of here.’”

Knight smiled and said, with a laugh, “I might get whooped, but they’ll know I was there.”

Although she runs a tight operation, and all the sellers agree she keeps her market safe, Knight is no stranger to aggression.

“I had a guy, one day, pulled a knife on me,” she said, “and he said, ‘Give me that money.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I will,’ and I just reached behind my back, and pulled out a gun, put it between his eyes. I said, ‘Boy, you’ve come to a gunfight with a knife. You’re in bad shape.’”

“Oh, Mary, I’m just kidding!”

“I said, ‘I’m not.’”

Everybody out here knows that’s just not going to happen, Knight said, who has carried a gun starting sometime around the age of 12.

The market, with its covered sheds, food truck, and weathered wooden tables, has changed little since it began in 1981.

“I guess age has changed a lot more than anything,” she said. “It used to be an older generation, and now it’s pretty much all ages.”

She said with the shifting of age groups at her flea market, the merchandise has subtly changed.

“You had more of your antique dealers at that time,” she said, adding that most of the people dealing in antiques have died off.

“The younger generation, that means nothing to them,” she said. “All they want is the greenbacks. I see that all the time.”

Antiques can still be found at the I-81 Flea Market, being sold by people like Bob “Chief” Fletcher, who owns a bus at the edge of the property, and sells antique trunks, lamps, lighters, and bric-a-brac.

“We’ve got that bus full,” Chief said, gesturing to an early model tour bus behind him with seafoam green trim, artwork for curtains, and a bathtub out front. “There is no room to put it all out.”

Mary said antiques, such as old clocks or radios, do not always bring enough money, at a large enough scale, to justify their place in markets like hers.

“If you’ve got antiques – good antiques – you’re going to have to hold onto them, or put them in an antique store where they have consignment sales, where you can wait for the right buyer to come through.”

Knight said in the 1980s her vendors were mostly white, but over time shifted to include people of Hispanic origin.

She was told by one of her Hispanic vendors that, “we consider you one of us, because you’ve always taken care of us here.”

Knight responded, “Well, I’ll always take care of you here. Just because you’re Hispanic doesn’t mean somebody’s going to come out here and mess with you.”

She recalled a time in recent history when a hate group calling themselves the Minutemen tried to get started in Hamblen County.

“A lot of people act like they don’t even remember,” she said. “Now I’m like, my God, it’s not been that long ago. They tried to get a real big group started in Hamblen County. How can you not remember it? It was on the front page of the paper.”

Knight said the group had been circulating a newsletter, complete with a list of names of everyone involved in the organization.

“Well, I got the paper, and I told them – I said, ‘Let me tell you something, guys: If your name’s on this paper, right there’s the road. You need to hit it. The Hispanics are welcome here, so let’s get that straight now. You’re not going to come out here and cause trouble,’”

She said the group was attempting to blame the Hispanic population for coming into the county and taking their jobs.

“No, they didn’t take your jobs,” she said. “You’re too sorry to work.”

Knight said she has worked her entire life, beginning with a store owned by her parents, Charlie Hill’s Store. That store was torn down and later moved next to the Housing Authority on Sulphur Springs Road in Morristown, near the Boys & Girls Club.

“Most of the people around there were good people,” she said. “The ones we had the most trouble with were kids from the boys club.”

She said one evening someone came into her store to rob her while her father was sick. She was there by herself, with rollers in her hair, tending the store, when the boy came in armed, threatening to lock her in a walk-in cooler. She had to think fast.

“I’d done put all the knives back, because I’d cleaned the meat counter up, so I couldn’t just reach and grab one of them,” Knight said, “but I thought, ‘I’m not going to be locked up in no walk-in cooler.’ We got into a fight over the gun. Come to find out, he was on probation. [He came] from a good family in town, but you know. When he left, I had his gun.”

Another time, she said she had parked her car out of sight, near a house behind the store. Her parents were aging by then, and not around as much. To a would-be criminal, the place appeared empty.

“Here comes this old boy from across the street with a stocking over his head,” she said, laughing. “Well I just met him at the front door. You talk about running. He was gone!”

Now, as eastern Tennessee has calmed with age, and the perceived lawlessness of the region fades with time, modernity encroaches. The omnipresence of online reviews, remote work, and inklings of gentrification threaten to push Tennessee’s commercial landscape into a cold, glassy and sterile future.

But Knight says she is happy with her flea market, and has no plan to “upgrade” or “improve” the grounds, saying she likes it the way it is, as does Hamblen County, and so does the community.

“This is a flea market,” she emphasizes. “Everything is pretty smooth out here. I can’t ask for more than that.”

The I-81 Flea Market opens its 41st year on March 5, 2022.

This story appeared in Discover Hamblen County magazine.

NEWPORT, Tenn.—Leaders from rural, distressed, and at-risk counties gathered at the Carson Springs Baptist Conference Center on Friday, November 19 for the Governor’s Rural Opportunity Summit to discuss the revitalization of rural communities.

The annual meeting began in 2019 with the stated goal of improving the economic conditions of Tennessee’s rural communities. Because COVID prevented the summit last year, the Friday gathering was the second event of its kind.

During his visit to Cocke County, Gov. Bill Lee spoke at the summit, and toured the Tanner Building in Newport, where Walters State Community College added a campus in August 2020.

Deputy Chief of Staff to the governor Alec Richardson said there were two summits this year, split into east and west, with the goal of exchanging ideas between the state cabinet and local governments.

“We can’t do it without you guys on the ground, with everyday people, to try to make this work,” he said, speaking to a room of about 150 people. “The governor’s goal is to get rid of all distressed counties and make sure at-risk and distressed have as many opportunities as the transitional and the attainment counties that we have.”

Lee said he grew up in a rural community and does not want to see it lost, as he appreciates the lifestyle that counties like Cocke County provide for more than half the state. He rejects the opinion that rural America must be in a state of decline and said investment in those communities is key to elevating distressed counties.

“I think it’s difficult,” he said. “I think it’s challenging. I think there’s a lot of work that we have to do there, but it is worth it if we want to maintain all that is wonderful about our state.”

He said since taking office, he has seen Tennessee’s number of distressed counties shrink from 15 to nine, indicating that the state is heading in the right direction, but the summit is an opportunity to address the continuing problems of counties faced with job losses or stagnant economies.

“We’re not going to fix anything today,” he said, “but what we’re doing is opening lines of communication, knowing who one another are in a better way, networking with people that can partner together for you to make improvements for the people that you serve.”

Cocke County Mayor Crystal Ottinger said the summit gave her an opportunity to meet commissioners, and hear what they hope to do for rural and distressed communities.

When it was her turn to speak with commissioners, she was asked what keeps her up at night, and what the state could do for communities, to which Ottinger responded that lots of time is spent evaluating communities, but there is not much action once evaluations are over.

“We have a lot of binders with plans and evaluations, where we are, and where we want to be,” she said, “but then they stop right there, and we’re not seeing that last bit of action to implement things and change things. That’s what I’m really hoping to see.”

Ottinger says the main thing standing between planning and action on county goals is funding.

“We do have this ARP money coming,” she said, referring to federal money from the American Rescue Plan. “We are seeing some things change, so let’s go past the planning, past the evaluation, and let’s do some action items.”

She said during the summit she talked about grants that would help the county, but require a match.

“When you live in a county with a high poverty rate, that’s distressed – economically challenged – it’s hard to meet those matches,” Ottinger said. “You want to make sure whatever money you’re spending is spent properly, and not going to be something that sits on a shelf.”

Many grants have a match, she said, and the grants usually will not provide 100% funding. Some matches may be 25%, for example, or some may offer a 50-50 match, but in most cases the county has to put up a specified amount in order to receive the grants.

“Sometimes we don’t have that, so we talked to them about possibly having no-match grants or letting us use other moneys, whatever that may look like,” she said. “Some of our sales tax revenue that would normally go to the state, we would like to see maybe a little less of that go toward the state’s general coffers, and maybe give some of that back to the distressed counties.”

She said because Cocke County and others have been unable to meet those matches, the Association of County Mayors has tried, with no success, to sell the General Assembly on the idea of giving back some tax revenue in the form of grants, or money to match other grants.

“Right now, it would be nice to be able to utilize some of that to get more done for our communities,” Ottinger said.

She said that she had expressed this desire again, during a panel discussion, where she was met with silence. She laughed and said she understood they were not expecting such a direct question, and would need to evaluate the outcome.

“I think myself, and some of the other mayors that were there – having discussed this for a few years now – would have been a lot happier if they said, ‘Well yeah, we’ve been thinking about doing just that!’ But we weren’t discouraged,” Ottinger said, “because having that door of communication open, with the possibilities, has been really good for us. The governor has been good to listen on things like that.”

Ottinger said when she received economic data for Cocke County from the Appalachian Region Commission in 2019, she was informed by the state that if they repeated that improvement in 2020, then the county would have been on its way off the distressed list.

“Of course, then COVID hit,” she said, “and Conagra decided to shut down, so we are not as close as we were in 2019 to being off that list, but we’re still working toward our goals, and what we do need to do to get off the distressed list.”

During the summit, Ottinger had an opportunity to engage with the commissioners of health, workforce development, tourism, agriculture, and education.

“Workforce is a big issue,” she said. “They talked about dislocated worker opportunities.”

Ottinger said she wants an American Job Center in Cocke County, so that people do not have to drive to another county to receive benefits.

“They’re going to follow up and see what that would look like, to see if it’s a possibility,” she said.

Ottinger said the Commissioner of Health asked about any setbacks she has identified, or issues needing evaluation.

“We talked about the lack of nurses and paramedics,” she said. “We know that some other states are giving bonuses and things like that if people will become travel nurses and go down there, so I wanted to know if the state was going to do something similar. Are they getting bonuses? What are they doing?”

Ottinger said they told her they are not looking at bonuses, but the state is considering paying for school to give Tennessee an advantage, to help keep medical staff in place.

Addressing students in a Walters State classroom at the Tanner Building in Newport, Lee said he wanted to remind the students in attendance, and leaders in the room, what the day is about. He said the revitalization and investment efforts being discussed at the summit, along with coordination between state and local governments in general, are to the students’ benefit, upon whom Tennessee depends for a better future.

“That is what this is about, is creating an environment where you can be successful, and where you can get your education more efficiently at lower cost where you don’t have a bunch of debt when you get out of school,” he said. “I see all these leaders in the room who are reminded this is really about you. So thanks for taking advantage of it and for pursuing the opportunity.”

Ottinger said she is happy the governor and his aides got to see Newport on a sunny day to experience what Cocke County has to offer. She said while the governor, his cabinet and staff were in town, they visited businesses, ate at local restaurants, and planned to return.

“Cocke County showed up and showed out,” she said. “They couldn’t have been more impressed with the folks they met and the places they went.”

Ottinger said she is confident in her ability to continue to guide policy, and assist with keeping ARP goals on track as she nears the end of her term next year.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.

NEWPORT—Nonprofit organizations across the U.S. have sustained measurable losses because of COVID, affecting their ability to serve the communities that depend on them. Now, a federal plan could help them bounce back and restore their ability to continue helping those in need.

Cocke County held a special meeting on Thursday, November 11 to discuss how area community organizations can benefit from the American Rescue Plan.

“This is a rare opportunity for us to give you all money that’s much needed,” Blazer said, speaking to a room of directors and volunteers in the Chancery Courtroom at the Annex. “We’re doing everything we can to give you all access to that money.”

Applications were handed out that night, and are now available through the mayor’s office. Digital copies are also available by request through email. At the meeting, they said that the rules could change to become more or less restrictive, but there are basic regulatory requirements that the county and organizations must meet in order to receive aid.

“We’re still getting guidance from Nashville,” Blazer said. “All we do know is what our total amount of money is, and we kind of know some stipulations about what that’s going to look like.”

The money is being distributed to the county in two installments, Ottinger said, the first of which has already been received, but can not be spent until both halves of the money are distributed, and once the county knows how it will be spent. They expect the second half about one year from when the first half was received. Another stipulation, she said, is that all the money has to be spent by 2024, and projects completed by 2026.

Because this is a federal grant, Ottinger says, there are more regulations involved than a normal grant, including that the organization must meet the federal government’s definition of a nonprofit. She said most of the groups in attendance already meet that definition, or else they would not be considered nonprofits.

“If there are questions on whether you’re a nonprofit, or what kind of nonprofit you fall under, I have the site you would go to, to determine what you’re listed as,” she said. “If you do that and find out you’re not a nonprofit, I have the steps for you to start that process.”

The second, and most important requirement, Ottinger said, is the eligibility requirement. The local government must identify – and nonprofits must prove – whether there is a public health need that will be met, or an economic hardship that will be mitigated with the grant.

“I think most of us would be able to do that,” Ottinger said. “Everybody had hardships through COVID. Everybody realizes the things they didn’t have that they could have used then.”

Although hardships stemming from COVID may seem obvious to those who experienced it, there are challenges and questions involved as people are asked for the very first time to express it on paper.

Sunset Gap is a thrift store, food pantry, and resource center impacted by COVID, according to Director Audrey Jones, who said the application was unclear at first glance.

“I don’t know what all they’re needing. There’s no criteria with the application, really,” Jones said. “I hate to fill it out if I’m not going to be eligible for it.”

She said her thrift store was closed for a year, causing her organization to lose revenue in 2020 after people could no longer come in, directly affecting their ability to get food out to those in need.

“There’s a lot of people that did not get served,” she said, “because we took every dime we had and put it in our food pantry to feed the people. We had to stop our hot meal program, our thrift store, and our mission camps for the year.”

Although they are doing somewhat better this year, they are still not fully up and running. Grant money could help restore the operation to full capacity.

“Normally we take enough in – in mission camps, in donations – to purchase turkeys and hams for the holiday boxes,” she said. “We weren’t able to do that this year. We’re praying that we can for Christmas, but for Thanksgiving, there’s no way.”

Jones is submitting her application in the hopes that the county can help her get the necessary funding, so that next year Sunset Gap organizers can purchase those foods for the people who depend on them.

She said she will be filling out her application with help from the organization treasurer and board of directors, and will ask someone at the mayor’s office to look at it, too, so that before submission, at least three different people will have reviewed it.

Blazer said he can provide information or direct people to resources on how to write their applications to show they are eligible to receive assistance through the grant.

“In a lot of cases, you all are meeting these criteria,” he said. “It’s being creative enough to figure out a way to explain how you’re meeting those criteria.”

Ottinger said that because the county is required to show how every dollar is spent, they are hesitant to make it into a simple monetary grant. Instead, they are asking people to come up with lists of needed materials and equipment, to be purchased by the county, and turned over to the organization.

“You tell us what you want, we buy it, and then we give it to you,” Blazer said, “because of that whole auditing aspect—that we are audited, and the federal government is not auditing your organization, and your organization, and all these different organizations.”

This means nonprofit directors and treasurers need to compare their financial records for 2019, show a loss in 2020, and present those records along with a list of equipment or materials that would have been purchased with the difference—money not received, because of hardship caused by COVID.

“On this grant, you’re going to have to prove everything,” Ottinger said. “Not just for the application, but in the event you are awarded the grant, you have got to follow up with that, too.”

She said the next step is for the county to process the applications through an online portal opening in January, where there will be an opportunity for a pre-audit, ensuring that purchase and project proposals will meet the program standards, possibly giving leaders and applicants a chance to amend the proposal.

“They will give us feedback on whether or not they think that project would pass the standards and eligibility requirements the federal government has set,” she said. “They’re looking to do that from January to March or April.”

Ottinger said they estimate hearing back sometime in the summer or fall whether the projects are viable, after which point the purchases will be subject to regular county purchasing guidelines.

“You’re looking at fall or winter of next year, for whatever it is that you may request,” she said. “I know that’s pretty vague. Again, everything is [vague] right now. We are still waiting to get that final rule.”

She said in order to stay in compliance, there will be after-action reports requiring documentation and proof of how the purchases are being used. To satisfy the requirements of those reports, she cited examples of proof, such as service areas and ride logs, for an ambulance purchased through the grant by a volunteer EMS. As another example, she said food boxes purchased through the grant would have to be accounted for, and proven with logs and receipts, clearly showing that the organization has followed through with the grant’s stated purpose.

Marta Cogburn is also considering the application process. She is the director of Recovery Ministries at United Methodist Church, and said the mayor encouraged her to apply.

“We put our heads together,” Cogburn said, “and we purchased a lot of equipment just to do Zoom, and paying a Zoom license, and those kinds of things, and she thought that I could probably use money for that, so that was great.”

There are still open questions about how monetary relief can be dispersed, but the mayor is encouraging everyone to apply who can show hardship. However, she said applicants should not combine requests for monetary relief with an application requesting equipment or material assistance.

“Separate from your application – don’t mix it with your application – write us something that says, ‘Hey, this is what I would need actual monetary funding for,’” she said. “That way, if they change it or – there’s going to be a lot of other grants that come out of this. The states got money, there are federal grants as well, so there’s going to be additional opportunities out there. Go ahead and figure out what you might need, that we can’t do—but maybe one of the other entities can.”

A tax status determination letter is also needed to apply, Ottinger said, and there is still time to request one.

“You should have time to go online and request that,” she said. “If for some reason it’s Wednesday the 29th, and you’re still holding onto this because you don’t have that one thing, turn in your application, because there are still processes after you get it turned in.”

Ottinger said she is considering holding a public workshop to help answer more questions and guide applicants through the process.

Applications are due December 29. Blazer suggests not waiting until the last minute to start the paperwork, because gathering the necessary documents takes time.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.

NEWPORT, Tenn. — The American Cancer Society estimates that one in eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. For some, the diagnosis alone can feel paralyzing. For 53-year-old Christy Adams, who overcame stage 3 breast cancer in January, her constitution prevailed. Now she answers a calling from within to help new patients facing for themselves what she went through last year.

Adams, through the Close to My Heart Breast Cancer Foundation, which she began last October, said she aims to help make a positive difference in women’s lives as they undergo treatment for breast cancer.

Since surviving a deadly form of cancer, and faced with a high chance of recurrence, Adams has dedicated her life to being a force of good, and through her young foundation now sends out care packages with the goal of helping others through the difficult process of cancer treatment.

“I want to help people,” she said. “I want to do something that really matters. I think it’s an 85 percent chance of recurrence in the first three years, so that’s why I just want to leave something good in the world. I just want to do good for other people while I’m here.”

Sitting by the window of a restaurant on Cosby Highway, Adams described the soul-numbing effect of first being diagnosed with advanced breast cancer.

“I already knew. I just had that intuition. I’d been having a lot of problems that I ignored for a long time. It was such a punch to the gut, that I could not feel anything for a while,” she said. “I could not feel immediate sadness.”

After being diagnosed with cancer, and undergoing waves of treatment – an experience that comes with its own trauma, and the most difficult part of the experience through which Adams is helping other women – she now lives under the ever-present threat of its return.

Adams said the initial numbness eventually gave way to deeper feelings, and with that came a better defined awareness of the world. Now, she says she is given to the moment, and finds herself appreciating life more, sensitive to its smallest details.

“It changes how you look at everything,” she said, gesturing to a bush near the window. “Now I can look at that bush out there, and it’s almost like I can see every little, teeny thing on it, you know? The leaves have more definition. The clouds, and the feeling of rain on my skin. It’s almost like I see things more clearly now. I feel more deeply about things than I used to. I can’t explain it.”

In her book, Cancer, God, and Me, Adams writes about the profound experience of giving oneself over to something bigger than ourselves, putting her life in other people’s hands, and her trust in God. In giving herself over to whatever fate held, she finds herself increasingly guided by an emergent sense of purpose.

However, Adams said that her life-saving cancer treatment was so painful and difficult that if the cancer returns, she does not know if she could go through with it again. Knowing firsthand how terrifying the experience can be, she hopes to bring relief to anyone going through it.

“That’s why I’m trying to do as much good as I can, because there is a very high likelihood I won’t be here in three years.”

The care packages, which come with blankets, caps, and other helpful items, often contain a personal message from Adams herself. She is also happy about a recent partnership with True Love Skincare, which now sends her a monthly supply of skin care travel kits to be included in every care package.

This year Adams went on to put out a children’s book series – Adventures with Lolly – to guide young readers through topics like bullying, exclusion, and prejudice. Remedies such as unconditional love, dignity, respect, and acceptance found in her children’s works are echoes of newfound perspectives fortified by her own confrontation with mortality, trusting, giving herself over to a higher power, and accepting whatever may lie ahead.

In her book Cancer, God, and Me, Adams writes every detail of what it is like to go through the harrowing ordeal of discovery, diagnosis, and treatment, including the social and psychological aspects of how family and friends may react, or other complex changes that are not immediately apparent to everyone who has never had cancer or who might just be going through it for the first time.

“I tried to cover it all, because I had a couple friends who just ghosted me, because they didn’t know,” she said. “They didn’t understand. They couldn’t handle it. After I went through the journey, I realized not everyone knows how to cope.”

She said her friend came back, Adams understood her feelings, and they are good now.

Now her friends help out with foundation events, like a summer getaway raffle in which her friends donated their cabin for a stay in Pigeon Forge, tickets to Dollywood, and a dinner for four, put up by the foundation.

“I don’t take anything,” Adams said. “Every donation I get goes strictly to supplies.”

Sharon Rosenbalm, who she credits with helping out with the raffle, downplays her involvement in the organization, saying she is proud of her friend, and how well Adams runs the foundation on her own. The two met at Dollywood in 2017, where they worked. Now they attend church together.

“I’m mostly just her friend of encouragement,” Rosenbalm said. “I help her find the right people with the product that she needs, and things like that. Anything we can do just to encourage her.”

Rosenbalm said Adams’ knowledge and encouragement is an asset to other women experiencing the same problems.

“The response she gets from the women who have suffered through what she’s suffered through, she’s a great encouragement when it comes to that,” she said. “She’s very good at her writing and things like that to help encourage people. I try to do my best to keep her encouraged because everybody has some days where you don’t feel the best.”

Her care packages are sent to patients at breast cancer treatment centers in the area, including the Thompson Cancer Survival Center in Sevierville where she was treated. Women who are new patients, and are perhaps just hearing about their breast cancer for the first time often receive the news with the same sterile nonchalance as Adams when she learned she had caner. The care packages are intended to offer some measure of warmth in atmospheres of such clinical coldness.

Early detection through regular screening mammograms starting at age 40 are the best tool women have against breast cancer, says Deena Hill, Chief Nursing Officer at Newport Medical Center.

“Women in our community have many resources available to them to support their health and well-being,” Hill says. “Women often put their own health needs off to care for others but it’s important to take care of yourself too.”

When Adams was diagnosed with triple negative invasive ducal carcinoma, considered to be among the most aggressive, and most deadly, form of breast cancer with the highest recurrence rate, she had already been ignoring the issue for some time.

Banking on a previous misdiagnosis, and ignoring her own intuition that the growing lump in her breast was in fact deadly serious, she wrote how she was afraid to learn for certain what, deep down, she already knew.

“I couldn’t bring myself to face what I already knew,” she stated in her book. “I didn’t want to know. I thought maybe I was just overreacting and letting my mind run away with me, but if I heard it from the doctor, then it would be real.”

“Some degree of fear is expected but it is best to take it one day at a time,” says Hill. “Our community has an excellent local cancer support group called Celebrate Life. It is good to have someone to talk to that has fought the same battle.”

In her book Adams admitted to being in “denial at its finest,” as she was being led by her emotions and not any rational thought process.

Hill says women often put their own health needs off to care for others but it’s important to take care of yourself too.

“Screening mammograms are covered by most health plans,” she says. “Patients without insurance also have the option to look at MDSave to save on costs and the TN Breast and Cervical Program can help some patients with the cost of mammograms.”

In the case of a positive diagnosis, Adams says to prepare for your life to be disrupted.

“It’s not just, you have your life – and this is a little thing to deal with – or it’s just something you deal with and then you get over it. No. It completely changes your whole life after that.”

She said the changes are not only physical, due to illness, but a person is challenged each step of the way, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. She said it changes how you see everything.

“So that’s just why I want to leave something good in the world,” she said. “I just want to do good for other people while I’m here. I always had a good heart, but after breast cancer it hit home that I’ve got to do something that really matters. I have got to help people.”

Adams said since starting the nonprofit last October, her friends have given generously in support of her mission. She said she appreciates a Facebook circle of friends with open hearts, and in an effort to take pressure off her social network, she is now in the lengthy process of applying for grants, and is currently seeking corporate sponsorship.

Throughout her treatment and beyond, Adams has remained enrolled in a master’s program in developmental psychology.

In this final week of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Adams is pushing to double her average number of outgoing care packages by the 29th, to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the foundation.

To help support the Close to My Heart Breast Cancer Foundation, visit closetomyheartfoundation.weebly.com for contact information, pictures, and more about their work lending a helping hand during life’s toughest time.

This story appeared in The Newport Plain Talk.